The Game (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

I drove the hour back to my apartment with a firm plan. I needed to change first and
then head to my office and smooth things over with Mr. Schultz. After that, I would
find a way to track down Christine and concede defeat. And finally, I would pack up
my shit, put it in storage, and head for Nashville. I could look for a job there and
have at least one friend in town I could meet on the sly without getting caught.

I was feeling almost energized and human when I stepped from the elevator to my fifth
floor apartment.

And then my shoulders slumped. Of course. Why did I think it would be so simple?

That woman had wasted no time at all.

My shoulders slumped as I lowered my bag to my hand and nearly dropped it. My steps
faltered, and I slowed my progression toward my front door as if I could somehow make
the insanity in front of me disappear if I made time stop.

“
Cheyenne
,” my neighbor yelled. The older woman clasped her hands over her mouth and looked
as though she were about to cry. She was in her nightgown and matronly robe, her feet
in slippers. “Oh God, I thought maybe you’d been abducted. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
She wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug as I stared past her at the unbelievable
scene that was the entrance to my apartment.

Two police officers had turned to look at me as my neighbor yelled my name.

“Are you the renter?”

“Yes,” I managed to squeak. From what I could see of the entrance to my place, I didn’t
even want to go inside.

The officer turned fully in my direction and met my gaze. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It looks
like you’ve been robbed.”

I sincerely doubted that was the case, but it also appeared I would never know. Sorting
through the mess I could now see through the entrance could be so enormous that it
wouldn’t be worth it. Hopefully I could get inside one day and find my photographs
and my grandmother’s jewelry. Other than that, the place looked like a total loss.

“Do you know anyone who would do this to you? An ex or something?”

I let out a wry chuckle. Did I ever.

“Ma’am?”

I sobered and looked him in the eye and lied through my teeth. “No one.”

His shoulders slumped this time. He’d been expecting me to give him a name. And I’d
refused.

“Do you have an estranged boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Old roommate that wants her stuff back?”

“No.”

“You can’t think of a single person who would break into your apartment and shred
every single thing they could get their hands on?”

“No, sir. Sorry. I can’t imagine who would do this to me.” I bit my lip and tried
to drag tears to the surface. Ironically I couldn’t. I had probably used them all
up yesterday. Today? Nothing would faze me.

I was numb.

“We’re going to need you to inventory your belongings…” he looked over his shoulder
and shuddered, “…somehow and let us know what’s missing.”

“Okay,” I lied again.

What was wrong with me? I didn’t recognize myself. Last month I’d been a normal human
being who would never have lied to her boss or the police. But now I was a woman fearing
for her future safety. If it took lying to ensure I escaped this shitstorm alive,
I would do it.

Sending the cops on a chase to hunt down Christine would only make matters worse.
The woman would come back with bigger guns.

I didn’t want to waste another minute in this disaster. I didn’t even want to go inside.
The fluff from every single chair, couch, and mattress I owned spilled out the door
to coat the hallway in white snow.

I was out of there. I turned without a word and left.

“Ma’am?”

I ignored the officer. It didn’t matter to me a single bit what they did or didn’t
do. They could file a report or not. They could leave the place standing open for
anyone and everyone to enter if they wanted. Even a robber wouldn’t attempt to steal
anything from me today.

****

It was noon when I pulled into my usual spot in my office garage. I still wore my
faded ripped jeans and tight purple Bruce Springsteen T-shirt. I had on my most comfortable
tennis shoes and no makeup. I also hadn’t touched my hair with a comb since I’d showered
that morning. It hung in long curls down my back, probably looking like a rat’s nest.

I didn’t give a fuck. Someone might say I was having a nervous breakdown, but I was
completely in tune with my faculties. The ransacked apartment was just a small glitch
that prevented me from making myself more presentable to the office staff. Who cared
really?

I wasn’t here to impress anyone. Quite the opposite. I was here to lie through my
teeth and plead Christine’s case. And then I was never going to see anyone I worked
with again.

I didn’t even stop on my usual floor. I took the elevator to the twenty-third floor
where the upper management offices were located.

When I stepped out of the elevator, I held my head high and strode past Mr. Schultz’s
assistant, Lauren, without a word.

“Cheyenne?”

I ignored her, noticing most of the members of the board were in the conference room
where I’d left them yesterday. In a brief moment of hysteria, I had the sensation
they hadn’t moved since then. I almost giggled.

I opened the door without knocking and stopped dead in my tracks.

Son of a bitch.

Riley.

He turned to face me as I entered, and his face lit up. “Cheyenne.” The next instant,
his face fell into a look of concern as he glanced up and down my frame. After all,
I wasn’t dressed for the office.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Meeting with your board. They have some great ideas for my campaign…” His voice trailed
off. Undoubtedly because I stared at him with a pasted smile that was not my own.

“How nice for you. I’m sure Christine Parson would be an excellent choice to work
on whatever project you have in mind.” I turned toward Mr. Schultz and continued,
“I’m so sorry about yesterday, sir. I was too tongue-tied to properly address the
situation. The reality is that none of that marketing plan was ever my own doing—”

“Cheyenne,” Riley gasped behind me. He grabbed my bicep with one hand and pulled me,
trying to get me to face him.

But my eyes were on Mr. Schultz, who stared at me in confusion.

The rest of the room fell into a hush.

Mr. Schultz cleared his throat, but I didn’t let him interject.

“It was silly, really. I have no idea why I thought I could get away with it. She’s
much sharper than me and far more educated and intelligent. And she has an array of
experience I can’t compete with. It was insane that I thought for one moment I could
compete with her or steal her ideas.” I even batted my eyes in a lame attempt to be
believed.

“Cheyenne?” Riley stepped in front of me, blocking my connection with Mr. Schultz.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I’m just ’fessing up to my deception. It was rude of me to ruin another
woman’s career to advance my own.”

“Is she blackmailing you, Cheyenne?” Mr. Schultz asked.

I was taken aback. “What? No.” I waved a hand through the air, blowing off his suggestion.

“Do you have any idea what happened here last night?” he asked, leaning around Riley
to meet my gaze.

“No…” My voice trailed off. What was going on?

“Did you not stop at the lower floor?”

“No. I came straight here. What’s this about?”

Riley tilted his head closer to mine, narrowing his eyes. “Cheyenne, the place is
trashed. Christine broke in last night and turned the lower floor into a hurricane.”

“What? Are you sure? Maybe it was someone else. It could have been anyone.” Though
I knew that wasn’t true. If the twenty-second floor looked anything like my apartment…
I shuddered.

“Cheyenne, her prints are everywhere. She started with your cubicle and moved outward.”

“Prints?” Did that mean they were all over my apartment too?

“Yes. The police have been combing the place since early this morning. They’ve already
definitively identified her hands on nearly everything. She didn’t even bother to
wear gloves.”

Yep, her prints would be all over my apartment. And my plan to reinstate her was ruined.
If only she hadn’t flipped out with such haste… I could have saved her and thrown
myself under the bus. Now? Now she was just fucked.

“How could you identify her? Surely she doesn’t have a record.”

“She didn’t need one. We compared her prints to her office phone. She’s been the only
person in there in over a week,” Mr. Schultz added.

I nodded, feeling a bit like an idiot. And then I turned toward the door, thinking
to leave.

Riley grabbed my wrist this time, his hand slipping down to hold mine tightly as he
tugged me back to his side. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer. He
even kissed the top of my head. “Baby…”

Could this get any worse? I struggled against him, trying to save my dignity and get
the hell out of there.

But he held firm.

In fact, everyone else in the room slipped out, and it occurred to me that Mr. Schultz
had been informed as to just who my “boyfriend” was and figured out Riley had sent
the presentation. I could feel them all leaving, even though I had shut my eyes tightly
and buried my face in Riley’s starched dress shirt.

The door shut with a soft snick, and then Riley released his grip enough to hold me
at arm’s length. His expression was full of concern. “What the hell is going on?”

If his voice hadn’t been so soft and gentle, I would have thought he was mad at me.
Instead, he was genuinely concerned.

I took a deep breath. “She trashed my apartment last night too.” I don’t know why
I thought it necessary to declare that fact, but I did it anyway. Probably to avoid
the real issues.

“What?” He stiffened. “That fucking cunt.”

I shuddered at his sharp words. Though I don’t know why. He was only stating facts.

“Did she take anything?”

At that question, I started laughing. Like a maniac. Uncontrolled guffaws that included
snorting and tears. Was he serious? “Have you been to the twenty-second floor?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, I just came from my apartment. I can only imagine the damage here if it’s anything
like that.” I wiped tears from the corner of my eyes. Perhaps I was having a nervous
breakdown.

“That bad?” A wry smile caused one corner of his mouth to lift.

“Let’s just say I’ll probably never know if anything’s missing.”

He reached up and tugged something through my hair and then held it in front of my
face. “Mattress?”

I nodded. I hadn’t realized I’d gotten cotton fluff on me. I’d never even entered
the apartment.

“We need to let the police know about your apartment so they can coordinate with each
other and link the two scenes. If she left prints at your place too, she’ll go down
for sure.”

“Right.” I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought about anything really. My brain
was still a cloudy mess in fight or flight mode.

“Sit.” He angled me toward a chair and helped lower me into the smooth leather. “Don’t
move. I’ll be right back.”

I nodded. I knew he was going to speak to the officer in charge. It made sense.

He left the door open a crack, and a few minutes later Lauren came in and set a cup
of coffee in front of me. Cream and sugar. How did she know how I liked my coffee?
She smiled tightly, her eyes expressing her sorrow.

I jerked. I needed to get out of there. Before Riley came back. He was so domineering
he would talk me out of it. And this wasn’t over. Not for me at least. I had no intention
letting him steamroll me.

He lied to me. I couldn’t trust him. And his ex was still out there somewhere with
every intention of making my life miserable.

I ignored Lauren’s coffee and jumped to my feet to barrel past her without a word.
I didn’t even take the elevator. I headed straight for the stairs, hitting the top
one and taking them two at a time before the heavy metal door even slammed shut behind
me.

I didn’t want to risk the elevator opening to reveal Riley inside. I ran down several
flights and then took a deep breath and calmly exited the stairwell to pick up the
elevator on the nineteenth floor. Luckily that level was all office space and no one
saw me exit the stairwell in my state of complete disarray.

I looked like someone who had entered the building to escape a rainstorm and then
partially dried off in the last half hour, leaving my hair in wet tangled clumps and
my clothes wrinkled and plastered to my skin.

I ran toward my car when the doors slid open and exited the garage as if I were being
chased.

Riley either didn’t know I’d left yet, or he wasn’t fast enough to catch up.