Follow Me(66)

If it wasn’t me, though, who could it have been? I’d initially thought it was Ryan, but my unknown guest had stood silent for nearly an hour, and I’d never seen Ryan remain still for more than a half second. Maybe if he had been super-stoned? It was hard to believe him leaving without taking anything, though. Then I’d wondered about Lawrence. After all, he had been upset with me that day, and I still suspected he was the one who had left me the orange flowers. But why would he break into my apartment and then just stand there? It didn’t make sense.

Could it be Brandon from the museum? Or Eric the bartender? He’d seemed laser-focused on me the night of Lena’s birthday, and I wondered if he had been the one to follow Cat and me home from the bar. Or what if it was someone else entirely, someone I didn’t even know? I kept thinking back to an evening last year when Izzy had come charging into our apartment, cheeks flushed and angry.

“Some girl outside just shouted ‘Hey, Izzy’ at me,” she said, flinging her oversized Tory Burch bag down on the couch.

“So?” I asked, looking up from my laptop, where I was editing some photos.

“So I don’t like the idea of random people knowing who I am and where I live just because you overshare online.”

“How do you know this has anything to do with me?”

“Be serious, Audrey,” she’d said, casting a withering look at me. “I work in finance and keep all my social media accounts private. Random twenty-year-old girls carrying fake designer bags aren’t going to know who I am . . . unless they’ve seen me on your posts.”

“Again, I say ‘so’? What do you think that girl’s going to do, other than shout your name a few times?”

“Just because she’s not dangerous doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t. People know where we live, Audrey. It isn’t safe.”

I had rolled my eyes and told her she was overreacting, but what if she was right? What if I had been too careless with my personal information, and someone was using it against me? What if the creep who had peered through my window, left those headless flowers, and been caught on the recording was a stranger? Or, more terrifying, what if it was three strangers, all of whom had found me because of what I posted?

“Audrey?” Max asked, breaking into my thoughts. “You seem like you’re someplace else.”

I caught my bottom lip with my teeth, scraping away some of the gloss. I wanted to tell Max about what I’d heard, confess how frightened it made me. There was something about him that made me feel as though I could confide in him; I knew he wouldn’t blow me off like Nick had, so quick to tell me it was nothing, or get overly dramatic about things like Cat had. I knew he wouldn’t give me a lecture about privacy or calling the police, as I was certain my sister would.

But that was just a feeling. I trusted my intuition about people, but I didn’t really know Max. What if it was too much for him? I mean, I wouldn’t blame him for walking away. What kind of person would want to date someone who was in the midst of being stalked? Or who shared so much online that random strangers might be creeping into her bedroom at night?

I opened my mouth, prepared to say something safe about being distracted by the wood-burning oven on display, but the lie stuck in my throat and suddenly I heard myself saying, “Have you ever used a sleep tracker?”

“A what?”

“A sleep tracker. It’s this app you can use to monitor your sleeping habits.” I paused, debating whether I should tell him the full truth or only say that I heard myself talking in my sleep, turn it into a funny anecdote. I met Max’s soft eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ve been using one, and I think I may have captured someone breaking into my apartment.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Needless to say, I’m a little freaked out.”

“What happened? Tell me you weren’t home at the time.”

“I was, actually,” I said with a grimace. “I slept through the whole thing, which is why I can only say that I think someone was breaking in.”

“Nothing was taken?”

You’re dreaming.

I shuddered and shook my head. “No, that’s the really weird part. It sounds like whoever it was just . . . stood there, watching me sleep.”

Max’s eyes widened so much I could see the whites all around his irises. “That’s straight out of a nightmare. Are you okay?”

“I mean . . .” I trailed off, unwilling to say no, I’m not okay even though it was the truth. “Here’s the thing: I don’t use the app every night. So this apparently happened a couple of weeks ago, but I just listened to the recording today. And now I can’t stop wondering if this has happened other times. What if someone has been in my apartment more than that—what if they’re in there regularly—and it’s only by chance that I heard it this once?”

“God,” he muttered, rubbing his hand with his mouth. “You’re not still staying there, right?”

“Cat said I could sleep at her place, but I don’t know. She’s been so busy with work lately, even more than usual. I mean, you know how she is.”

“She can be intense, I know, but, Audrey, you can’t stay in that apartment. Not until the police have caught this creep.”

I turned my attention to my Negroni, rattling the ice in the glass. “I haven’t called the police.”