Call Me Cat (Call Me Cat Trilogy #1)(36)

She pressed for details, but I evaded her questions and hung up, ready to renew my moping for a few more pathetic hours. Cat had broken up with Ash. I'd explained it in the note, told him to move on, that I couldn't cross this line of meeting a client in person, that he should reconnect with the other girl in his life.

Self-serving? Perhaps, but it was my last hope.

But while he tried to call Cat every night, he never reached out to Catelyn. When I saw Jon on campus, he made polite conversation but would sulk and walk away if I brought up Ash.

A week came and went, and I was due to start back at The Pleasure Palace, but I begged off for a few more days, unwilling to give other men what I wanted to give Ash alone. I knew I risked my job and future, but the whole thing made me sick to my stomach. School suffered, I didn't sleep or eat and Bridgette started giving me those lingering worried looks that annoyed the hell out of me.

"Why don't you just reach out to him? Invite him to coffee? Anything is better than this moping miserable Catelyn."

"I can't. I don't even know how to reach him."

She closed her textbook and scooted her desk chair to face my bed, which I refused to move from. "I can help with that. I'll get you his number."

"If I call him, he'll recognize my voice," I said. And I realized the fatal error in my plan even as Brig said it.

"If you want him, you'll eventually have to talk to him on the phone. You can't keep it a secret forever. You should have met him that night and gotten it over with."

And she was right. I couldn't live my whole life not talking on the phone to him if we ever did end up together. Maybe enough time would pass and he'd forget about Cat's voice and just think about mine.

So I waited. And hoped. And tried to study.

And one day all of my patience paid off.

Bridgette and I had gone back to her parents' house for a long weekend at the end of January when a package arrived for me.

"Who's it from?" Brig asked.

I opened the card first, and smiled my first real smile in a month. "It's from him! He's invited me to dinner tomorrow night."

I handed her the card and opened the box. My heart thumped hard in my chest as I battled with my own feelings. He'd sent a dress that looked exactly like the one I'd pretended to wear as Cat in Greece. Deep blue that turned to a swirl of white and blue at the hem, like surf. Did this mean he knew the truth? Or that he really wanted Cat and he was settling for Catelyn?

I held up the dress and Bridgette whistled. "It doesn't matter why he picked that dress. You're wearing it, and you're going, and I don't want to hear another word about it. He invited you, Catelyn. Not Cat."

She was right. This was my chance to set things right with Ash, and I couldn't let my own insecurities interfere.

For the first time since my alter ego broke up with Ash, I didn't cry myself to sleep. And it had been over a month since my stalker had texted or called. Life was looking up, even if the police still had no leads on the killer.

***

The next twenty-four hours limped along painfully. I couldn't focus in class, and I nearly broke my ass slipping on ice several times while walking through campus, distracted by inner turmoil over my date that night.

I wasn't going to back out, though. And if he knew about Cat, which seemed unlikely, then I would deal with it. If he didn't know, then Cat could stay gone forever and we could build something new, something untarnished by that part of me.

He'd given me an unfamiliar address for our date, and I'd assumed it was a restaurant, but when I arrived, I only saw abandoned buildings and an alley that had seen better days. The sun was setting, bringing the temperature down as it did. I parked Bridgette's car and checked the note against the street addresses again. Using caution in heels too high for me, I walked up and down the street, thinking maybe there was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant or cafe hidden somewhere here. Those places existed and sometimes were the best food ever. I could see Ash enjoying that kind of dining experience, but I found nothing like that.

Something clattered in the alley to my left, and I turned to investigate, but saw nothing. Probably just a cat.

My phone buzzed and for a moment I thought it was Ash, clarifying directions, but I remembered he didn't have my cell number. It had been too risky to give it to him. When I checked the text, I froze.

Gullible girls deserve what they get.

Someone wrapped their arm around me, covering my mouth with a rag. I inhaled something chemical and my body collapsed.

The world sunk in on itself until everything went black.





Chapter Thirty One


An Enemy in Our Midst


I WOKE IN pain and unable to move. At first I thought I was blindfolded, but then realized it was too dark to tell if my eyes were opened or closed. It took a moment for panic to set in, as if my brain and body had disconnected from each other. I observed my circumstances as if watching a movie or reading a book. My wrists stung from a thin wire binding them behind my back. My feet had the same wire wrapped around them, digging into my skin and securing them to a chair. Someone had shoved a ball gag into my mouth, the leather strap tugging at my hair, gagging me in a way that made my jaw ache.

My head felt groggy and I knew I'd been drugged with something to get me here.

When the panic finally hit, I wasn't prepared, and it ran through me like acid in my blood. I tried to scream but choked on my own tongue. When I struggled, the wire cut into me and blood trickled down my ankles and hands. I could hear nothing but the beating of my own heart. Feel nothing but the pain in my body and the terror in my bones.