“VIVI!” The panic in my voice is clear as I catch her before she can hit the ground.
I scoop her into my arms and carry her over to the couch, where I lay her down. I smooth the dark strands of hair back out of her face and softy whisper her name as I sit next to her. “Vivi? Can you hear me?”
The shock of what we’ve all just seen in the red velvet box still rolls through me, and the sight of it was too much for Vivi to handle, causing her to faint.
“Is she all right?” Beckett asks from behind me.
As he speaks, Vivi stirs, moving her head on the cushion while her eyes struggle to open.
“Hey,” I say as I breathe a sigh of relief. “You okay?”
She presses her fingers to her forehead. “What happened?”
“You fainted after you saw what was inside the box,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen, and she tries to sit up quickly as the memories flood back to her. I place a firm hand on her chest, not allowing her to sit up just yet. “Easy there. You need to take it easy.”
“We need to call the police!” She’s frantic, so I do my best to keep her calm.
“Beckett already called them. They’re on their way,” I tell her. “There’s nothing we can do but wait for them.”
The sound of a siren in the distance catches our attention, and both Beckett and I glance toward my open front door, where the box sits on the concrete.
The vision of what I saw inside flashes before my eyes, and a tremor of fear rolls down my spine.
“That shit is…fucked up,” Beckett says as he rubs the back of his neck. “I hope I didn’t mess up any evidence or whatever by touching it. Who the fuck would do something like this?”
I look up and lock my gaze on him. “One guess. There’s only one bitch crazy enough to do something this fucked up.”
Beckett shakes his head. “Annabell will not stop until she kills you, Z. This is some fatal attraction if-I-can’t-have-you-no-one-will type shit. We knew she was…well…insane before, but I didn’t expect her to go this far. She needs serious mental help.”
“Agreed, but unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to get it, and until she’s stopped, we all need to be on high alert because it seems her threats are serious.”
“No shit,” Beckett says. “She’s not even scared of getting caught if she’s willing to send you a bloody knife, a long red braid of hair, and a photo of Gia with her eyes gouged out and red colored all over her wrists.”
The flash of what else I saw in the box assaults my mind, and fear wraps around the inside of my chest and squeezes. If Annabell Rogers wanted to get to me, she’s accomplished it. Not only did the fucking murder box she sent me show she caused Gia Whitt’s death, but Vivi is her next intended target. The printed photo of Vivi’s face with a red circle drawn around it with an angry slash through it while her eyes have been poked out of the paper causes me to shudder. There’s only ever been one person who has sent me shit like this, and now it seems she’s upset by the idea of any other woman being in my life.
Beckett is right. This is some fucked-up shit, and to be honest, I’m fucking scared shitless, but I can’t show it. The thought of something happening to Vivi like it has Gia causes my eyes to burn, but I fight it back because I don’t want to upset Vivi any more than she already is.
“Hey,” Vivi’s sweet voice says as she sits up and rubs my back like she can tell what’s on my mind. “You okay?”
“Fuck no, I’m not okay. This bitch…she won’t fucking touch you, Vivi. I swear to God I’ll kill her before I let her get close to you,” I vow.
“She won’t get to me,” she tells me. “I know you’ll protect me.”
“And me too,” Beckett says, reminding me and Vivi of his presence. “We’ll turn our houses into fucking fortresses if we have to. That bitch cannot get this close again.”
I nod. “We need to upgrade security and put cameras all over this place.”
“On it,” Beckett says as he grabs his phone and begins scrolling.
Soon, cops have roped off my property and begin scouring my lawn for any additional evidence.
An older black man wearing a gray suit with a red tie, who introduced himself as Detective Kendal, sits across from me at my formal dining room table while he scribbles notes on a pad of paper. “Do you have any idea how anyone could infiltrate the gated community where your house is located?”
“It’s not exactly patrolled, so I’m sure if someone wanted to get in badly enough, they’d find a way. I wouldn’t put it past Annabell Rogers to scale a wall in order to get to my house if she wanted to get to me.”
He nods and then glances up from his notes. “When was the last time you had any contact with Gia Whitt?”
“The night I dropped her off after our last date at the premiere party for a television show she was working on.”
“What about you?” The detective directs his attention to Vivi, who is seated next to me.
Vivi’s plump lips pull into a tight line. “At work. The day before they found her…”
She trails off as I’m sure she doesn’t know how to define what has happened to Gia. As we all now know, it seems more than likely Gia didn’t kill herself but was murdered at the hands of an insane woman.
“And did you have any relationship with Gia Whitt, Mr. Bowman?”
Beckett straightens in his seat and then shakes his head. “I’d never met the woman—had only heard about her from these two.”
Detective Kendal clicks his pen and stuffs it into his shirt’s chest pocket before standing. “This is some good information, and I will get to work on tracking Miss Rogers down, but until we find her, I’m going to assign a post outside your house. If whoever it was attempts to return to your home, we’ll catch them.” He hands each one of them a business card. “If you think of anything else, call me.”
Once everyone has cleared out, I head to the kitchen, prepare a sandwich for Vivi and me, and carry it into the living room. Grabbing the remote, I flip on the last Harry Potter movie we’re in the middle of watching and do my best to help Vivi relax. I need her to feel safe with me because whether or not she knows it, she’s safe with me. I’ll give my own life to protect her, if that’s what it takes. Annabelle will not come near her. I’ll kill her myself if I have to, because no one will ever harm Vivi. No. One.
