Twisted Desire (The Twisted Series) (24 page)

A bad feeling has him glancing at his phone a few more
times, as he races back to their hideout.  When he reaches a red light, he
makes a grab for his phone.  He dials up his voicemail to check the
message that appears once he returns to an area with good service.  Call
display tells him the missed caller was Jillian.

Hey Harley. 
You’ve been busy, I suppose.  You didn’t make it in today.  I’m kind
of getting worried.  I haven’t checked your line for messages, but I know
there are a few on there.  You might want to check them when you have a
minute.  Anyways, I hope things are going okay and I hope to see you real
soon.

Something about the change in her tone has him hanging up
and dialing his office in an instant.  He blasts through a red light and
picks up speed, until he’s driving like a maniac to get back to the beach
house.

He skips past the first few messages.  Two are from
clients and one is an old one from Hannah.  The next one has him reeling.

The woman’s voice is disguised, and to the untrained ear it
might have even sounded normal, but he knows better.

After the woman retraces his footsteps from the day, she
gives him the threat he has been avoiding.

“Stay away from Aliah.  That is a threat.  If you don’t,
I will kill her myself.  Oh, and
David
?  Or Harley. 
Whatever name it is you’re calling yourself today.  Don’t go to the
police.  I will know if you do, and it’ll be like you’re pulling that
trigger yourself.”

He tries to call Aliah, to warn her, but the landline is
dead.  He tries the spare phone he’d given her, but it goes straight to
voicemail.

Why didn’t she keep the cell on like I’d instructed her
to?

As he speeds back to the beach house as fast as his vehicle
will carry him, he considers how much this unstable woman knows.  She
knows where he’s been all day.  He was careful to check all of their
luggage and everything was clean.  He recalls standing at the bar the
other night, and placing his phone on the counter for all of one minute, while
he tried to seduce Aliah.

When he slams on his brakes, his beast of an SUV slides down
the gravel road.  Before it even comes to a stop, he pries open his cell
and nearly crashes when he focuses on the chip tagged onto it, for one second
too long.  It feels like someone has made a grab for his heart.  The
painful squeeze has him gasping for a breath.

He’s been bugged, and no doubt tracked by his cell
phone.  He digs his foot into the gas pedal, but feels no comfort from the
rev of his engine.  He quickly pockets his SIM card and wheels the damn
phone out his window, watching it break into a million pieces on the road
behind him.  Then he takes the corner on two tires, nearly rolling his
high-end machine into a bottomless black ditch.

Aliah had better be okay, or he’ll never forgive himself.

Harley leaves her all alone.  What was he
thinking?  There are men after them, and they have guns.  All Aliah
can think about is the lengths to which Harley has gone to bring her to safety
and then he just takes off without her. 
What the hell?

She supposes she hadn’t told him, and he couldn’t possibly
know, how scared she is.  She likes to keep up a stony front, after
all.  But she is downright terrified and she wishes she’d had the guts to
share that with Harley.  Instead, now she finds herself swimming in her
deranged thoughts, alone in this woman’s beach house, who’s likely Harley’s
ex-lover.

So now, not only is she worried for her life, but she’s
fuming with jealousy.

Aliah searches the flat surfaces for something – anything – to
show Harley’s involvement in this woman’s life.  She finds but one picture
that says it all.  At least he hadn’t lied about one thing.  He has a
sister.  One of the women in the picture looks like an older, more mature
version of Hannah, with softer eyes and a deeper smile.  But put her next
to Harley, and you can see the resemblance.

Everything in the place screams femininity; from the
softness of the drapes, to the blanket thrown across the sofa.  It’s
well-kept and well-decorated, clearly a home of wealth.  Why wouldn’t he
just tell her that it’s his sister’s place and save her the agony? 
Clueless, that man is.

Aliah, now satisfied that her jealousy is unwarranted, still
cannot shake the eerie feeling in her blood.  She had hoped finding her
answer would put her mind at ease, but the hairs on the back of her neck still
stand on end.  She shrugs it off, and chalks it up to aftershock from the
unexpected attack at the hotel.

Her stomach growls, while she notes her surroundings. 
It’s a nice place.  Quiet.  But nice.  Though the rumors seem to
indicate that David H. Gates is a self-made millionaire, it is clear that he
comes from a family of wealth.

Family.
  When Aliah starts to think about
Harley’s daughter, she gets a little worried.  Don’t get her wrong, she’s
always liked how she can just up and do whatever she wants as a single girl,
but she’s starting to understand what it’s like to care about people other than
herself.

She hurries to the bag of things Harley has left her with
and digs out his phone.  She searches the call log and finds the number
she’s looking for.  She picks at her fingernails as she waits for the girl
to answer her phone.

“Dad?” Hannah answers.

“No.  It’s me.  Aliah.”

“Oh, no.  Now I know something’s wrong, if he’s given
you his spare phone.  What’s going on?”

Aliah tries to clear the fear from her voice.  “What do
you mean?  I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”

“You lie like a rug.  No one abandons such a mint car
with a teenager and takes off like that.  My dad isn’t that careless,
though he might lead you to believe that.  You’ll be happy to hear that I
locked your car up in my dad’s garage.”

“Thank you,” Aliah says, stunned that she hasn’t thought
twice about the state of her most prized possession.  When you’re running
for your life, possessions don’t seem to have the same importance.

“Now tell me the truth.  What kind of shit has my dad
gotten into now?”

Aliah can’t believe the mouth on this girl, but it makes her
trust that she can handle the truth.  “I don’t know.  I just know
that it’s bad.  Like guns and knives bad.”  She hears Hannah’s voice
change.

Shit.
  She’s just a kid.  Maybe telling her
that wasn’t the brightest idea.

“I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No.  I need to know these things.  My dad doesn’t
tell me shit.  He treats me like a child.  I need to know these
things,” she repeats.  “I wouldn’t have snuck out tonight without telling
him if I’d known.  Looks like tomorrow night’s going to be a Twilight
marathon for me.”

Hannah sounds a little disappointed, but mostly because
she’ll have to sit through the marathon alone.  It sounds like their
conversation is over, but Aliah waits quietly to see if Hannah’s already hung
up the phone.

She takes a moment to glance at the clock.  It’s after
two o’clock in the morning.  She starts to feel guilty for dragging Hannah
into this at such a ridiculous hour.

“Aliah?” Hannah asks, out of the silence.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for being real with me.  Please take care of my
dad.”

“Okay,” Aliah answers, not knowing whether she can even do
that.

“Promise?” Hannah asks.

Aliah licks her lips and swallows the lump from the back of
her throat.  “I promise.”

When Aliah ends the call moments later, she feels
significantly worse.  Now she’s made a promise that she’s afraid she can’t
keep.  Unlike Harley, Aliah doesn’t lie.  She is now going to make it
her full time job to cover Harley’s ass.  She powers down his phone and
peers outside.  He doesn’t appear from the shadows, like she’s been dreaming
of all night.

Her stomach growls again, and it sounds like it’s going to
start gobbling up the rest of her insides if she doesn’t find something edible
real soon.  She slides open the back patio door and slips outside. 
The waves are loud and the wind is harsh.  A storm seems to be brewing.

She scoops the hair out of her face and hurries down the
steps to take a walk through the dying garden.  It’s the end of the
season, but there are a couple of blobs of color that catch her eye.  She
has to get on her knees and squint just to see in the dark, but it’s not until
she’s getting back up that her nerves catch up with her.  A chill skips
across her skin.  Why hadn’t she thought to bring a flashlight?

Aliah swiftly plucks a bright red pepper from a plant and
hightails it inside.

Her thoughts start reeling, but she welcomes anything over
the dose of anxiety that has just began to plague her.  She still can’t
believe how she’d forgotten about her car.  Her car!  Her pride and
joy.  What else is she forgetting?

Whoa.
  She hasn’t seen her massage therapist in
weeks.

What is up with that?

She certainly prefers Harley’s type of massage over
Michael’s any day, but the fact that she’s skipped the spa entirely has her
shaking.  She pops a slice of red pepper into her mouth and tosses the
rest into the garbage.  She can’t eat.  Not until Harley steps foot
back in that door.

Aliah stands there silently for a moment and refocuses on
the unfamiliar beach house, now eerily quiet.  The tree branches cast
shadows across the room and appear to be clawing at her with long scratchy
nails and a black foggy night.  The night seems to come alive around
her.  Every creek in the house has her glaring in its direction.

She can’t manage anything better than a grimace.  She
decides a bath is what she needs to settle her shaky muscles and overactive
imagination.  She heads straight for the bathroom, locates a towel, then
gives the door a shove until it clicks shut.  It takes a second, but
before she knows it, light is flooding the room.

Aliah checks the shelves and finds a small cylinder of bath
oils there.  She starts up the water, plugs the bottom of the tub and
drops in a few pink balls of oil.

After placing a clean towel on the counter, she drops her
clothes to the floor and slips inside of the small claw foot tub.  She has
to whip the curtain around it, to keep in the heat.  After a few steady
breaths, she finally feels herself relaxing, letting the steam calm her nerves
and the hot water to work away her aches.  She closes her eyes and slips
beneath the water completely.

When she resurfaces, she thinks about the man who has saved
her life on countless occasions in a matter of days.  Harley can still
make her smile.  Just the image of him diving head first into a mud puddle
has her mouth widening across her face.  With a little added imagination,
she pictures what would have happened if she wasn’t completely mortified and he
hadn’t just been shot.

Aliah falls into a much needed slumber until Harley has her
moaning in her dreams.  She has no idea how much time has passed when her
eyes suddenly flash open.  She hears a thump in the next room over. 
She hadn’t heard the door open, or Harley’s imposing boot steps, so her nerves
have officially sky-rocketed again.

Deciding to err on the side of caution, she escapes the tub
and wraps herself in a towel without making to dry herself.  The room has
lost its steam and the water has cooled, so there’s no telling how long she’s
been asleep; though the deep wrinkles on her fingers and toes suggest it was
for a while.

When she inspects the door, she notices how it creeks open
and remains held ajar, just a crack.  She hears the front door click shut
and a wave of air opens hers even further yet.  She listens carefully, but
she can’t hear anything until heavy boots step slowly across the wooden
floor. 

Someone is in the house!

Biting a lip, she turns the door handle and closes the door,
without pressing the lock.  She doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s
onto them.  She rushes across the room, on tip toe, and is startled by her
discovery.  She covers her mouth to muffle her shriek.

Any thought of Harley being the person in the other room is
immediately stifled by the greasy handprint pressed onto the other side of the
window.  Lucky for her the window was locked.  There’s no saying what
might of happened if it hadn’t been.

Aliah presses her lips together, trying to calm her
trembling limbs, that shake partly from the cold but mostly because she’s
terrified for her life.  She eases the window open, pausing half way to
take a breath and listen whether anyone has heard her.  Satisfied that no
one has, she peers out the window, praying that she doesn’t have any company.

The back yard is dark, but there’s no one there.  She
looks down.  The ground has got to be a good ten feet from where she is,
and there’s a good sized rose bush decorating the house beneath her. 
There’s a trellis on the wall, a mere five feet away, and it has crushed roses
and broken stems hanging from it.  That only confirms her theory that the
man inside the house didn’t enter under lawful circumstances.