Liar (Madison Kate #2)(97)
The boys drove me home in silence, everyone exhausted from a long-ass night, and I let myself doze off a couple of times in the backseat with my head propped on Kody's shoulder.
It wasn't until Steele stopped the car in front of our decorative iron gates with that ostentatious, monogramed “D” that I yawned and sat up.
"Why are we stopped?" I asked, my voice thick with sleep as I blinked focus into my eyes. The gates had rolled open on their automatic motor, but our car wasn't moving. Steele and Archer just sat there staring ahead like they'd seen a ghost.
Neither of them replied, but Archer released a heavy sigh and got out of the car. He walked around in front of the hood and stooped to pick something up, making my stomach drop to my feet.
Fucking stalker mail.
Like that was what I needed after a night in the hospital recovering from a drug overdose.
He got back into the car without a word, the large box on his lap, and Steele continued up our long driveway to the house. We all made our way inside, taking seats in the den where the comfiest couches were located, and Archer set the box on the coffee table.
No one spoke. We all just stared at the fucking thing like we expected it to grow legs and start doing the moonwalk down the length of the table.
"You gonna open it?" Kody asked after a few minutes, raising a brow at Archer. I don't know why he was being nominated, but I was just glad it wasn't me.
Archer cocked a brow at me, but I just shrugged and snuggled closer into Kody's side as he wrapped his arm around me. The box was a lot bigger than my previous stalker mail, so I had to assume it contained more than just a Barbie doll and some photos. Hopefully it was nothing dead this time. I'd had enough death in the past twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime.
But Archer reached into the box, looking resigned, and pulled out a replica black '67 Impala... just like Steele's car that we'd driven to the fight and the party. Just like the one that I'd been stuffed into the trunk of when I was overdosing on a drug ten times more lethal than heroin.
"Let me guess," I drawled—or tried to because my voice was still all rough and painful, "there’s something in the trunk, isn’t there?"
Archer flicked the little latch and lifted the mini trunk lid, revealing another Barbie doll all squished up to fit in the small space. Shocker.
"Well, at least we know who was responsible for Drew's death," Steele commented, having reached into the box and pulled out the stack of photographs there. There was one of Drew and me standing near the pool table and seeming to talk in a friendly way while Kody and Dallas stared at the pool table. Then another of Drew at the bar, talking to a rough-looking guy with a Wraith’s tattoo on his neck. Then another of her dropping something into one of the two drinks the bartender placed in front of her. The last two photos were what made bile rise in my throat and my hands start to tremble.
One was me—totally out of it with my eyes just narrow slits—curled up in Steele's trunk. The fucker must have taken it before locking me in there.
The other was of Drew, dead, lying in a pool of her own blood with a gaping wound across her throat. Her lifeless eyes stared up at me from the paper, accusing, and I knew it was an image I'd never be rid of.
Steele pulled out a small digital recorder from the box and clicked play before I could even think of an objection. I braced myself, expecting to hear my stalker's voice. But then... that'd be stupid. One thing my stalker most definitely was not was stupid.
Instead it was Drew's voice that had been recorded—Drew and a guy I didn't recognize, but had to assume was the Wraith in the photo. None of us reacted as Drew's conversation filled the room, laughing with the guy as she detailed her plan. She was so casual as she told him what to do to me after the roofies knocked me on my ass. She'd even arranged a distraction to separate me from Kody and Dallas, so it was going to be, in her words, too easy.
I shuddered as the recording ended, and Kody's arm tightened around me like an iron band.
On the back of the image of me—the one where I was drugged out of my fucking mind and half-dead with a bloody nose—my stalker's familiar handwriting delivered a message I'd never fucking forget.
Be. More. Careful.
"This is..." I croaked, swallowing to try and clear my voice. "This is too much right now. I think I need to sleep or something."
Steele nodded, gathering all the creepy shit up and dumping it back into the box it’d come in. "We should get this all to the police anyway," he commented, giving Archer a pointed look.
The brooding asshole just gave a shrug. "For all the fucking help they've been, sure." He shifted his attention to Kody. "Take Princess Danvers up to her room and make sure she doesn't fucking faint or something. I'm going to run another security check and make sure none of our feeds have been hacked again."
"Yes, boss," Kody agreed, scooping me up in his arms as he stood, like I was his damsel in distress. As much as I hated feeling so helpless, this time I really had been. All the self-defense classes in the world couldn't protect me against my own stupidity.
Kody took his task seriously, helping me when I declared I needed to shower before I could get into bed. I was so weak with the aftereffects of all the drugs in my system that I couldn't do anything except lean against the vanity while he stripped me down and placed me in the shower.