Someone Is Watching (42 page)

“I jimmied the lock.”

“You jimmied the lock?”

“Those locks aren’t worth shit.”

“Good to know.” He grabs her arm and pulls her toward the window. “See anyone you know?” he asks, staring in my direction.

With one hand, I press the binoculars tighter to my eyes, my other hand securing the phone to my ear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? You don’t know anyone named Bailey Carpenter? Why do I find that so hard to believe?”

“Please just let me go. You know Bailey’s onto you. You know she’s probably calling the police right now.…”

“Would that be the same police she called last night?” he interrupts. “The ones I’ve threatened to sue if they so much as show their faces here again? I doubt she’d be that stupid. But go right ahead, Bailey,” he shouts at the window. “Call the cops. See how fast they come running this time.”

I know he’s right. Whatever credibility I had with the police disappeared with last night’s debacle. There’s no point calling them. I’m the girl who cried wolf, at best a pathetic victim of post-traumatic stress, at worst a total nutcase.

“What’s this?” I hear Paul ask, his voice inching closer. “Is that a phone? Is it on?” I watch him wrest the phone from Jade’s
clenched fist. “Hello? Hello, Bailey? Are you still there?” His voice insinuates its way into my eardrum like a tiny serpent. “I think you are. I can hear you breathing.”

Tell me you love me.

Oh, God.

The line goes dead.

Seconds later, his apartment goes dark.

I’m crying as I pull a sweatshirt over my pajamas and run from the room. Pushing my bare feet into a pair of flip-flops, I race down the hall and out the door. The elevator arrives almost as soon as I press the call button, and mercifully, there is no one in it. I should have called Gene and told him his niece was in trouble, urged him to contact the police. The cops might not believe me, but they most assuredly wouldn’t argue with an assistant state’s attorney. Not that Gene has any more faith in my judgment than Miami’s finest does.

The elevator stops on the second floor, and I wait, holding my breath, as a man approaches, then stops abruptly. He is about forty, with a damp helmet of white hair and a blue towel around his thick neck. He is wearing gym clothes, and perspiration drips from his forehead and down the side of his full face. “Can you hold the elevator just a sec?” he says, more an order than a request. He glances over his right shoulder. “Donna, where are you? Come on, the elevator’s here. People are waiting.” He holds up his index finger and takes a step back.

“I’m in a huge hurry.”

He ignores me. “Donna, what the hell are you doing back there?”

I lunge forward, pushing the elevator button repeatedly until the doors start to close. “Sorry,” I mutter, the man’s outraged expression the last thing I see as the elevator resumes its descent. “Come on. Come on,” I urge, desperate to get out of the elevator and over to Paul Giller’s apartment.

I should have called Sean, begged him to place the call to the police in my stead. Of course, he probably would have found all sorts of excuses not to comply. Sean is good at excuses.

At the very least, I should have called Claire, I decide, as the elevator doors open into the lobby. And told her what? That because of me, her only child is now in grave, perhaps even mortal, danger? I can’t do that. I’m not ready for her to hate me yet. At least not until after I’ve done everything in my power to try to rescue her daughter.

Except, how can I do that? What can I do?

The answer is simple: Whatever it takes. Anything Paul Giller asks.

I run past the concierge desk, almost tripping over my flip-flops.

“Miss Carpenter,” Finn calls out, “is everything all right?”

“Call the police,” I shout back, my panic increasing with the sound of his voice. I can barely see him, so blinded am I by my tears. “Tell them there’s a break-in in progress at 600 Southeast 2nd Avenue. Apartment 2706.” But my words are swallowed by the combination of rain and the noise of hammering from the nearby construction site, and I’m not sure he even heard me.

I reach Paul Giller’s building and all but collapse outside the front door, bending over from the waist and gasping for breath. No one seems to have noticed me. The few pedestrians I see are too busy trying to escape the rain. Nor does anyone pay me any mind as I fall back against the exterior wall, waiting for someone to come out of the building so that I can sneak in, the same way Jade did earlier. I contemplate ringing Adam Roth’s office but quickly think better of it. There’s no way Adam Roth will allow me entry. And if he sees me and calls the police, they will forcefully
escort me from the premises without even bothering to check out my story, a story they will undoubtedly dismiss as the hallucinations of a crazy woman.

Finally, two women approach the door from inside the lobby, matching floral umbrellas in hand. Mother and daughter, judging by the same sour expression on both their faces. “I know you don’t like him, Mother,” the younger of the two is saying between tightly clenched teeth, as they push their way outside, “but it’s my life.”

“Which you seem intent on screwing up royally,” her mother shoots back as I slip past them, head down. Once inside the elevator, I press the button for the twenty-seventh floor, closing my eyes in gratitude when the doors close quickly and the elevator begins its climb.

Seconds later, I’m standing in front of apartment 2706, prepared to do whatever it takes—whatever Paul Giller asks—to get my niece safely out of there. If it isn’t already too late. I reach for the doorknob, emitting a small cry when it falls open at my touch.

Which means what? That the apartment is empty? That Paul has already taken off, my niece in tow? Or worse. Does it mean that the only thing I’ll find inside Paul’s apartment is my niece’s dead body?

“Come on in, Bailey,” a voice says from somewhere inside. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Suppressing the scream I feel building inside me, I push open the door and step over the threshold.

“Shut the door.”

I kick the door closed with my foot, my heart beating so loudly, I’m sure the whole building can hear it. The room is empty except for the two plastic lounge chairs Jade described earlier.

“Now put your hands up in the air,” the voice continues, and I realize Paul is standing directly behind me. I picture the gun in his hands, the same gun he used to shoot Elena. “You know I’m going to have to frisk you,” he says as I feel a tentative hand patting me down.

“Don’t.…”

“Please be quiet,” he says with exaggerated politeness as the
hand moves slowly down to my waist, and then down farther, traveling from hip to hip before disappearing between my thighs.

I fight the overwhelming urge to throw up. “Please …”

“Shh,” he says, his hand continuing down the inside of my legs, then stopping when he reaches my bare toes. “Love the flip-flops,” he says before standing back up.

Tell me you love me.

“Oh, God.”

“Oh, God, what, Bailey?”

“It’s not you,” I whisper, scarcely believing the words coming from my mouth. Paul Giller is not the man who raped me. His voice—so different from my attacker’s in both pitch and inflection—just confirmed it.

But if Paul Giller isn’t the man who raped me, then who the hell is he?

I turn toward him.

“Slowly,” he cautions, taking a step back.

A wave of calm washes over me. This is not some faceless stranger overwhelming me in the darkness of night, but a man who, despite the weapon he is brandishing, seems almost more afraid of me than I am of him. My eyes absorb every detail of Paul Giller’s casually handsome face. Unlike the photographs on his Facebook page, in person he is rather bland, the stand-in rather than the star. There is something surprisingly insubstantial about him. “Where’s Jade?”

“Your niece is in the bedroom.”

“I want to see her.”

He waves the gun in the direction of the other room. “After you.”

Jade is sitting on the bed, crying softly. “Bailey,” she cries as I move toward her.

“Are you all right?” I sit down beside her and take her in my arms.

“Yes.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. He just told me not to move or he’d shoot you.”

“Don’t be afraid,” I whisper into her hair. “I’ll get you out of here.” I turn back to Paul Giller. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” I demand, grappling with the disparate pieces of the puzzle my life has recently become. The pieces float above my head, just out of reach, evading capture. “I know you aren’t the man who raped me, so why …?”

“Raped you?” Paul looks genuinely astonished. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“There has to be a reason you’re doing this,” I say, my brain snatching at a fistful of the invisible puzzle pieces and straining to fit them together. What motive could he have? I know that motives are generally either personal or financial, and I’ve never met this man before, so it can’t be personal. Unless he knows Heath. Unless this has something to do with my brother’s gambling debts. Could there be a connection between Paul and Heath?

“Don’t know any Heath Carpenter,” Paul says when I voice this thought out loud.

I mention Travis and get a similar response, the same bemused look in his eyes that tells me I’m way off track.

My mind is racing, one thought tumbling fast on another. If Paul’s motive isn’t personal, that means it can only be financial. And what could Paul possibly stand to gain by taking part in this bizarre charade? He’s an actor, I remind myself, a hired hand at best. Which begs the question: Who hired him?

“Someone is paying you,” I say.

The almost imperceptible flicker of Paul’s eyebrows tells me I’m right.

“I don’t understand,” says Jade.

I explain the situation as much to myself as to my niece, the puzzle pieces beginning to slide more easily into place. “He’s an actor. He just memorizes his lines, follows direction, shows up on time, hits his marks, and collects his paycheck. You needed money to pay your hospital bills after your recent bout of pneumonia, didn’t you?” I ask Paul directly.

He remains silent.

“Someone’s been paying you?” Jade asks him. “To do what exactly?”

Paul Giller smiles. “Ask Bailey. She seems to have it all worked out.”

“To rent this apartment. To make love to a bunch of beautiful women in front of the window,” I answer, as still more pieces of the puzzle drop into place. “To pretend to beat up his girlfriend, engage in a little rough sex, act all outraged and innocent when the police come calling. The same thing again later, after pretending to shoot her with the toy gun in his hand.”

“His gun’s fake?” Jade jumps to her feet in outrage.

“A souvenir from a TV show I once did,” Paul admits with an apologetic shrug, tossing the toy pistol onto the bed.

“Shit,” Jade mutters, picking it up and weighing the lightness of it in the palm of her hand. “This was all an act? What about the blood Bailey saw?”

“Trick of the trade. But a major bitch cleaning off the window, I gotta tell you. Especially in the dark.”

“And your girlfriend, Elena, she’s in on this, too,” I say, the puzzle now almost complete.

Paul smiles indulgently. “Everybody can use a little extra cash.”

“How much cash? Who’s behind this?”

Who would go to the trouble and effort to concoct and carry out such a complicated scheme, to take advantage of my delicate psyche, throw me further off balance than the rape has already thrown me, make me question my very sanity?

Who wins by making me think I’m losing my mind?

Who stands to gain?

“He phoned someone,” Jade says as our heads snap toward the sound of the apartment door opening. “Before you got here.…”

“Took you long enough,” Paul calls toward the door as Jade burrows in against my side. “We’re in the bedroom.”

And then it becomes painfully clear how Paul was able to time
his nightly performances, how he knew precisely when I’d be watching. I know who is paying him. And I know why.

“What the hell is going on here that was so goddamn important I had to leave work …?” the final piece of the puzzle demands from the doorway.

Claire.

My heart sinks.

“Mom?”
Jade whispers.

In an instant, everything crystallizes: Claire likely began hatching this scheme the moment she entered my apartment, taking advantage of my extreme vulnerability, faking concern for my welfare while carefully playing on my neuroses, feigning generosity and selflessness while undermining my sense of self. Within a week, she’d set everything in motion: writing the script, hiring her cast, and selecting her location.

Heath was right all along. My sister was never interested in my welfare. She was interested only in my money.

I remember that it was Claire who “accidentally” stumbled upon Paul Giller while casually peering through my binoculars; Claire who dropped the disturbing hints about his resemblance to the man who raped me; Claire who ensured I was awake for each of Paul’s soul-destroying performances with those disorienting phone calls in the middle of the night; Claire who timed her exits and entrances just so, secretly signaling Paul when it was time to begin; Claire who pretended to be on my side while slyly working to discredit me with the police; Claire who masqueraded as my friend, my staunch supporter, my loving protector, when the truth was that she was none of those things.

I recall how upset she’d been when I told her I’d started investigating Paul Giller on my own, that I’d looked him up on the Internet, that I’d actually gone to his apartment, that I’d followed him and his girlfriend, that I’d talked to Elena. She’d pleaded with me, made me promise never to do anything so foolhardy, so dangerous, again. I remember how touched I was by her concern.

Except it wasn’t me she was worried about.

Did Claire really think that by making me believe I was going
crazy, by setting herself up as indispensible to my well-being, I would willingly concede control of my fortune to her? Was she hoping that, given my fragile emotional condition, the State would ultimately decide I was incapable of managing my own affairs, and that it would be in my best interest to grant my loving sister power-of-attorney?