A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(37)

Of all her followers, only he knew what was going on, and it connected them both by an intangible thread.

But even knowing why she wasn’t posting anything, even though he had talked to her twice, seeing that the last post was a day old made his heart squeeze, his hands becoming clammy. A million invisible ants crawling on his skin. He imagined that was what heroin addicts felt like when they needed their next fix. No wonder they would do anything, anything to make it stop. If he could give blow jobs to strangers just to see Gabrielle post again, he would. It would be a small price to pay.

He scrolled down her history, a trip down memory lane, and paused on her best posts. His own virtual methadone.

That one morning when her smile seemed to be aimed only at him. That day at the swimming pool, her hair fluttering in the wind. New Year’s 2019, when she’d blown a kiss to the lens, to him, thanking all of her followers.

A quick swipe with the finger, dozens of Gabrielles flashing across his screen. Smiling, pouting, dancing, kissing. The feed stopped on the post of her hugging her brother. Both of them in Nathan’s room, the caption reading, In my brother’s man cave. When I get my dream house, it’ll have a room for him just like this one.

And her fans had reacted with heart emojis and gushing platitudes. None of them had realized it was a request.

No one but him. And for him, every wish she made was his command.

He closed the Instagram account and opened the photo gallery to scroll through his private collection of her photos, finally finding his favorite series from the photo shoot during the 2017 road trip. Standing in the forest, the mist around her like a veil. In two of the images she was out of focus, and in one, she was about to blink, and one eyelid was half shut. But the rest were a tapestry of perfection. He swiped through them one at a time, the tension seeping away from his body.

Finally, the pain diminished; the restlessness lessened. He put down the phone, turned on the engine, drove back to the cabin.

Maybe tonight he would eat with the boy. After all, in the future they would become a family. There was no reason for Nathan to eat alone in the room. He’d gotten them some Chinese food. He wasn’t sure if Nathan liked Chinese, but the kid couldn’t sustain himself on pizza and burgers.

He left the city behind him, the traffic becoming sparser. Finally turning down the long gravel road leading to the cabin. He shivered as he stepped out of the car; it was a chilly night. Entering the warm cabin was an instant relief.

He walked over to the locked room, turned the key, and opened the door. To his surprise, the boy wasn’t in bed or sitting by the desk. The door hid the left side of the room, and he stepped inside, glancing around.

Movement, spotted from the corner of his eye. Time slowed down as he turned, trying to react. The boy stepped forward, swinging something that whistled as it tore through the air.

And then a blinding pain in his knee.





CHAPTER 24


Nathan hesitated for a fraction of a second.

The hours he’d spent imagining this moment and practicing his swing had helped. But in his imagination, the man’s face was twisted with malice. He was a monster in human flesh. Instead, the man walking through the door smiled, holding a bag of takeout. His nose was red from the cold.

So when Nathan took the swing, he didn’t do it as hard and fast as he could. The steel bar connected with the man’s leg, the shock vibrating through Nathan’s palms, nearly making him drop it.

The man’s face changed. He was no longer smiling. Nathan saw the burning rage and pain in the man’s eyes, heard his snarl.

The scream that left Nathan’s lungs was pure terror as he swung the bar a second time, hitting harder this time—and lower. The man toppled to the floor, roaring in agony.

Nathan took another swing, aiming at the man’s chest. The man’s hand moved so fast it was a blur. The rod hit it, the man screaming as his fingers gripped the metal. And with one swift pull, he yanked the rod away from Nathan.

Nathan bolted through the open door, leaving the man hollering behind him. He stumbled down the hallway, breathing fast, panicky breaths, finding the front door. He tried to yank it open, and it rattled, staying shut. He grabbed the dead bolt, twisted it, could hardly make it move. Whimpering, he tried harder, heard the lock click, tried to open the door again. Nothing.

A second dead bolt high above his head. He stretched, stood on his tiptoes, could touch it with the tip of his finger.

The man wasn’t screaming anymore. Instead, he moaned in pain. Nathan glanced back down the hallway. No one was chasing him.

He needed a chair to stand on so he could reach the second dead bolt. He looked around him, noticed a small kitchen, a table, a white metal chair.

“Nathan!” the man roared. “Get back here, you little shit! I swear to god, if I need to chase you, you’ll regret it!”

Sobbing, Nathan lurched to the kitchen, grabbed the metal chair. Then his eyes went up to the wall, and he froze.

Gabi was smiling down at him.

It was an enormous picture of her; it took up almost the entire wall. Nathan couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. His sister appeared so happy in the picture, so calm. But there was something wrong in the image. A strangeness in the colors. Almost as if the picture was made of tiny square patches.

He took a step toward it, details swimming into focus. The picture was, in fact, a collage of dozens of smaller pictures. No, not dozens. Hundreds. And each one of those tiny pictures was also an image of Gabi. She was sitting in a restaurant, or in her bed, or outside in the street. In many of those pictures, there were friends. Nathan’s gut lurched. In some of the images, Gabrielle was naked.