Capturing Tess, page 5
But she’d expected that. And it was no obstacle to her. When she was in foster care, she’d been shipped from home to home. Many of those homes had been unpleasant, to say the least. She’d picked up some unusual habits just to survive.
Along with some unusual skills. And when the parents at one of her foster homes insisted on locking their foster children in their bedrooms every day from dusk till dawn to keep them out of trouble?
Tess had learned how to escape with nothing but a hairpin.
She pulled one from her hair. She’d already practiced on some of the other doors in the mansion when no one was looking. The old locks had been easy to pick.
Fortunately, the lock on Ava’s door was no different. After less than a minute, Tess felt the telltale release of the lock.
Got it! She glanced back down the hall. There was no sign of Ava or anyone else. She opened the door and stepped carefully into the study. It was empty, just as she’d expected, the modem blinking away on the cabinet, the monitor on the desk black.
Tess rounded the desk and jiggled the mouse, waking up the screen. Yes! The computer was still logged in. Was Ava so used to living alone that she didn’t think about locking her computer?
Tess wasn’t going to question her luck. She took a seat in the large leather desk chair and opened up a browser, logging into her messaging account. She had it all planned out. She would get a message to a friend asking them to send the police to come get her.
There was one problem with her plan. Tess didn’t know where she was. All she could say was she’d been kidnapped by a strange woman and taken to an island in the middle of nowhere that wasn’t on any maps. Even if someone believed her, what could they do with that information? How would they find her?
But it was the best plan she had. She needed to try.
Finally, the messaging app loaded. At once, she was flooded with a week’s worth of messages, all from people asking her where she was. She didn’t have any family or many friends, so they were mostly from her coworkers, who had grown worried when she hadn’t shown up from work.
And there were several from Cherry herself, which started off mildly concerned, but slowly became angrier and angrier as time passed. Her latest message said that if Tess didn’t turn up to work tomorrow, she wouldn’t have a job any longer.
“Great, now I have to find another job.” That was, if she ever got out of this mess.
But what had Ava said that night in the car? “Once this is over, none of that will matter.”
What did she mean?
The computer chimed as a new message came through. It was from Ashley.
“Hello? Tess? I can see you’re online.”
Right. She was supposed to be trying to contact someone to help her. Why not Ashley?
She began typing out a message urging Ashley to send help. But before she could finish it, a panicked reply appeared on the screen.
“Where the hell are you? I’ve been worried sick. And Cherry is so close to firing you. Are you okay? You never miss work. We all thought you’d died or something!”
“I’m fine,” Tess reassured her. “I haven’t died, at least.”
“What does that mean? Are you in trouble?
Another message popped up on the screen.
“Is this about those guys who came looking for you?”
Tess’s stomach dropped. She erased what she’d written. “What guys? When?”
“They came into the diner yesterday. There were two of them. Big guys dressed in black, ugly as hell. Looked like they could handle themselves.”
Were those the men who had followed Tess home that night? It sure sounded like it.
“What did they want?” she sent.
“To know where you are. They asked everyone about you. Whether we’d heard from you, where we thought you’d gone, if you had any friends or relatives you might be staying with. They said they were with the police, but they weren’t wearing uniforms. They didn’t look like any cops I’ve ever seen. And Cherry seemed scared of them. It was really shady.”
Tess’s stomach dropped. Were those men connected to the police somehow? Were they cops themselves? Then why had they chased Tess down that night? Or had they only pretended to be cops to get her coworkers to talk?
Tess didn’t know what to believe. But she was sure of one thing. Ava had been right all along. Tess was in real danger. She couldn’t risk trusting the police to keep her safe. She couldn’t risk trusting Ashley not to tell those men where she was. And she couldn’t put anyone else at risk by asking them to help her.
There was only one person left she could turn to. Ava. Her captor. Her protector. Whatever the hell Ava was.
But could Tess trust her?
“Well? Are you okay? Where are you? Say something!”
Tess took a deep breath and composed a reply. But she didn’t get a chance to send it.
Because a moment later, the door to the study opened.
Tess froze in place. She had nowhere to hide. And it was already too late. Ava was looking straight at her.
Ava marched toward the desk and ripped the power cord out of the wall. The monitor on the table went black, the lights on the computer and modem going dark.
But Tess barely noticed. Because all her attention was fixed on Ava.
She loomed over Tess, white-hot fury in her eyes. “What have you done?”
Tess cringed into the chair. “I’m sorry! I just wanted to check my messages…”
“Did you speak to someone? Tell me!”
“Y-yes. My coworker. But that’s all.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. Just that I’m okay.”
“You expect me to believe that? That you broke into my office just to have a chat with your coworker?”
“Yes!” Tess hesitated. “Well, I was thinking of telling her the truth at first, but then she said some men went to the diner looking for me, and I realized things were serious, so I—”
Ava blanched. “What did you just say?”
“That some men went to the diner looking for me?”
“Yes, what men?”
“I don’t know. There were two of them, big guys. They might have been the same guys from the other night, but they told everyone they were with the police. They questioned everyone at the diner about me. They wanted to know where I’d gone.”
Ava turned to the door, a curse on her lips. “Get a message to Cassandra. Tell her I need to speak to her right away.”
Only then did Tess notice Riley was standing in the doorway. They nodded, then disappeared down the hall.
“And you.” Ava turned back to Tess, her gaze cold as frost. “You will go to your room, and you will stay there until I say you can leave. No more wandering the halls. No more having free roam of the island. Not when you keep defying me and putting your life at risk!”
“But—”
“Go. Now.”
Tess scrambled out of the chair and ran down the hallway, hot tears spilling from her eyes. She’d messed up. She’d lost her one lifeline to the outside world. The only person left who could help her was Ava.
And she’d just shattered any trust Ava had in her.
CHAPTER 9
Ava packed the last of her clothes into the small suitcase. It was late at night, and she was leaving for an overnight trip to the mainland the next day.
She had important business to take care of. There was her job, to start. She’d made a career as a venture capitalist, investing in startups and small businesses. While she did most of her work from her home, she occasionally needed to meet with potential investees in person. She had one such meeting in the afternoon.
However, the most important event on her schedule tomorrow was finding out who was after Tess.
In the time since she’d brought Tess to the mansion, Ava had performed her own investigations, speaking to several lawyers and reaching out to the private investigator who helped her find Tess in the first place. But he’d been unable to dig up anything new.
There was only one person left who could help her. And that was the very person who had recommended the PI to Ava in the first place—Cassandra Lee. She was arguably the most powerful woman on the whole continent, a fact very few people were aware of.
But Cassandra refused to do business remotely, which meant Ava had no choice but to pay her a visit. She’d been planning to do so soon enough, however, the incident in the study had made meeting with Cassandra a matter of urgency.
I can’t believe Tess did that. It had been partially Ava’s fault for leaving her computer unattended. But she couldn’t have predicted that Tess would get into her locked study. Because it had been locked. Ava was certain of it.
Was Tess so desperate to get away from her that she’d resorted to breaking into her locked office? Could Ava blame her? Other than saving her life, she’d given Tess little reason to trust her.
If Tess had any sense, she wouldn’t trust me. I’ve already failed her.
Ava placed her carefully packed toiletries bag on top of the silk nightgown in her suitcase. Stop wallowing in your guilt. She’d made that promise years ago. But a promise was a promise. And Ava hadn’t kept hers.
A fact she was reminded of every time Tess looked at her with expectant eyes. They always seemed to plead something of Ava. Not just for the answers Tess so clearly wanted, and deserved. No, what Ava saw in her eyes was a longing that made Ava’s heart race, made her yearn to possess her in every way a woman could.
But that evening in her study, all Ava had seen in Tess’s eyes was hurt. It was a natural reaction to Ava’s anger. But her anger was born of fear, fear for Tess’s life. By contacting the outside world, Tess had risked her safety. She’d put her life in danger all over again.
But Ava had checked Tess’s browser history after banishing her to her room. She’d read Tess’s messages. She’d seen for herself that Tess was telling the truth. She hadn’t told anyone anything.
Was she beginning to trust Ava after all?
There was a knock on her bedroom door. Ava had left it open, which Riley took as an invitation to stroll right into the room.
“Heading to the mainland?” they asked.
“First thing in the morning,” Ava replied. “I’ll likely stay overnight, so I’ll need you to keep an eye on Tess for me.”
“To keep anyone from getting to her, or to make sure she doesn’t try anything?”
Ava zipped her suitcase shut. “Both.” Had she been overly cautious in having Riley follow Tess everywhere? Perhaps. But the other night in the study had proved it necessary.
Riley folded their arms across their chest. “I wasn’t hired to be a babysitter.”
“I know. And I appreciate that you’ve taken this job despite it being outside of your usual skill set. I need someone I can trust.”
“You can always count on me. And, I don’t normally like to stick my nose into these things, but…”
Ava sighed. “Just spit it out.”
“It’s about Tess. Don’t you think you’re being a little too hard on her?”
“No, I don’t. She’s proven she’s unable to follow my rules. And she compromised her safety without even realizing it.”
“It’s only natural that she’s reacting this way. You took her away from her life, cut her off from the world, and are keeping her locked up in a mansion in the middle of nowhere without even telling her why. What did you expect?”
“I let her out of her room, didn’t I?” The morning after the incident in the study, Ava had told Riley to allow Tess free roam of the mansion again. But only during daylight hours. And only with Riley present. “It’s for her own good.”
“Is ignoring her for her own good too? You haven’t said a word to her in days.”
Ava pressed her lips together. From the outside, it looked like she was ignoring Tess to punish her for breaking into her study. In reality, Ava simply didn’t want to face the maelstrom of conflicting feelings Tess brought about in her. Feelings she refused to indulge.
“Even before the night in your study, you were acting cold toward her,” Riley said. “If you want her to listen to you—trust you—you need to stop treating her like garbage.”
“I am not treating her like garbage.”
But Riley was right. If Ava wanted Tess’s trust, she would need to give her something.
“All right,” she said. “Tess can have free run of the house without you following her. But I still expect you to keep an eye on her.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Fine. And I’ll apologize to her for yelling at her the other night.”
“That’s a start. At the very least, it should defuse some of the tension between you. Seriously, it’s making the atmosphere in the house unbearable.”
Was the tension between them that noticeable?
What else had Riley noticed between Ava and Tess?
“Anyway, I’m turning in for the night,” they said, heading for the door. “And just so you know, Tess is still awake if you want to talk to her before you leave.”
Ava dismissed Riley and set her suitcase aside. She would apologize, but nothing more. She couldn’t let Tess get too close. Because every time Ava was around her, she felt the unmistakable pull of attraction. Mutual attraction.
And it would be so easy to give in to temptation…
But Ava could never, ever go there with her. Tess was off limits in so many ways. She represented everything Ava had ever desired.
And that was dangerous.
She knocked on Tess’s bedroom door. “It’s Ava.” When she didn’t get an answer, she said, “I’m coming in.”
She waited a few moments before opening the door. The room was dark, save for a lamp in the corner. Beside it, Tess sat on a chaise lounge, a blanket over her legs and knees pulled up underneath her chin. A pile of books sat on the floor beside her, untouched. Instead, Tess was staring across the room at nothing at all.
As Ava approached, Tess glanced briefly in her direction before hugging her knees even tighter to her chest.
Ava stopped a few feet away from her. Don’t get too close.
But Tess didn’t seem to want her to get close either. The way she avoided Ava’s gaze said as much.
Ava cleared her throat, breaking the silence between them. Tess finally looked up at her. Like always, her eyes seemed to plead with Ava…
Stop. She needed to focus. She needed to do what she came here to do, and only that.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Tess blinked. “Oh. Okay.”
“I mean it. I’m sorry for being so harsh with you the other night, and ever since. It was wrong of me.”
“It’s all right. You were just looking out for me. I understand that now. I didn’t at first, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. And I was telling the truth when I said I didn’t talk to anyone except my coworker. I swear I didn’t tell her anything.”
“I know. And I’m not angry with you. While I was angry with you for sneaking around and breaking into my study, I was more concerned about your safety. But I understand why you did it, given the situation you’re in. All this time, I’ve expected you to trust me when I’ve given you no reason to.”
Tess shook her head. “That’s just it. It’s the silliest thing. You’re a stranger. You practically abducted me off the street. I shouldn’t trust you. So why does a part of me feel like I should trust you?”
“You should. I’ve said from the beginning that I won’t let any harm come to you, Tess. I mean it.”
Her gaze shifted out into the distance. “It’s just so hard to know what to believe, what to feel. This is all just crazy. A week ago, my life was so mundane. All I did was work every shift I could just to try to get ahead a little. But it was never enough. Not enough to escape the cycle of work and bills, work and bills. Not to escape how miserable I was. Because I have nothing. No family. No relationships. No career. Nothing.”
Guilt gnawed in Ava’s mind. She’d had the power to give Tess a better life all along, but she hadn’t done a thing.
“Then suddenly, my life is upended by these men who show up out of nowhere, who want to hurt me?” Tess’s voice quivered. “I try not to let myself feel it. It’s what I’ve always done, ever since I was a kid, because how else do you cope with that? But I’ve been afraid to sleep at night, because when I lie there in bed, everything I’ve been trying not to think about, trying not to feel, comes flooding back…”
She looked up at Ava, eyes shimmering with tears. Something tightened in Ava’s chest.
“I’m so scared,” Tess said softly. “When I let myself stop and think about it, it paralyzes me. I had nothing, and now I’ve even lost that. And I could have lost my life. I know I didn’t imagine that gun. I know it.”
Tess closed her eyes and took a deep breath. But it barely calmed her.
“I’d give anything just to go back to how things used to be,” she said. “To my miserable, empty life. To my shitty job, to Cherry trying to steal my tips. To my run-down apartment, where I spent every night cold and alone. Because that’s what my life has always been. I’m used to it. And it’s so much better than being lost and scared like I am now.”
Tears spilled onto Tess’s cheeks. Ava felt a pang of sympathy. Don’t get close.
Yet before she could stop herself, she was sitting next to Tess on the chaise.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “For all of this. For ripping you away from your life. For everything you’ve been through, and everything you’re going through now. But believe me when I say that you will get through this. And when it’s all over, your life will be better. You won’t have to worry about anything ever again.”
Tess looked into her eyes. “You’ve said that before, but what does it mean? What’s going to happen when all this is over?”
For a moment, Ava’s iron resolve wavered. How could she sit here, just inches from the young woman whose every desire she longed to make reality, whose every wish she longed to grant, and deny her the truth? How could she sit here and look into those anguished eyes when she had the power to make all of Tess’s pain go away?
