A Safe Place To Fall (The Fall Book 1) (21 page)

“
No,
I don't.”

“
Yes,
you do,” she argued, with a sigh. “Drew is going to kill
me for this. You have to go tonight because we're going to your
surprise party. He had that dress you're wearing delivered to my
house three days ago.”

A knock at the door caused them both to
jump.

“
Crap,”
Tracie muttered looking at the time on her cell phone. “We
need to get rid of whoever that is or we're going to be late.”

Lana made her way to the door as
gracefully as she could in the black stiletto heels. What had Drew
been thinking when he picked this outfit out anyway? If she made it
through the night without rolling an ankle, it would be a miracle.

The smile on her face vanished the moment
she jerked the door opened.

*************************

Drew checked his phone for the fourth
time in a matter of ten minutes. Tracie should have been here with
Lana already. Surely if something had happened Tracie would have
contacted him. Where were they?

The door opened and Drew turned his
attention to the entrance. He expected Lana, but his hopes died when
he saw a man walking in.

What
the...

Shawn
walked across the room his eyes never leaving Drew. He seemed as if
he were on a mission.

Every bone in Drew's body tensed up.
What was he doing here? Better yet, if he was not the stalker how
did he know where to find him?

“Where's Lana?” Shawn
shouted over the noise of the music as he dodged party guests.

Drew's hands formed fists. “I
don't see where that's any of your concern.”

“Just tell me you didn't leave her
alone,” Shawn begged when he reached Drew.

“What's that supposed to mean?”
Drew asked with narrowed eyes.

“I confronted him, but he got
pissed and left,” Shawn stated. His hands were pulling at his
hair. “Damn it, I've been looking for you everywhere. Where
the hell is she?”

“What are you talking about?”
Drew was beginning to get a very bad feeling.

“Devin's been acting weird
lately,” Shawn explained as he paced back and forth. “Today
I went into his room, because I was afraid he wasn't taking his
medication. I accidentally knocked a box off of his dresser.”
He stopped and looked at Drew with horror in his eyes. “It was
a box filled with pictures of Lana, and not just new pictures. There
was one from our junior year of high school.”

The knot in Drew's stomach tightened.
“Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

“I'm almost positive Devin is
Lana's stalker,” he announced, going back to pacing. “If
something happens to her because I didn't go snooping sooner...”

Cursing, Drew dialed Tracie's number; he
couldn't call Lana because he still had her phone.

Please
let them be on their way here!

Her
voicemail picked up.

Damn it!

“I don't know what he's capable of
when he's not on his medication,” Shawn informed him, following
him towards the exit. “He's manic depressive and bipolar.”

************************

Chapter
22

“That dress looks better than I
thought it would,” Devin said as he walked into the room,
forcing Lana to stumble backwards. “It was worth every penny.”

“I don't kn.. know w..w..what
you're talking about,” Lana stuttered as she stumbled back into
the arm of the couch, unable to go any further.

“Sure you do,” he said in a
soft voice as he trailed his finger over the exposed skin of her
breasts. “Who else would have thought to buy you a dress for
your birthday?”

She cringed from his repulsive touch.

“What are you doing here, Devin?”
Tracie demanded to know. She was still rooted by the bathroom.

“I had to spend time with my girl
on her birthday,” he stated as his finger slipped under the
thin strap of the dress. “I knew when you put this dress on
that it was our time.”

“She's not your girl,”
Tracie denied.

“That's where you're wrong,”
Devin told her, slipping the strap down Lana's arm. “Lana has
been my girl for years now.”

Lana stood motionless, unable to fight
him. Breathing at the moment was a chore. Unnoticed tears ran down
her cheeks.

All this time she had thought she knew
who the threat was, but she had been wrong. To think of how close
her stalker had been to her this whole time made her want to pass
out.

This could be the day she died.

“You're crazy you know that?”
Tracie tossed at him.

Lana closed her eyes. She needed to get
Tracie out of here. It was one thing if he killed her tonight, but
she could not let her friend suffer the same fate.

“Just go,” she demanded of
her friend.

“I'm not leaving you here alone
with him,” Tracie said.

Her next words were painful, but she had
no choice. She had to get Tracie out of the apartment before the
girl said something stupid and set the psycho off. “He's
right. I've been his for a while. Don't make this any harder than
it has to be. Go and tell Drew I had to leave.”

“You can't do this to Drew,”
Tracie told her, clearly not getting the point.

“He'll understand,” Lana
assured her. “Just please go and tell him a friend is sick and
they need help.”

Disgust flashed in Tracie's eyes, but
she finally agreed to do as she was told. Once she was safely out of
the apartment, Lana was finally able to breathe a little easier.

“I didn't think she would ever
leave,” Devin said, shoving her with enough force to cause her
to fall over the arm of the couch.

Lana tried her best to remain calm as
she felt his hands slide up her bare legs. If she was lucky Tracie
ran out of here to get Drew.

Drew
would come and save her. He just had to.

“You really do look sexy in this,”
he told her as his hands disappeared under the dress.

“Let's order food first,”
she suggested, desperate to delay the inevitable. “I'm
starving.”

“I guess we can do that,” he
gave in with a sigh. His hands moved back down the path they come
from. “Chinese okay?”

Lana breathed a sigh of relief. It
would take at least thirty minutes before the food was delivered. If
there was a God watching out for her Devin would be willing to wait
until after she had eaten to continue with his plans.

She just needed to keep him distracted.

“I love Chinese food,” she
lied scooting her way to the other side of the couch, as graciously
as she could in the skimpy dress.

“No, you don't,” he said
with a smile, “but you're willing to eat it, because I like it.
You're always thinking about others.” Devin pulled his cell
phone out of his back pocket. “That's why I love you.”

Lana pulled the blanket from the back of
the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders trying to disguise her
fear as simply being cold. Whatever she did, she couldn't let Devin
see how scared she was. He had to believe that she wanted his
attention, or she may not make it out of here alive.

She considered her options as her
stalker ordered food as if they were any normal happy couple. It
could take Drew forever to get here; that's if Tracie managed to let
him know what was going on. Her life depended on her making the
right choices at the right times.

Lana forced a smile when Devin turned
back to look at her and pulled the blanket tighter around her. “It's
a little cold for this dress.”

He placed his phone back in his pocket,
sat down, and put his arm around her. “You were never supposed
to wear the dress outside.”

She
tried to subdue the shiver of fear running through her body as he
pulled her against his side.
Pretend
to enjoy this
,
she told herself, as his lips found their way to her ear.
Drew
will be here soon
,
she promised herself.
His hand attempted to slide the blanket
off of her shoulder as his mouth trailed down her neck.

“I'm cold,” she complained,
trying to keep the blanket in place.

“I'll keep you warm,” he
promised as he forcefully yanked the blanket from her grasp.

Lana's heart was beating a hectic
rhythm. She knew he had to be able to hear it and prayed he took it
to be a sign of her attraction to him. The last thing she needed was
to upset him.

“Your skin is so soft,” he
whispered, running his hand slowly down her arm and grabbing her hand
in his.

She swallowed the whimper that about
escaped when he pulled her arm up over her head.

Please
hurry, Drew.

She would even be thankful for Chris, if he would just show up.

“I have so many plans for you,”
he told her, running a fingertip from her hand down her arm to her
breast.

“Like what?” she asked, her
voice shaking.

Just
keep him talking. Give Drew time to get here.

His
breath was warm against her mouth and smelled of liquor. “I've
wanted you since high school.”

“Why didn't you ever say
anything?” she asked, trying not to let it show that his touch
repulsed her.

“I tried,” he admitted, his
hand progressing down to her stomach. “I left notes.”

The secret admirer notes from her junior
year of high school suddenly made since. There had been a total of
five notes, but they had stopped as quickly as they began. At the
time she figured it was probably somebody's idea of a joke.

Knowing that her secret admirer had been
Devin made Lana realize just how urgent this situation was. He had
been waiting a long time to get her where he had her now. It was
unlikely he would give her up without a fight. If she didn't play
this game by his rules there was a good chance she would not make it
out alive.

His hand, resting on the back of the
couch, grabbed a hand full of her hair and pulled. “You didn't
give a shit about me though.”

Lana cried out. “I didn't know it
was you!”

“All you gave a shit about was
your grades,” he snarled. “Then the night at the
graduation party, I thought I might actually stand a chance.”
His other hand gave her left leg a painful squeeze. “But it
wasn't me who got into your pants that night. Instead, it was my
cousin who got you to spread those thighs.”

She turned her head away, new tears
falling, and whispered, “He raped me that night.”

He laughed. “You're really
something. You know that? Why not just admit you let yourself go for
one night?”

“Go to hell!”

The slap across her face was unexpected.
“You will show me respect! You're not talking to that pussy
you've been messing around with!”

Lana was sure she would have a bruise in
the shape of his hand across her left cheek. This guy really was
unpredictable. Minutes ago he seemed calm, maybe even loving, to the
outside world. Now he was a loaded gun waiting to go off.

A knock on the door announced the
arrival of the take-out food.

“Don't you say a damn word,”
he whispered into her ear before roughly shoving her away.

There was no way she was going to be
able to wait for Drew to save the day. Devin was too unsteady. If
she didn't find a way out of this situation on her own and soon; she
would be dead.

She looked toward the bedroom; Drew had
a gun in the nightstand. If she could just get to it, she would have
the upper hand. Of course they would need silverware for the food;
she could act as if she were getting forks and grab a knife. Like it
or not, those were the only two options she had.

Once the delivery guy was gone Devin
deposited the food containers onto the coffee table.

He looked her up and down with lust
filled eyes. “You know what,” he said, roughly grabbing
her hand and yanking her up off of the couch. The stiletto heels
caused her to stumble into his muscled body. “You can eat
after I get what I want.”

Oh
God!

She
refused to allow this to happen again. Not when she had finally been
able to put the awful memories of Shawn in the back of her mind.
This time she had the resources to fight back. And fight she would.

Her arm felt as if it were being jerked
out of its' socket as he roughly dragged her into the room she had
been sharing with Drew the past few weeks. Thankfully, he had chosen
the one room she knew contained a gun. All she had to do was manage
to get to it.

The door was slammed shut and locked.
Lana was tossed roughly onto the bed causing her to bounce a few
times. Her head slammed against the head of the bed rattling her
brains a little. Before she could get her body to move, her arms
were jerked up over her hand. The clink of the handcuffs locking
into place sealed her fate.