Chapter 144

A week passed without Jeffrey and me gathering any useful information against Bob. He hardly went to the apartment, and the routes his car took matched his campaign schedule and everyday activities. I almost grew bored checking the apps on a regular basis.

Then one day, I decided to check the footage from the previous day before I left the mansion to check in on Ever After Weddings. I told Terri that I would be there around lunchtime, and I still had plenty of time to kill before I needed to leave. Spying on Bob seemed as productive an activity as anything else I could do at that moment.

The video seemed to be the same as before, an empty room with nothing going on, until Bob entered the apartment at 2:00 p.m. Soon after, he started looking around the room, as though searching for something. He checked every corner, threw open every drawer, and even turned over the cushions of his couch.

Suddenly, he stopped his search and stared directly at the camera.

My heart raced. My palms grew clammy. I could not tear my eyes away from the screen.

I felt certain that Bob had discovered at least one of the cameras. How could he not when he was looking right at it? Had Jeffrey put it in that obvious a spot?

I gripped my phone tightly as he continued to watch the camera.

After two minutes of this stare-down, Bob ripped his eyes from the camera and walked out of sight. I scrubbed through the footage, and he did not return for the remainder of the video.

I let out a small sigh of relief. If he didn’t do anything with the camera, maybe he hadn’t seen it after all.

I closed the app and stuck my phone in my purse. No need to alert Jeffrey to this potential breach, yet.

I finished collecting my things, walked to the mansion’s front door, and grabbed my keys off the hook nearby. I stopped when I noticed something right under my keys fall off the rack. I stared at it and realized that it was a Post-It Note.

Curious, I bent over and picked up the yellow sticky note. On it were written the words:

Crystal,

DO NOT START YOUR CAR.

My heart nearly stopped. Images of the note I found when I was being stalked flashed through my mind, along with the glass in my sandwich.

Where did this note come from? Who left it? Should I take it seriously?

I didn’t recognize the handwriting in the note. All I knew was that it wasn’t Andrew’s, and that was enough to make my blood run cold.

In my anxiety, I crumpled the note in my hand.

“Jeffrey!” I called out.

Jeffrey was immediately by my side. I wasn’t sure where he had come from, but at that moment, I didn’t really care.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I need you to check my car.”

I held the balled-up note out to him. He took it and smoothed it out before reading its contents. His eyes widened.

“That would be wise.”

• * *

Jeffrey spent over an hour inspecting my Civic. He wanted to check every inch of it, he claimed, just in case. There was more than just a possible cut break line at risk.

I called Terri and informed her that I would not be coming in after all. When she asked why, I told her that I was having car troubles; not the entire truth, but enough of it that I didn’t feel guilty telling her that.

I wrung my hands nervously as I waited for Jeffrey in the mansion’s foyer. There was nothing else that I could do, besides hope that he would come back and tell me that everything was clear.

As soon as I heard the front door open, I turned to find Jeffrey walking in, sweaty, greasy, and missing his suit jacket. In his hands, he held my worst fear: a silver car bomb.

“Why are you bringing that in here?” I said, my voice squeaking.

“Don’t worry, I disarmed it,” he said a little too casually for my liking. He turned the device over in his hands, and I squirmed at the sight. “What we should be worrying about is who put this in there and who tried to warn you about it.”

“I know who did it,” I declared. “It was Bob, no question about it—or someone that Bob hired to do it.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?”

I hesitated before pulling my phone out of my purse. I brought up the app for the cameras in Bob’s apartment.

“Look.”

I showed Jeffrey the video from the day before. His brows furrowed as he watched it. He nodded to himself as it finished.

“He’s discovered the cameras.” He looked from me to the bomb and back again. “Any ideas on who left the note?”

My mind swam as I tried to process everything.

Who left the note? How did they know what was going to happen? Why would they try to warn me?

“I…don’t know,” I replied. “Did you recognize the handwriting?”

“I think I have an idea.” Jeffrey sniffed the note. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this was Lisa’s handwriting and scent.”

“You think that Lisa knew what Bob was doing and tried to warn me?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Never would I have expected Lisa to care enough about my safety to go against Bob’s wishes like this.

“I think so,” Jeffrey replied. “Hopefully, she won’t get too wrapped up in all this once we call the cops.”

My eyes widened, and I shook my head emphatically.

“No, no police.”

“What do you mean? They’ll be able to trace it back to Bob—”

“Will they, though? Bob might have hired someone else to put the bomb in my car. Then it’ll end up just like when I was kidnapped and thrown to the vamp—”

I halted midsentence. I had not told Jeffrey, or anyone, that I had suspected Bob of being behind my kidnapping. I just hoped that Jeffrey wouldn’t put together what I was saying.

“What are you saying? Was Bob behind your kidnapping?”

I mentally cursed myself. Of course, Jeffrey figured it out. He wasn’t stupid.

“It doesn’t matter. The police weren’t able to trace things back to him then, and I’m sure that they won’t be able to do it now, no matter what evidence we give them. He’s too powerful.”

Jeffrey rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb.

“Are you at least going to tell Andrew?”

I didn’t respond.

“Crystal, you are going to tell Andrew, right?”

I shook my head again.

“I don’t want to get anyone involved, especially with so little evidence.”

Jeffrey furrowed his brow.

“You need to tell someone—”

“No, I don’t.”

“Wasn’t the whole point of the cameras and the tracking device to prove that Bob had put a bomb in Lisa’s car?”

I nodded.

“Well, this is as close as we’re going to get now,” he continued. “We are going to tell someone.”

“I said no, Jeffrey!”