Underestimated (31 page)

been there for me so many times, including that night when

my car decided to break down on the coldest day of the

year.

“Dawson?” I softly spoke, pulling away from his

lips.

“Riley?” He mimicked my tone. I smiled.

I turned my back and snuggled up to his chest. It

was easier for me to talk when I didn’t have to look at

him. He opened his hand, and I placed mine in his.

“You ask the questions,” I suggested. He knew

what I was talking about.

“Are you sure, Ry?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Um, okay. You’re here, so I presume you did get

into his office. Tell me how that came about.”

I was silent for a bit as I thought about that night. It

was the dead of summer and extremely hot out. I hadn’t

even been in the pool because the water wasn’t refreshing

at all. It felt like bath water, and the air outside was so

thick. Drew had come into my room after getting home late

and drunk.

“I’m not going to go into the details about that

because I will stop and want you to have sex with me,” I

told Dawson.

“That’s okay. I have a pretty good idea how it

went, and truth be known, I hate to hear about the things

that he did to you,” Dawson said, kissing my head.

“He didn’t leave my bed that night. He stayed all

night and until noon the next day. He had never done that.

He held me in his arms, and we watched television

together while he did things to me, daring me to come. I

did of course, and had to spend an hour episode of

Criminal Minds over his lap. He watched the show and

would bring his hand in contact with my bare butt when I

least expected it. Finally, after he was bored with his

game and got off in my mouth, he got up. He gave me my

cellphone and told me that he was going out of town that

night.”

“He kept your phone?”

“Yes, unless he was leaving or I was out, and then

I was allowed to have it.”

Drew disappeared to his office, and I went into the

kitchen with Rebecca. She gave me a look, knowing that I

had been tied up entertaining Drew all day.

“How much flour does that recipe say?” she asked,

nodding to the laptop on the bar.

I walked over to the bar and pulled my feet under

me and leaned on the counter. I looked up to her as soon as

I saw the quick note on the laptop.

“We have your identity. We need to start acting

now.”

I read and quickly closed it out when I caught a

glimpse of Drew coming. Rebecca was smart and did

have a recipe pulled up for some kind of cake she was

making.

“What are you doing in here?” Drew angrily

asked. I was sure that he saw me in one of his cameras. He

walked up to the laptop and looked at the recipe. He

dropped the window to see what was behind it. There was

nothing but the mountain wallpaper.

“I was just reading off this recipe for Rebecca.

She’s going to teach me to cook.”

“Why. You don’t need to know how to cook.”

“Because I have nothing else to do, and it’s like a

hundred degrees outside.”

“I don’t like you on the computer. You know that,”

he said. I was glad that he didn’t tell me that Rebecca

couldn’t teach me to cook.

“It’s only a recipe, Drew.”

He looked right to Rebecca. “I don’t have a

problem with it if you don’t mind me blocking your

internet,” he said to her.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t care. That

recipe is not on the internet. It’s from one of many

cookbooks that I have downloaded. I don’t need to be

online to access them.”

Drew turned the laptop away from me so that I

couldn’t see the password that he put into block all

internet access. He really was a stupid son of a bitch. I

knew every password he had. I had sat on his desk while

he did what he wanted with me so many times it was

pathetic. I knew as soon as he put it in he had typed, all my

love with no spaces. I often wondered what it meant. I

knew that it wasn’t about me. He never in the almost six

years that I was there hinted anything about love. He

turned the computer back to me and left without another

word.

I wished that Rebecca had said more about her

plan, but that was all that the note had said. We would be

alone that night because Drew would be gone.

“Wait,” Dawson said, interrupting my story again.

“What?” I asked, entwining my fingers with his.

“He left you and Rebecca alone?”

“Yeah, all the time. Why?”

“Why didn’t you both just leave?”

“It wasn’t that easy, Dawson. I wouldn’t have done

that anyway. Rebecca had stayed with me and took care of

me for almost six years. For one thing, she needed her

money when she left. I didn’t want her to be associated

with my leaving him at all. Not to mention he could log on

to his laptop anywhere in the world and go right to the

cameras. Every room in the house had cameras. He had

called me several times, and asked me things like how

was your bath, your snack, your swim. Once he called to

warn me that I was in trouble for going too far on the golf

cart. He couldn’t hear me when I drove the cart around,

but he could see where I went.”

I snickered a little. “That was when I called him

every name in the book.”

“How did you get into his office with all the

cameras? Didn’t he have one outside of his office?

“Yes he did, and Rebecca was an expert criminal.

She had really thought things through. I didn’t know how in

the world she expected us to get in there. I was scared

shitless”

I was sitting on the sofa after taking a bath, reading

when all of the lights in the house went off. I didn’t know

where Rebecca was, and wondered what was going on.

My cellphone rang, and I answered it right away, seeing

that it was Drew.

“What the hell is going on there?” he angrily

asked.

“I’m not sure. All of the lights just went off.”

Rebecca called from the kitchen. “Powers out.”

“Rebecca said the power must be out.” No sooner

did I say that, the lights were back on.

“They’re back on,” I said.

“Don’t hang up until I see for myself,” he

demanded.

I waited, and it took three minutes for the cameras

to reset so that he could see me. I just knew Rebecca was

behind it.

Drew hung up without another word. I went back

to my book, wishing that I could talk to Rebecca without

him hearing. What the hell was she up to?

Another thirty minutes or so went by when the

lights mysteriously went out again, and this time Drew

called Rebecca. I listened to the one sided conversation

from the kitchen. Rebecca told him that she had already

called the power company. She did… about ten times. She

too knew Drew, and knew that he would call them too.

She wanted the power company to tell him that they had

several calls already.

I was so confused when I finally turned in. I never

talked to Rebecca again, and the power had only been out

a short time again.

I was sound asleep when Rebecca quickly came

into my room. I jumped when I felt the tickle of something

soft. It was pitch black again, and the light that usually cast

a soft, dim light through my window was out too.

“Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

“Rebecca, what the hell are you doing?”

“We’re going into Drew’s office. The lights are

going to come back on any minute. Get up!”

I got up, and she moved the pillows under the

cover and placed the blonde wig on my pillow. My heart

was beating a million miles a minute. She was going to get

us both killed.

We had just gotten the door closed when the lights

came back on. “How the hell are you turning the lights on

and off?” I wanted to know.

She ran right to the computer and moved the

mouse, bringing the sleeping computer to life. “Ms. K is

taking care of it. I didn’t ask questions. I just know how

long we have. What’s the password to log on?” she asked,

sitting in his chair.

I couldn’t think. I had seen him put in that

password a hundred times, and it wasn’t coming to me.

“Come on, Morgan!” Rebecca pleaded.

“Ten karat 4,” I yelled in a loud whisper. I didn’t

know why I was whispering. I knew that the office had no

cameras.

I watched while Rebecca pulled up different

accounts. When she finally found the one that she was

looking for, I stopped her and told her not to take it from

that one because he would miss it. I told her to pull up the

one in Florence because that was the one he was least

involved in. She did, and of course it was password

protected. I went through all of the passwords that I could

think of, and it was finally the last one that I could

remember.

“What the hell are you doing? You can’t move that

much money,” I said when I watched her move seventeen

thousand dollars into Lisa Fitzgerald’s account.

“I already did,” she said hitting approve

transaction.

“Who the hell is Lisa Fitzgerald?” I asked.

“Nobody. If he traces it back he will hit a brick

wall,” she said logging off.

She ran back to my room and took the blonde hair

with her. Five minutes later the power was miraculously

restored. I pretended to move a little when the light from

outside came into my window.

I freaked a little when my cellphone rang.

Fuck…

I didn’t answer right away and feigned sleep. I

looked around the room dazed and groggy, trying to put on

a good show for Drew. I sat up and reached my phone.

“Why the fuck, aren’t you answering your phone?”

he yelled.

“I did answer,” I said. I didn’t know that he had

called while I was in his office.

“I called you three times.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear it. Rebecca gave me

something for a headache earlier. She said it was Tylenol

pm. I must not have heard it. Did you want something?

What time is it?” I was proud of the quick sleeping aid

response.

“Why the hell does the power keep going out

there?”

“Was it out again?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

“Forget it, go back to bed,” he said and hung up.

I laid the phone down and pretended to go right

back to being sound asleep. I was far from it though. My

mind reeled like mad. Rebecca was going to get us both

killed. What the hell was she up to? This couldn’t possibly

work. Could it? The excitement that we may just get away

with it made me think about a life. A real life without

Drew. Where would I live? Would I have neighbors? I

wondered if I would ever be able to be with another man.

Probably not, not for a long time anyway. What kind of job

could I get? I’d never had a job in my life, other than

babysitting my little brother and my cousins back home.

I lay awake not moving for hours thinking about

being free from Drew. I kept my eyes closed and didn’t

move, afraid that Drew was watching me, wherever he

was. I knew I would endure some of his tedious crap when

he got back, but I didn’t care at the moment. I was too

excited.

When Drew arrived back home three days later, I

was terrified. I tried to hide it as best I could, but I just

knew he had found the missing money. I was reading a

book in a chaise lounge by the pool when he opened the

door and told me to follow him into his office. It was

fairly early, not even noon yet. My heart sank. He knew.

I got up and wrapped a towel around my body and

followed him to his office. Rebecca winked a hang in

there wink.

“Should I skip this part?” I stopped and looked

back at Dawson, asking if he wanted me to skip the bad.

He caught my cheek with his lips.

“No. I’m okay. You can continue,” he replied,

rubbing my arm.

I knew that I would be spending my day in Drew’s

office while he worked. Once I knew that he didn’t know

about the missing money, I relaxed and was glad to be

spending the day with him. I planned on paying more

attention to his conversations and what was on the screen

of his computer if I got that close.