Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (9 page)

He had another nightmare on his hands.
Another
one. How in the
hell
had he ended up with another crazy bitch out to try and destroy his life? He’d met this woman
one
time and he hadn’t touched her for longer than it had taken to shake her hand.

“Elliot, damn it, would you concentrate?” Lorna snapped. “What the fuck is she trying to pull?”

Glancing over his shoulder, he met his sister’s furious gaze and shook his head. “I don’t know, Lorna.”

There was a knock at the door. “Not now,” he called out.

The knock came again thirty seconds later.

Swearing, he shoved back from the computer and stormed over to the door. With a savage twist of his wrist, he jerked it open and glared at Becca. She shrank away from him. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out before he even managed to open his mouth. “I’m sorry, Elliot, I just … I didn’t know what to do. It’s … the book is missing.”

“If somebody stole a damn book, we can deal with it in a few minutes. I’ve got a bigger problem on my hands,” he snarled.

“It was Shay,” she said, as though she hadn’t even heard him.

He stilled. “Shay?”

She started twisting one of the numerous rings she wore on her hand. “She was at the register and she did
the weirdest damn thing. She bought every last one of the signed Shane Neil books—I mean,
all of them
. It was like over a hundred dollars’ worth and a lot of them were copies, ya know? Duplicates of the same book. But every signed book. She bought them all. Then, she was looking all white and pale, like she was going to pass out. I heard about her wreck and all and I was worried, so I asked her if she wanted some water. I went to get her some from the break room and I brought it out here. She was leaning against the counter, acting fine. Still pale and everything, but she drank it. Said thank you. Then she left. I swear, Elliot, the book was
there
, on the counter behind the register, when I went to get the water. I was reading it before I checked her out, I know it was there. But now it’s gone.”

The words came spilling out of her in a rush and it took a few seconds for him to process them all. He was still confused. “What book?”

“That one from Shane Neil … the advance reader’s copy you got from the author. I’m sorry … I know you two used to have a thing going, but I think … I think Shay stole it.”

FIVE

“I
T
’
S NOT REALLY STEALING
,”
SHE MUTTERED, SHOOTING
a look at the ARC on top of the books. It was her damn book. Whoever had it couldn’t have a legit right to it. That was her line of thinking. So whoever had it, when she’d given it to Elliot, had done it under false pretenses and besides, the bitch had fucking
signed
it. It had a false signature on it—that made it a lie.

If Elliot wanted a signed book, she’d give him one.

But he wasn’t keeping
that
one. Wasn’t selling the other ones in his store, either.

Nearly an hour had passed since she’d rushed from the store as fast as she could. It wasn’t very fast. She was finally back up over half speed. She figured she was at 70 percent now. Snow had moved in and it had taken her nearly fifty minutes to get home instead of the normal thirty. But now she was settled in front of the fireplace. It was already set with wood. She had matches. And she had the books.

It was time to watch them burn. The damn things weren’t going to exist in a few minutes and that was exactly how she wanted it.

The only thing she wasn’t going to burn—yet—were the autographed pages. She wanted to scrutinize those title pages, see if she could recognize the handwriting.

So far, nothing clicked, but one could never tell.

Striking one of the long matches she’d bought for the fireplace, she leaned in close and touched it to the kindling at the bottom. She watched as the flame flared, then steadily grew brighter. Once it was crackling away, she added a book. Then another. And another. She hadn’t quite managed to add the fourth when the phone rang.

Sighing, she picked it up.

She wasn’t surprised to see Elliot’s store on the caller ID.

She’d known Becca would figure it out. She’d also known Becca would rat her out. What surprised her was that he hadn’t called before now.

“Hello?”

“Did you take that fucking book out of my store?” Elliot snapped.

“You own a bookstore,” she pointed out. “I imagine you have many people taking books out of your store.” She reached for the ARC, lifting it to study the cover. It was the first time she’d gotten the nicer ARCs, too. This imposter was putting a pall on her success—tarnishing it.

“You know what book I’m talking about, damn it. You had no fucking right to take my damn book,” he growled.

“Hmmm.” She carefully ripped out the signed title page before tossing the ARC into the fire. As the flames greedily ate it up, she watched. “Well, we never did get to finish talking. If you want your book back, you come up to my place—we can finish talking, and you can have your book.”
Well, a replacement. One with a
real
autograph
.

Signed by
her
, damn it. Not some fake.

And maybe if he saw all of
her
copies, he’d believe her. She had first editions, foreign editions, large-print editions, all of them—things that he wasn’t likely to see
just
anywhere
. And the ARCs. She had ARCs, too, damn it.

“I’ve got a fucking mess on my hands. I can’t.”

Her heart sank inside her chest—a heavy stone weight.

He
had a mess? She was battered from that wreck. Somebody was trying to screw with her life. And somebody was trying to lie about her books. But
he
had a mess?

So much for that friendship you talked about
, she thought miserably. Self-pity started to rise inside her, but she shoved it down. Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to get her through this. She might be half-broken inside and she might jump at her own shadow and she sure as hell was fucked-up beyond fixing. But self-pity wasn’t going to help. There was little room for it in her life.

“You’ve got a mess, huh?” she asked quietly.

“A big one, damn it, and I need that book.”

The impatient, demanding tone in his voice had her frowning, but she didn’t care
why
he wanted the book so much. If he wanted an ARC, he could have one of hers. Reaching for the poker at her side, she nudged the ashy remains of one of the books farther back inside the hearth. It fell apart under the pressure. Distantly, she felt as if she just might do that—fall apart under even the lightest touch, into nothing but bits and pieces.

“I’m sorry to hear about your mess, Elliot, but I’ve got one of my own. You take care of yours and I’ll muddle through mine and sooner or later, I’ll get your book to you.”

“If you hadn’t fucking stolen it, you wouldn’t have to worry about going out of your way to bring it back to me, now would you?” he snapped. “I need that damn book back.”

“Well, I’m a little busy with my own mess … and
stolen
is such a harsh word. Perhaps we should say
borrowed
.”

“Borrowed. That implies I actually gave you permission, that you didn’t just take off without getting my okay, Lorna’s okay, that you didn’t sneak behind my counter and take it, that you didn’t sneak off without letting anybody know.” His voice was as sharp as broken glass, cold as the arctic ice. “Bring me my fucking book, Shay. Whatever your problems are, they aren’t my problems, and trust me, mine are pretty fucking bad.”

She watched as the inner pages curled and turned black, catching fire one by one. “Doesn’t life just suck, Elliot?” Bitterness crept into her voice and she couldn’t hold it back. “It’s ironic, you know. You kept talking to me about trust. You said it was okay to reach out, to need somebody. I did it. I tried to trust you. I needed to talk to you and you wouldn’t spare me five minutes. You go deal with your problems … and have a nice day. I’ll get your book to you when I can.”

Without wasting any more time, she disconnected and dropped the phone onto the floor. One by one, she fed the books to the fire until they were all gone, saving nothing but the signed title pages.

By the time it was done, she had more than twenty sheets of paper at her side.

And the phone had rung six times.

An empty ache settled in the middle of his chest.
I tried to trust you—

Shit
. This was just
insane
. He didn’t need to be trying to think through the complication of an ended relationship when he had a woman out to ruin his life. That was what he tried to tell himself. Yet the ache in his chest wasn’t going away.

“Is she bringing the book back?” Lorna asked.

“No.” He dialed her number again, but he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer.
Damn it, Shay
. The words burned on his tongue, but he wasn’t frustrated over the damned book. He just … hell.
Pick up the phone
.

It rang four times and rolled over to voice mail. She was pissed off and ignoring him now.
Damn it. I tried …

How many times had he hoped she’d reached out to him? But
fuck
, this was insane. If she was Shane Neil, then why the hell hadn’t she said—

A hand smacked him across the side of his head. Shooting Lorna a dark look, he hung up the phone. “Watch it,” he warned her. He just wasn’t in the mood for any of this bullshit now.

“Stop drifting off into la-la land.” Hands fisted on her hips, she glared at him. “Exactly
why
won’t she bring the book back?”

“Because she’s pissed off at me,” he growled, shoving out from behind the desk. He started to pace.

“That doesn’t sound like Shay.”

No. It didn’t. He’d seen her sad. He’d seen those solemn smiles on her face and after a few months, he’d slowly worked around to where he’d brought her to a slow, surprised arousal. But she rarely got angry.

Damn it, none of this made sense. It was as if he were trying to jam a giant, uneven square peg into a neat little round hole.

Why would Shay lie about this?

That was the first thing that didn’t make sense.

There was just no
reason
for her to lie. If she really was Shane Neil, though, why hadn’t she said anything about it
way
before now? Why drop this bomb on him now?

Because until now, there was no reason for her to
.
Except for the fact that we were seeing each other … and it would have been kind of cool to know …

Stopping in midpace, he turned around and eyed Lorna, debating about sharing that little kicker with her.

You know your friend? That one I was so fucking crazy about? The one that I thought was
the
one … well, she’s claiming to be a writer—one of my favorites, no less
.

Yeah, that all sounded like bullshit.

Especially the bit about how he’d
thought
she was the one.

She
was
the one for him. It just didn’t seem as though he was the one for her.

And none of this was solving the current problem, that ugly, weighty one that was getting heavier all the time.

The phone rang and he jumped on it, hoping it was Shay.

“Hey there, man.”

Recognizing Mike’s voice, he sighed. Mike, Lorna’s boyfriend, was not the person he wanted to talk to. “Hey, Mike. Hold on a minute. Lorna’s right here.”

“No. I’m calling to talk to you. I … ah. Well, I had a call from Deloris Golden about something she saw online. She just thought …” Mike paused, and Elliot could hear him blowing out a breath on the line. “Shit. I’m just going to lay this out. She wants me to know there’s a sexual deviant living in our midst.”

Curling one hand into a fist, Elliot closed his eyes as the world started to go red.

“I asked her what in the world had gotten into her and she told me. Elliot, have you ever met some writer by the name of Shane Neil?”

Elliot closed his eyes. “Yes. Yes, I have.”

They finished up the conversation in short, terse
terms, and then he hung up before looking at the computer. He was tempted to smash the damn thing to smithereens.

Instead, he moved back over to the chair and sat, staring at the Facebook page that had exploded and turned into an ugly, fire-breathing monster on him.

“I still think you need to call a lawyer. What she’s doing is slander,” Lorna said.

I barely got away. Elliot Winter tried to rape me. Ladies, please be careful around him … I think he’s done this before
 …

“Shit.” Every time he thought about what that bitch had written, he wanted to punch something. He couldn’t believe he was going to have to live through this … 
again
. But Mike’s call had just proven to be one hell of a wake-up call.

“Elliot, are you
listening
to me? We need to call a damn lawyer. See if we can sue her for slander or something. This is
bullshit
. You’ve never hurt a woman in your life.”

No. No, he hadn’t. Reaching up, he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Actually, I think it would be libel,” he said absently, still staring at the computer and that godforsaken Facebook page. “Remember your Spider-Man … slander is spoken.”