Free Falling (45 page)

I shrugged, not really knowing how to explain that I was
just fed up with feeling frightened all the time; that I was fed up with
looking over my shoulder and not knowing what was going to happen next. “I just
don’t really want to go home. You know, the police thing and stuff,” I
explained. “I just wish it was me and you all the time and that all that other
stuff would just disappear.”

“Hmm,” he mused, nodding in agreement. “Why don’t we just go
away for a bit? Just pack up and leave together for a while or something?” he
suggested casually, as if that was just something that could happen.

I laughed at the hopefulness in his voice. “Luke, we can’t.”
I shook my head at how silly he was being.
Maybe he’s had too much sugar
from all those muffins!

“Why not? I’m being serious. Let’s just pack up and leave,
screw everything else, just me and you together.” He glanced over at me,
keeping one eye on the road as he continued, “I can protect you. All this stuff
will stop, the phone calls, the flowers, all of it will just go away and then
it’ll just be us. We’ll travel for a while, see some sights, and do some of the
things you’ve always wanted to do. It’ll be perfect.”

It sounded so nice, and I unconsciously started playing that
out in my head. Us waking up together every day, falling asleep in his arms, no
pressure, no more being frightened. Everything sounded so great, but I knew
that was impossible, at least for the next few weeks it was impossible anyway.
“We have our finals, we can’t just up and leave,” I protested. A frown lined
his forehead as he looked back to the road and sighed deeply. I chewed on my
lip and reached out, taking his hand and pulling it onto my lap as I stroked
his knuckles with my thumb. “Luke, it sounds great, and if we didn’t have
finals then I’d be saying heck yeah let’s go right now, but we have
responsibilities, we have to graduate in order to get our places in college. We
can’t let something like this ruin everything we’ve worked so hard for,” I
persuaded.

His grip tightened on my hand as he nodded dejectedly. “Yeah
I guess.”

“There’s just three more weeks left of school now, let’s
just get those out of the way and then we’ll think about it, alright?” I
bargained, wanting to take the sad expression from his face. We hadn’t made any
plans for the summer, and travelling for a month or so would certainly be fun.

He sighed and nodded, bringing my hand up to his mouth, planting
a soft kiss against my palm. “Okay.”

I smiled and settled down into my seat, watching the road
stretch out ahead of us. Everything seemed chilled and relaxed when I was with
Luke; nothing seemed to faze me because I knew that whatever happened he would
look after me, just like he always promised he would. I looked over at him from
the corner of my eye, feeling a little smile tug at the corners of my mouth. I
couldn’t wait for those three weeks to be over with so that we could live out
his plans. He was right, it would be perfect and I couldn’t wait. He caught me
looking and smiled over at me. His brown eyes were soft and tender as they
caught mine. “I love you, Maisie.”

My heart stuttered as I nodded in confirmation, I didn’t
need him to say the words, I already knew it, I always had done. “I love you
too.” He grinned that dazzling smile and turned back to the road, turning up
the radio a little more so the soft tones of The Script filled the car.

After a while I remembered that I needed to charge my cell
phone. “You have your phone charger in the car?” I asked, digging my cell out
of my purse.

He nodded, reaching out and pulling his in-car charger from
the dashboard, plugging it in for me and holding out the end. I smiled
gratefully and plugged it in, waiting a few seconds before attempting to turn
it on and then fitting it into the little drinks holder in his car. A couple of
minutes later my cell beeped. I picked it up, looking down at the screen to see
that I had a new text message from Charlotte that had been received when my
phone was off. I smiled and opened it, still singing along to the music. The
words died on my lips as I read the message.

‘I know you said
not to, but... I just got the phone number from the cell phone company
database. Here it is. Seriously, let one of the boys call it and frighten the
crap out of the guy!’

Then there was a cell phone number after it. I gulped,
reading the message again with wide eyes. Seeing it there, glowing in the
fading daylight, made everything come to a head. It seemed to make everything
more real somehow. Now that I had the number I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
I shouldn’t do anything with it; the police had the number but couldn’t trace
it because it was a pay as you go with no contract or fixed address. I
shouldn’t get involved. Just like I told Charlotte in the first place, I should
just let the police do their jobs and wait for them to contact me again so that
they could trace the call like they wanted to.

But seeing it there was just too tempting. Maybe I could
call it. Maybe the guy would answer and then… what? What would I do then? I
frowned down at it, confused and a little afraid of it. I wanted to call the
number. Curiosity was getting the better of me. I started thinking that maybe
I’d recognise the voice of the person and then I could tell the police who to
look into. Maybe it would be that easy and then it would be over. My mind was
whirling, dreaming up and dismissing scenarios so quickly that it made my head
spin.

Without thinking anymore about it, I clicked on the number,
bringing it up on my screen. My thumb hovered over the green call button as I
fought with myself, trying to debate if I was going to do any damage by
actually calling the person. The chances are it would be switched off, like it
always was when the police tried to call it. But what if they actually
answered? What would I say then?

“Everything okay?” Luke asked, looking over at me with one
eyebrow raised. I cleared my throat and nodded, still undecided. “Who was that from?
Not that Zach guy again.” His voice was practically a growl as he said Zach’s
name.

I shook my head slowly, unsure how I was going to tell him
that Charlotte had illegally hacked the phone company and found the number of
the guy that was calling me. I gulped, knowing he would be mad at me for
getting involved. “No. Charlotte found the phone number of the person that’s
been calling me. She’s just text it to me,” I mumbled, my words all mashing
together as I spoke. He obviously understood though.

He straightened in his seat, his hands gripping the wheel so
tightly that his knuckles went white. “She what? How? What the fuck, Maisie?”
he ranted, reaching to grab my phone from my hand.

I shook my head and quickly moved it out of his reach. “I
could call it. Maybe then I’ll recognise the voice and everything will be over,
I can tell the police, and they can investigate and arrest them. It’ll be
over,” I countered, looking at him for his opinion.

His opinion was clear across his face though, I could see it
clearly enough. He was horrified, totally against the idea by the look of it.
Again my finger hovered over the call button. “Don’t, Maisie, for Christ sake
don’t,” he cried, reaching for the phone again.

I pushed his hand away quickly as he slammed on the brakes
of the car, screeching us to a halt just as we were about to cross a bridge
over the river. I was thrown forward against my seatbelt from the force of the
stop, my ribs and chest instantly burning and aching from the pressure. “Damn
it, Luke! What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, pulling at my seatbelt to
try and get it to loosen but it was no good; the quick stopping motion had made
it too tight across my chest and lap.

“Give me the phone!” he barked, holding out his hand for it.

Car horns blasted behind us where we were blocking our side
of the road. “Luke, people can’t get past,” I observed, nodding my head at the
traffic that was queuing up behind us pretty quickly.

He shook his hand in front of me again. “Give me the phone,”
he repeated.

I gulped and pressed the call button, knowing that as soon
as he took my phone off of me he would delete the number so I couldn’t call it.
His eyes went wide as I put the phone to my ear, hearing the little tinkle
where the phone connected to the line. Almost immediately a bell like sound
came from behind me. I frowned, looking over the back of the seat to the
footwell behind me. The sound seemed to be coming from there. I flicked my gaze
up to Luke only to see he had his eyes closed, his head hung dejectedly as the
bell sound continued in the background, muffled by the song on the radio.

I frowned, confused. “What’s that?” I asked, looking around
for the source of the noise. I twisted awkwardly in my seat, reaching behind me
and batting the other junk out of the way. My hand touched cool, vibrating
plastic, so I gripped it and pulled it into the front. It was the cell phone
that had fallen out of Luke’s pocket last night when we were making out in the
back of the car. But looking at it again now in the daylight, I realised that
it wasn’t actually Luke’s cell phone. It was one that I had never seen before,
a cheap Nokia one and not something like Luke would buy at all.

What puzzled me the most is that my number was flashing on
the screen as it continued to vibrate in my hand. “Who’s is this?” I muttered,
shaking my head in confusion. Luke’s gaze lifted to mine. An apologetic, pained
expression covered his face as realisation hit me like a bucket of cold water.
The number that Charlotte had found for me, was calling Luke? My heart sank as
my blood seemed to turn to ice in my veins. “Oh God, no,” I mumbled as
everything seemed to hit me at once.

Luke.

It was Luke.

He gulped, his mouth opening as he seemed to struggle with
his words as the phone rang and rang in the background. “Maisie…” he croaked,
shaking his head slowly, his eyes not leaving mine.

No. No. No. No!

It felt as if a knife pierced into my heart, twisting,
killing me slowly.

“It was you? But why?” I whispered, horrified, mortified,
hurt, and crushed because not for one second had I ever suspected that the
person I loved would do this to me.

Chapter 28

“Why?” I repeated, pulling at my seatbelt as my heart
dropped down into my stomach. I’d never felt so let down or disappointed in all
my life. But I just couldn’t understand it, I couldn’t take it in. Why would
Luke want to do that to me? Did he not love me at all? Why would he be trying
to hurt me?

He groaned, closing his eyes as he raised his elbow and
pressed down his door lock, locking us both into the car. Before he did that I
hadn’t even thought about exiting the car, but now that I knew I was locked in
my mind was instantly wondering why he would want to keep me in the car. Would
he actually want to hurt me, like the notes had suggested?

“I love you so much,” he croaked, turning in his seat to
look at me as he unclipped his seatbelt and scooted closer to me.

My eyes filled with tears as everything flashed up in my
mind, the notes, how scared I’d been, how he’d held me and told me that he
would never let anyone hurt me. When my thoughts turned to Chester I felt my
heart break even more. He couldn’t have done that, surely. He knew how much I
loved my dog; he wouldn’t have hurt him, would he?

A strangled noise came out of my mouth as I struggled to
comprehend everything. All of it, everything that had happened in the last few weeks,
it had all been the love of my life? “No,” I groaned, shaking my head, begging
him with my eyes for some other explanation, that he’d found the phone
somewhere, that he was holding it for someone else, anything.

He nodded sadly, resting his head back against the seat. “I
did it because I love you. I never meant for it to go this far. I just meant to
show you that you needed me, I didn’t mean to take it this far,” he whispered,
fisting his hands in his hair.

I whimpered, my mouth agape, just staring at him, waiting
for him to tell me this was some sick joke. I paid no attention to the cars
that were struggling to drive around us, blasting their horns and shouting
abuse out of their windows. 

Luke turned to me then, his eyes so sorrowful that it made
my stomach ache. “I was desperate. I could see I’d lost you after what I did
with Sandy at the party, and I just needed to get you back. I need you, Maisie;
I need you in my life. I have nothing without you. You’re the only one that
ever really saw me for me, and I couldn’t lose you over a stupid mistake.” He
gulped, running a hand through his hair. I noticed with some level of gratitude
that he hadn’t moved to touch me at all; he was just begging me with his eyes
to understand and listen.

“So you decided the best way to win me back was to send me
death threats? Poison my dog?” A sob rose in my throat as he winced when I said
about Chester. “Please tell me you didn’t do that, that someone else did that,
please tell me that,” I begged.

He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t mean to make him that
sick,” he croaked. “I gave him the meat, and I thought he’d be sick a few
times. I know you can’t deal well with sick, so I figured you’d call me up to
help you. I didn’t realise it’d be that bad, I never meant for that to happen.”

Anger took over then. Looking at him as he apologised just
drove me to the edge. I twisted in my seat and slapped his shoulder and chest
as hard as I could, over and over. “You sick, sick bastard! How could you do
that? He didn’t deserve to go through that! You’re demented, Luke. What kind of
sicko does that to a dog just to get some attention from his girlfriend?” I
screamed, slapping him again for emphasis.

He grabbed my wrists, clenching his jaw tightly as he
restrained me, pinning my hands down into my lap effortlessly. “Maisie, please.
I did it all because I love you.”