She pounded a fist against the outside of the cottage. “I called Paulette, Donny. No one ever complained about Jeb. Admit it, you faked all of it, didn’t you?”
Donny swallowed hard. “I..I can’t change the past, but this is different. This is real. I think you need to come inside and look at what I’ve found out,” he flicked his eyes toward Alek, “about him.”
“You’re unbelievable. My father spent ten years in prison because of you. And Jeb—” she stopped and looked away. “You really are a psycho if you would even think I would trust you after what you did.”
“Evelyn,” Donny said, his voice rising slightly. “I’m not lying to you. And you need to come inside.” He grabbed her forearm and tried to pull her inside. She fought back, but he didn’t let go until he saw Alek striding forward.
Evelyn held her arm close to her chest as if she’d been bitten by a snake. She put a hand up to keep Alek from tearing Donny’s head off, then said, “I’m done here. Please, take me home.”
Alek put an arm around Evelyn’s shoulder and walked toward the Buick.
“He’s not who you think he is!” Donny shouted after them. “You have to believe me!”
They were almost to the car when Evelyn heard fast footfalls behind them. She turned her head and saw a glint in the moonlight. She pushed away from Alek and shouted, “Look out!”
Alek spun around in time to see the blade plunging down. He put up his hands and managed to catch Donny’s wrist before it finished its deadly arc. He struggled for control of the knife, but only momentarily. Physically, Donny was no match for Alek. Alek wrenched Donny’s arm to the side, plucked the knife from his grip, then shoved the smaller man onto his back.
“Don’t get up,” Alek growled.
Donny’s hands felt along the grass as if searching for a weapon. When he found none, he glared at Alek, then at the knife.
“Get in the car,” Alek said.
Evelyn didn’t hesitate. She was inside the Buick in an instant.
Alek backed away from Donny, circling the car. He thumbed the remote to start the engine and ducked inside. The tires squealed and the Buick raced away, leaving Donny in a cloud of smoke.
19
Evelyn’s hands shook so hard she couldn’t buckle her seatbelt. She clasped them together and clutched them against her chest, then shifted in her seat to look out the rear window. Donny, fading into the distance, was on his knees in the middle of the road.
“Are you alright?” Alek asked.
Evelyn glanced at him. “Me? He wasn’t trying to kill me. Are you alright?”
“I think so. Shook up, I guess.” He took one hand off the wheel to wipe his face. “Jeeze, Evelyn, I’ve never been in a fight before.”
She rested a trembling hand on his knee, as if that was any consolation. “You handled yourself pretty well. And thank you—if you weren’t there, I don’t know what would have happened.”
He inhaled deeply through his nose and breathed out slowly. “I don’t even want to imagine. Donny—he’s…unstable.”
“Yes, he is. And he needs to be stopped.” She wriggled her phone out of her pocket and hit the unlock button. It took her three times to put the code in correctly, and she opened four apps before she managed to bring up her contact list.
Alek rounded a corner, navigating toward town. “Who are you calling?”
Evelyn swore as she brought up the wrong contact. “I’m trying to call Paulette. She’ll know what to do.”
“It’ll be faster to just dial Emergency. Here, I’ll do it.” He brought up his phone and held his thumb against the bottom of the screen. A red box appeared in the center, and his thumb hovered just above it.
“What’s wrong?”
He pressed the brakes and let the Buick glide to a halt. “Maybe we should think about this for a moment.”
“Think about what? Alek, he almost killed you.”
He shook his head. “If he was serious about it, I don’t think I would have been able to stop him. Fighting him off was too easy—I think he was only trying to scare me.”
“But we can’t know for sure. He’s dangerous, and he needs help.”
“That’s exactly my point. If he’s suffering some sort of mental breakdown, he needs to be taken to a hospital, not a police station. If they arrest him, he’ll go to jail, and then prison. It might be years before he receives treatment.” He stared out at a lonely pasture. “And who knows what might happen in that time? As far as I can tell, he didn’t start to slip over the edge until you met me; I can’t be responsible for sending him to prison, not when he should be in a mental health center.”
As the car rolled forward, Evelyn dropped her phone into her lap and hugged herself. “But I…I don’t know if I can sleep knowing he’s out there.”
“I’ll park on the street and keep watch tonight. He should be settled down by the morning, and you can call his sister. They seem to be close, and if anyone can talk some sense into him, it’s probably her.”
Evelyn closed her eyes to think. More than anything, she wanted Donny to suffer for his betrayal. He had pretended to be her friend all this time, but he was really sabotaging her life. His twisted obsession had taken her father from her for more than a decade and separated her from Jeb forever. But…what if it was all due to some horrible mental illness? Could she live with herself if he got hurt—or worse—during his time in prison?
She took a few calming breaths and nodded. “You’re right; Donny needs help, not punishment. I’ll call Vanessa first thing in the morning. And Paulette, too, but I won’t give her all the details.”
Alek nodded. “That’s smart. And in the meantime, you should try to get some rest.” He guided the car through dimly lit streets and parked next to Candace’s apartment building. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll be here, and if Donny shows up, I’ll call the police.”
Evelyn stared into his eyes for a long moment. “You’re a good man, Alek. Better than I deserve.”
He ran the backs of his fingers along her jawline. “No. After everything you’ve been through, you deserve better than I could hope to give you. But I promise I’ll try.”
Her smile twitched, and she knew she would start crying if she didn’t go. After giving him a kiss, she left the Buick and climbed the steps to the apartment. Her hands were still shaking too hard to get the key into the lock, so she knocked and waited for Candace.
The door opened; Evelyn gave a weak smile to Candace and glanced back at the car where Alek stood guard. She waved goodnight and stepped inside. The weight of the night settled heavily onto her eyelids, and she slumped onto the couch, promising to tell Candace all about it in the morning.
Donny shoveled clothes, snacks, and bottled water into a backpack. He wasn’t sure if Evelyn would call the cops on him, but he couldn’t take chances—not when “Alek” was still with her.
Things had been going so well. Sure, there was the incident in the truck, but she’d forgive him for that eventually. And she didn’t need to know that it was him listening in on her conversation at the Kensington Estate, or that he had spray-painted a message on her door in a fit of jealous rage. Besides, none of it was really his fault; he hadn’t been sleeping well ever since Evelyn’s new boyfriend showed up. She had driven him over the edge by refusing to listen to reason. More than anything, Donny wanted to protect her, and since she had such terrible taste in men, he sometimes had to cross the line to do so.