All of My Soul (19 page)

I walked down the long hallway to the
stairwell at the end, distracted by thoughts of my thesis. The
echoing sound of a metal door closing behind me pulled me back into
the present. As I reached the stairs, I turned to see who was
behind me.

The man from the school parking lot stood at
the end. Even though it was night and we were inside, he was
wearing sunglasses and had the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up
over his head. He held his phone up to his ear and was turned
slightly as if he was trying to make it look like he wasn’t
watching me. I was sure it was the same man as before though. His
plain gray sweatshirt gave him away. Most sweatshirts had logos or
words on the front. This man’s didn’t, and it made him stand
out.

I tried to think through the rising panic
inside me.
Remain calm. Act natural until you can get to help.
Think!

I quickly sized him up while walking to the
drinking fountain next to the stairs. Buying myself some time to
make a plan, I bent down and took a long drink while keeping the
man in my sights.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to outrun this man
if he chased me. I was no athlete, and he was clearly fit and
strong. If the grounds outside were empty, I would have a slim
chance of making it to my car. I’d have to hide and call for
help.

Goddammit! Why didn’t I listen to
Lincoln?

I nonchalantly wiped my mouth with the back
of my hand before slowly walking to the staircase, like prey trying
not to attract a predator’s attention. When I reached the landing I
was able to look back at the hallway I had just come from in the
reflection of the giant window in the stairwell.

The man no longer had his phone to his ear.
He was unmistakably watching me descend the stairs. Terror and
panic rose up inside me, and when I reached the next floor I
couldn’t stop myself from breaking into a run. The flight-or-fight
instinct kicked in, and I involuntarily decided flight was my best
shot at survival.

My hands slapped against the metal doors as I
quickly pushed through them, and I mentally kicked myself when they
slammed closed behind me. The noise gave me away, and the man would
know I stopped on this floor instead of continuing down the stairs
to the ground level.

Be smarter!
My brain screamed at me as
I scanned this floor. Offices lined the long hallway, and the
overhead lights were dimmed. The chances of finding a place to hide
were not good, but I tried the first office door anyway. Locked.
The next one and a third one were the same.

The elevator! I ran to the silver doors and
frantically jabbed my finger repeatedly on the down button, willing
the doors to open. I could hide inside the elevator and hit the
stop button and call for help. The elevator dinged, and triumph
soared through me. I looked down the hallway past the empty locked
offices and saw the man watching me through his sunglasses from the
stairwell.

The doors of the elevator opened slowly, and
I darted inside before they were fully opened. I held down the
button to close the doors, praying the man wouldn’t make it to me
before I was sealed inside the elevator alone.

When the doors finally returned to their
closed position, I exhaled a long breath of relief and hit the red
emergency stop button. An alarm bell rang and a voice came from a
small speaker box.

“This is campus security. Do you need
help?”

“Yes!” I cried. “There’s a man chasing me. I
locked myself in the elevator, but I need help.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Someone was pounding on the elevator
doors.

“Jillian!”

“Oh God,” I said into the speaker. “He’s not
going away.”

“Okay, ma’am. We have officers responding to
Samson Hall. What floor are you on?”

I answered her question and gave her a
description of the man. The pounding stopped, and I wondered if he
could hear me over the elevator alarm.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and Lincoln’s
ringtone filled the elevator, but I didn’t answer. What could I
tell him?

“Ma’am? Is he still pounding on the
door?”

“No. I don’t know where he went.”

“Okay. Officers are a minute away.”

“Please hurry.” I knew I was safe now, but I
didn’t want this man to get away. He could be the one who had
slipped the GHB in my drink. The one who slashed my tires. The one
who broke Lincoln’s window. He was so close. I wanted him
caught.

Lincoln’s ringtone filled the elevator again,
but again I didn’t answer. I slumped down on the floor and waited
to be rescued, feeling stupid and embarrassed over the
situation.

My phone chimed with a text message.

“
WHERE R U! ANSWER UR PHONE!”
Lincoln
sent.

I set my phone down and hid my face in my
hands. He must have known I went out alone. He was going to be so
mad at me, especially when he heard about this.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“This is campus security! Are you okay in
there?”

“Yes! I’m fine!” I shouted back. “Did you
find the man?”

“No. We’re searching the building but you can
come out now.”

I stood up and moved to the panel. I twisted
the knob for the stop button, and it popped out, silencing the
alarm. The elevator immediately started moving.

“Oh no! I’m going down to the ground level!”
I shouted through the doors at the officer, but I didn’t know if he
heard me.

The elevator moved quickly, and within
seconds it had stopped and the doors opened on the ground level,
revealing the man in the gray sweatshirt standing in front of the
elevator doors. Campus police were nowhere to be seen.

“What’s going on?” the voice said over the
elevator speaker box.

The man and I stared at each other, neither
of us moving or answering the elevator voice. It almost seemed like
he was waiting for me to do something or try to escape, but I was
rooted in place. Maybe if I waited long enough the elevator doors
would close again, and the man would lose his opportunity.

Suddenly a blue blur appeared on the left
side of the open elevator doors and tackled my stalker. Blue and
gray collided and twisted to the floor. Two more security officers
jumped on the man, and before I knew it, he was lying on his
stomach on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Are you all right?” one of the officers
asked me.

“Yes. Yes. I’m fine,” I said quietly as I
wiped away two tears that rolled down my cheeks.

One of the officers ushered me out of the
elevator and stood me next to the lump on the ground. Another
rolled the man over to his side and removed his hood and
sunglasses. I couldn’t help but gasp in surprise.

“Do you know him?”

“Yes,” I admitted, utterly flabbergasted. “He
was my driver. Brody… Brody something or other. I can’t
remember.”

An officer crouched down and patted Brody’s
pockets. She pulled out his wallet. “Brody Gibbons,” the female
officer read the name on his license.

I nodded my head. “Yes. That’s right. I
remember now.”

The officer who was searching Brody’s pockets
pulled up his sweatshirt and revealed the shiny black handle of a
gun poking out of a waistband holster at the small of his back.

I could feel the blood rushing from my face.
He really was trying to kill me. I couldn’t believe it.

Brody turned his face to the side. “I have a
concealed carry license in my wallet. The gun is licensed and
legal.”

“We’ll see about that,” one of the officers
said as he pulled the gun out of Brody’s holster. He clicked a
button on the side and unloaded the magazine into his hand before
pulling back on the top of the gun and ejecting the last bullet.
“It was loaded. One in the chamber.”

The officer handed the gun and bullets off to
another officer before grabbing the front of Brody’s gray
sweatshirt and pulling him to his feet. “Why were you chasing
her?”

“Why are you stalking me?” I asked without
giving Brody a chance to answer the officer’s question.

Brody’s face was devoid of emotion as he
looked past the officer in front of him directly at me. Without his
sunglasses, I could hardly believe I hadn’t recognized him earlier.
But it had been well over a month ago that Lincoln had hired him to
drive me to and from my internship.

The officer gave Brody a small but firm
shake. “Don’t look at her. You look at me. Have you been stalking
her?”

“I’m not her stalker,” he finally said. “I’m
her bodyguard.”

The cell phone I clutched in my hand vibrated
again, and Lincoln’s ringtone played out loudly.

Son of a bitch.

Chapter Fifteen

Kennedy and I had a late lunch date the next
day before she had to pick her kids up from her in-laws. We met up
at the restaurant, shadowed by Brody. It seemed like now that I
knew he was my bodyguard, he no longer was ordered by Lincoln to
keep his distance.

“Did you know?” I asked Kennedy as we sat at
our table. The restaurant was probably half-empty and we were the
only ones in our section. Well, us and Brody. He sat at a table
about twenty feet away silently observing everything in the
restaurant.

“About him?” Kennedy pointed her finger at
Brody.

I nodded.

“You didn’t?”

“No,” I said with controlled anger. “I
didn’t.”

Kennedy’s eyebrows flew up. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“So have you talked to Lincoln since you
found out?”

I shook my head. Brody and Lincoln had
convinced campus security yesterday to let Brody go. Lincoln had
tried to call me afterward, but I ignored his call and sent him a
text saying it was probably better if we talked after I calmed
down. Since then he hadn’t tried to contact me, although I was
pretty sure he was in contact with Brody.

Kennedy leaned forward on the table. “Did you
see they lost last night?”

I nodded. I hadn’t watched the game on TV. I
had been too upset. But I did watch the highlights online and saw
the final score. It was not a pretty game. Our boys had gotten
massacred. Not only was the loss a big one, but it also killed
their winning streak. I would have felt guilty for throwing off
Lincoln’s game, but the sports analysts online were blaming the
loss on the fact that the Hawks had several injured players
including Deacon who had been cross-checked from behind, causing
him to go head first into the boards.

“Rebecca said Deacon’s okay.” That was the
important thing. More so than my anger toward Lincoln.

“Yeah, I talked to Lincoln last night.”

My eyebrows flew up. “You did?”

She nodded knowingly. “He’s pretty pissed at
you.”

“Me? He’s the one that went behind my back.
He didn’t tell me he hired a bodyguard to follow me!”

“Yeah, that’s an issue. But you went back on
your promise to him—twice—putting yourself in danger. Which is the
worse offense? He was just trying to protect you. Can you blame
him?”

I gapped at her, speechless. In my fit of
anger toward Lincoln, I had forgotten my own transgressions.

“Shit. How angry is he?”

“I think he’s more hurt than angry, although
he is pretty upset.”

I fidgeted in my seat. This was going to be
bad. Lincoln had never been mad at me before, at least not that I
knew of.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I said
quietly.

“I know.” She shrugged. “But I just thought
I’d give you a heads-up.”

I nervously traced the edge of the
tablecloth. “Do you think I should text him?”

“Well, duh,” she said with a small laugh.

I smiled for the first time since Lincoln
left yesterday and dug my phone out of my purse.

“
I love you, and I miss you, and I’m
sorry. Please call me tonight.”

But he didn’t. I waited up until after
midnight. Their game against the Dallas Stars had been long over,
and he would have had plenty of time to call me if he wanted. Fear
and regret filled my heart as I fell asleep in my cold bed
alone.

~~~~~~~~

Music blared through Lincoln’s house when I
used the key he had given me to let myself in before locking the
door behind me. It was Thursday night. He was back from his stretch
of away games but hadn’t contacted me. Anxiety prickled under my
skin. He clearly didn’t want me here, but we needed to talk, and I
wanted to apologize to him in person.

I found him bench-pressing weights in his
personal gym under the garage. I hadn’t even known this room was
here for the longest time. He told me he only used it during the
off-season, preferring to work out at the Blackhawks’ gym at the
United Center, but he must have needed to blow off some steam
tonight. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

All the lights were on, and the music was
cranked up to eleven. The screeching electric guitar part of the
loud, fast-paced rock music hurt my ears as I watched him push the
massive weights up quickly before slowly lowering them to his
chest. He was only wearing a pair of red basketball shorts, and I
watched from the doorway as his stomach muscles clenched and rolled
with every rep. Sweat beaded on his skin, and I wondered how long
he had been at this.

He hadn’t seen me watching him yet, but he
didn’t act surprised when the music silenced as I pushed the power
button on the stereo. He simply racked the bar of weights above his
head and let his arms fall to his stomach, breathing hard.

“I was listening to that,” he said without
looking at me.

“Aren’t you supposed to have a spotter when
you lift?” I teased him, trying to break the tension in the
room.

“You’re going to lecture me about safety?”
The tone of his voice scared me. It was so indifferent. So cold. He
could have been talking to a stranger on the street.

Regret washed through me. “Um. I guess not.
Can we talk when you’re done in here?”