Follow Me(38)

“What?” she said, kohl-rimmed eyes going wide. “No, I don’t know. What thing with what guy outside your window?”

Briefly, I recounted the shock of finding someone peering through my apartment window. To my surprise, Lena didn’t look horrified—instead, she nodded knowingly.

“That’s the worst. I lived in an English basement when I first moved to DC, too. Once I forgot to close my curtains and woke up to find some perv literally jerking off on the other side of my window.”

“Gross. What did you do?”

“Closed the curtains and called the police. First things first, right? Then I signed up for a self-defense class.” She curled her pale lips into a proud smile. “Ask me how to break a nose.”

“That’s a great idea,” I said as wheels began to turn in my head. A self-defense class would help me feel less helpless, sure, but think of the content! Instagram Stories from a lively, empowering class—I could recruit Cat to help with the filming; me wearing this cute new Outdoor Voices workout set I’d been looking for an excuse to buy and adding swipe-up affiliate links; a serious post and perhaps some videos about the scourge of violence against women and opportunities to take action.

Take that, I thought to the stranger outside my window. You think you’re going to take advantage of me? I’m going to monetize the hell out of you.

Lena interrupted my thoughts with a low groan. “Don’t look now, but here comes Lecherous Larry.”

“Who?” I asked, looking around the lobby, expecting to see the usual creep, but he wasn’t there. Neither was anyone else who looked particularly unsavory. I glanced back at her and realized with a start that she was looking at Lawrence, who was heading toward us with a coffee in his hand, wearing the orange shirt I’d helped select.

“You mean Lawrence?”

“I can’t stand that guy. He’s so grabby,” she muttered, while smiling at him as he approached. “Hi, Lawrence.”

“Ladies,” he said, dropping into the chair beside mine and throwing an arm across my seat back. “How’s the day treating you?”

“No complaints,” I said. “At least, not now that I have this caffeine.”

“We should really get back to work,” Lena said, standing abruptly. “Come on, Audrey.”

I could feel Lena’s pointed stare even without looking at her, and I was baffled. Lawrence had never been anything other than friendly to me. He’d certainly never been “grabby.” But I didn’t want a scene in the lobby, and I actually did need to get back to work, so I rose to follow her and offered Lawrence an apologetic smile. “See you around.”

He waved languidly, but then looked up as if suddenly remembering something. “Oh, Audrey? Your friend is here.”

“My friend?” I repeated, surprised. Cat was here? Had we had a coffee date that I’d forgotten about?

“You know the one,” he said, smirking slightly. “President of your fan club.”

My stomach churned. I felt unsafe at home; I shouldn’t have to feel unsafe at work, too. A self-defense class was exactly what I needed.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN





HIM


I couldn’t get the post out of my mind. You can watch them all the time.

All the time.

The allure of having access to her even when she was alone, even when she wanted to remain private, was hard to ignore. I knew that installing a remote administration tool—or the RAT, as they called it—on her computer was an inappropriate thing to do, but I had lost all sense of reason when it came to Audrey. Her thin, flawless fingers had burrowed an opening in my skin, and she had slipped into my bloodstream whole. She coursed through my body; every heartbeat echoed her name. I couldn’t even close my eyes without seeing her perfect face carved into the backs of my eyelids.

Midway through another sleepless night, the siren song of the forums became too insistent to be ignored. I grabbed my laptop and logged on, refusing to admit my intentions to myself even as I navigated straight to the “All Access” thread in the VIP forum.

All the time. I could see what she was doing that very minute. My fingers itched, scrolling quickly through all seventy-six responses, looking for the pertinent information. Maybe it was the lack of sleep catching up with me, or maybe it was simple depravity, but I found myself nodding along as I read. Installing the RAT began to seem reasonable. After all, it wouldn’t hurt Audrey in any way. She would never even know.

Besides, Audrey shared so much of herself online. She invited this. She wanted it.

It seemed so simple. All I had to do was download the desktop program onto my computer, and then have Audrey download another program onto hers. Once both were in place, I could control Audrey’s computer remotely. I could look through files, view her screen, and, most important, turn on her camera and microphone so I could observe her in real time.

Simple, maybe, but far from easy. Everything was predicated on convincing Audrey to download the program, and she was far too savvy to fall for some amateur attempt at spam. Navigating this would be like walking a high wire, where any misstep could prove fatal. If Audrey recognized the attempt to gain access for what it was, or even just recognized it as something suspicious, and was able to connect it to me, everything would be lost. All the stars in our universe could align and there still wouldn’t be any help for me then.