“Find the pen,” I told myself, and I absently slid the drawer shut with my hip as I meandered back through the living room. I went to see if the pen was next to the notepad by the phone in there, still playing with the piece of metal, pleased to see it form a ring as I pushed my finger through the middle of it. It was almost like the blue play putty I got to play with as a kid in elementary school when we studied solids, liquids and gases, only this substance was in the form of metal.
I spotted a man down by the pool through the living room window.
Was this Frank?
He had an amazing mane of long, pure silver hair, which stood out because of the deeply bronzed skin he had. Dressed in light-colored linen trousers and a silk shirt, he looked coolly composed, sitting comfortably in a deck chair under the umbrella.
What he was doing mesmerized me.
A strange device created a small projection of a person in his hand, sort of popping off the screen in 3-D with absolute clarity, which blew my mind.
Was this some kind of new technology? It was totally Star Trek—or Star Wars—level stuff. To be able to project your image across a network and have a conversation with someone seemed otherworldly. I broke out in goose bumps at the thought. It would mean having to look good at all times. Damn. Just thinking about that was stressful.
As though sensing he was being watched, the man looked up, and I saw he wasn’t as old as I had first perceived him to be. He was prematurely silver, was likely in his early fifties at most.
I caught sight of his eyes and stiffened with surprise. They looked angry, like I’d caught him at something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. They blazed up at me, and I swear his lips seemed to curl into a snarl.
My smile died on my lips, and my hand froze midwave.
He cut off the projection by fisting his hand around the device and surged out of his chair, starting for the house with a determined look on his face.
Damn the spirits, she’s early. Where’s the gun?
The words stabbed through my mind with sharp ripples of promised violence. Dark, sinister feelings of pleasure, the image of fear reflected in someone’s eyes, the beauty of deliverance blanketed my mind.
What was that?
My heart jackhammered against my chest. I jerked my head, negating the feelings. They weren’t mine.
What was this?
The hair on the back of my neck rose with alarm. A cold sweat popped out around my neck, and the familiar voice in my head cried RUN! which was more than enough for me to spin around and go from zero to sixty.
I sprinted across the floor, my heels clicking sharply on the marble while I sought purchase on the slippery surface, and threw myself out the front door. The scorching heat of the afternoon slapped at me, but I hardly felt it. My ears picked up the heavy pounding of footsteps that would bring Frank into the living room, fueling the spike of adrenaline that raced through my bloodstream.
I slammed into my car, fingers shaking as I tried to pick out the right key on my key chain and stab it into the ignition. Praying that the car wouldn’t take this opportunity to protest being overworked, I whispered, “Please, please, please,” as I turned the key.
It started, if a little roughly.
The car was in gear when I saw the front door bang open, showing the full, muscular size of the angry man, and I was already disappearing around the bend in the road when he hurled himself out onto the street with the agility of a professional athlete. He still only caught sight of my tailpipe disappearing down the hill, from what I could tell, watching in the rearview mirror.
“Ohmygod,” I whispered shakily. Breathing rapidly, I took the winding curves much too quickly, almost losing control on one of the hairpin turns, and eased off the gas. Suffering through another minute of anxious driving, my eyes searched the mirrors to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I smacked the steering wheel, punctuating each word, and still felt my heart racing madly against my chest. At the light on Sunset, I stopped and rested my head on the wheel, wondering what the hell had just happened and trying to calm my fluttering heart. Why the hell had I run out of the house?
It had seemed like my boss’s boyfriend wanted to kill me. But how did I know that? Voice in my head? No. Yeah? Totally crazy. And what was the proper response in this situation? Call Reggie? Call the police? Call Cynthia and ask her what she thought I should do?
A car honked behind me. Heart in my throat once again, I scanned the rearview mirror but only saw an annoyed driver in a low-slung red sports car. The light had turned green. Easing off the brake, I made my turn.
But what would I tell Reggie? Or the cops? I was standing there in the house. The silver-haired guy was coming in with a mad look, and he was going to kill me. How do I know this? I don’t know. I can’t tell you. Intuition? I heard a voice? Yeah, that would go over really well.
A more absurd thought, considering I was sure my life had been in jeopardy, was would I still have a job on Monday? Maybe Reggie would even call me over the weekend to tell me not to bother showing up. But what the hell? What else was I supposed to do? The guy had looked like he was about to kill me!
The lights seemed to be working in my favor. I made my way back to the shadier side of town feeling my anxiety lessen. Familiar stores, junk-food restaurants spewing the smell of grilled onions, and familiar street people lying under newspaper blankets seemed to bring back normality. I could breathe easier.
About halfway home, my heart quit thundering, and though I’d replayed the scene a thousand times in my head, I still wasn’t sure what had happened. First, there was the...oooookay, could I admit it? I heard a voice. In my head. But did I really? Just thinking it felt cuckoo. Maybe I was just tired and overly stressed. That could be the case. Maybe Cynthia was right about the side effects of overworking myself and needing to cut back on hours to relax some, but I truly needed both jobs.
Could I have heard a voice?
In less than a second, my own mind scoffed at me. My inner adolescent smirked rudely, and I was forced to admit that it was just too crazy to be believed.
Pulling up in front of my apartment complex, I managed to convince myself that I’d probably imagined the whole “he’s going to kill me” moment, because really, who does that? Things like that only happen in movies, right? The real situation was more likely that he thought I was an intruder because Reggie didn’t call in advance and warn him that I was coming over right away. I should have stayed and introduced myself so the guy wouldn’t think I was a thief. End of story.
At this point, I was feeling pretty stupid. Here was another episode to chalk up to my extremely overactive imagination, which was seriously starting to worry me. Added to that, the glint of metal caught my eye, and I realized I was still wearing the ring on my finger.
Figures. I really had stolen something from the house.
“Damn.” The word was muttered with no small degree of self-disgust. Yanking the ring off my finger, I set the piece of metal in the unused ashtray and flipped it shut with a snap.
What’s done is done.
I shoved my way out of the car, slinging my purse over my shoulder gracelessly.
I just needed the day to end. I needed sleep. I needed food. I needed weird and strange to leave me the hell alone, so I could hit the reset button and let my life go back to its normal, predictable schedule. I liked normal. I wasn’t adventurous. I didn’t like surprises.
In a reassuring voice as I made my way to the gate, I told myself, “Everything’s fine. I’ll just return it on Monday, and next time Reggie needs an errand, I’ll stay at work and send one of the interns. I’ll just make sure I apologize profusely and throw myself on his mercy.”