“Do. You. Trust me?”
“I’m not crazy!” I snapped, and then my hands flew over my mouth. That’s exactly what crazy people say! “Why is it so hot in here?”
“Rachel . . . Rach. Come on, babe, just breathe, you’re going to make yourself pass out.” Kash was suddenly on the couch with me, pulling me to the side and into him so my back was against his chest. He took deep breaths in and out and kept one hand on my chest, forcing me to breathe in sync with him. “Better?” he asked softly in my ear after a couple minutes of our breathing together.
My body slumped into his and I shut my eyes. “Yeah.”
“You’re not crazy, sweetheart. I need you to listen to me though, all right?”
I nodded. “And I do trust you.”
With a kiss to my temple, he moved me out from between his legs and situated me so we were facing each other. “Now, let me say all of this before you respond, and try to keep an open mind.” He cracked his neck and thought for too long before he began. “I didn’t take you on the trip to The Vineyard for the sole purpose of us being alone. The trip was amazing. I loved every second with you. But I took you to get you away from here. A couple days before we left, Mason and I separately ran into a guy who was looking in your windows. When he was confronted, he said he was your dad.”
I gasped and jerked back. That’s not possible. My mouth opened but Kash spoke before I could get anything out.
“We both knew he wasn’t. We didn’t even have to know about your parents’ being gone to know he wasn’t. He was stumbling over his own words, and when I was talking to him he got a phone call. He said it was you, and whomever he was talking to let him go on acting like it was you. Said you were out eating breakfast with Candice and he was going to meet you. While all of this was going on, you were asleep in my bed and Candice was at camp.
“Mason and I kept a watch for the next couple days; that’s why we tried to get you and Candice to go out so much. He kept coming back; he’d just sit in the parking lot in a dark green Explorer for hours on end, and every once in a while he’d come back and try to get in your apartment or just look in the windows. He got a few more calls while in the breezeway that we were able to listen to. And in the one I heard the morning that we left, he was calling the person he spoke to West.”
My heart was pounding. I didn’t understand what was happening now any more than I had earlier. “West, as in Blake?”
“We think so.”
“Oh my God.” Hyperventilating back full force.
Kash’s face grew tense. “He also said that the package had come in and he’d be putting it on your car as soon as you came back . . . and then ‘West’ could track you.”
“There’s a tracking device on my car?!”
“Baby, no. He put one on but you and I were already gone. Mason took it off and destroyed it.”
“Oh my God,” I repeated, and dropped my head into my hands. “Why is he doing this?”
“That’s not all.” A whimper left my throat and I pulled my legs back up onto the couch to curl into a ball. “I knew I needed to get you out of here so I already had my stuff packed and was waiting for him to leave—he would randomly leave for anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour—and I heard another call. All I heard was him talking about you being at the mall, like he was confirming that’s what someone said, and then he said he was on his way there. You and Candice came back fifteen minutes later. That’s why I didn’t give you time to pack or get ready, and Mason texted me saying he came back not even ten minutes after we left.”
“How did they know we were at the mall?!”
Kash grimaced. “Is Candice in contact with Blake a lot?”
My head snapped back. “What? Why would you ask that?”
“Someone had to tell Blake that the two of you were at the mall. Was Candice texting or calling anyone that day? Does she tell you if she talks to him?”
“She knows I don’t want to talk about him; she was so mad when I told her about what he did. That was the first time she’d ever gotten mad at me like that. So we don’t talk about him or that day at all. I mean—she and Eli went to go see him that night Eli was in town, but that was . . . that was Eli who brought it up. Not her. But Candice is always texting someone—like, it’s weird if she’s not on her phone—so I can’t say who she ever is or isn’t talking to. But I do know she talks to him a lot at our classes and hangs out with him.”
He nodded his head and sighed heavily as he held my stare. “I don’t want to say this about her, but I think she’s unknowingly giving Blake information about you.”
I was going to throw up. Or pass out. Okay, maybe both. Trying to take deep breaths, I clasped my hands together and the shaking in my body seemed to only get worse. “She didn’t believe me, but she wouldn’t hurt me.” But she still may have told Blake where you work . . .
“I’m not saying that. I said ‘unknowingly.’ If she’s telling him anything, she doesn’t realize she is, because he’s probably asking in a way where she wouldn’t realize it. I can’t be sure though, we’d need her phone.”
“Why is he doing this—why can’t he just leave me alone? Wait. Why are you telling me all this now? Do you think that guy was in here?” All the blood drained from my face. “Oh God. Was it Blake? Was Blake in here?”