Page 114 of Gone Tonight
I wish I could tell which window belongs to the Campbells. I should have asked Catherine what floor they live on, but I didn’t think of it in time. I’d just feel better if I knew exactly where she was.
I sense movement out of the corner of my eye and whip around, but it’s only a squirrel darting up the base of a tree.
I put a hand over my pounding heart and exhale.
My mind and body are growing increasingly jittery. My need to be near Catherine is so intense it feels like I’m undergoing a chemical withdrawal from her.
I count to a hundred, then two hundred, just as I did on that long-ago night at Target when I was alone in the darkness.
By now she’s been gone nearly twenty minutes.
No one is around. It’s completely dark. The grounds are deserted.
Something is terribly wrong. I feel it deep in my core.
My gaze jerks down toward my iPhone again, but there’s nothing amiss.
Then my eyes widen.
Without being consciously aware of why I’m doing it, I reach into my big shoulder bag and pull out my burner phone. I haven’t looked at it since I made the call to the police just before 9 a.m.
I power on the phone as my pulse gallops faster.
It’s a cheap device. The screen flickers for a moment, then goes black. Then it comes on for good.
My mouth is completely dry.
I have one new text message, from an unknown number. It came in less than an hour ago.
Terror rips through me. My hands are shaking so violently I nearly drop the phone as I frantically navigate to the message and bring it up.
At first, I blink at the screen in bewilderment.
There are no words at all. There’s an image, though. A small, grainy photograph.
I can’t see it in this dim light, so I fumble for my iPhone with my free hand and turn on the flashlight. I aim it at the burner phone’s screen.
It takes me a moment to understand what I’m looking at.
Then I drop the burner phone onto the ground and run toward the entrance of Sunrise, my arms churning, my feet barely touching the ground as I fly across the grass.
The photograph was taken as I climbed into the Cadillac in the parking lot by Pizza Piazzo at 9 a.m. today. From the angle, I can tell the photographer was standing up on the retaining wall toward the back of the lot, by the cover of trees and bushes.
Breath tears at my lungs as I force myself to run even faster.
I’d told James I was an hour away, at a hotel in Annapolis. I neverasked where he was during our phone call. I’d assumed he was lying low in a cheap hotel.
But he was in the same parking lot, matching my lies with ones of his own. He was watching me during our whole conversation. He even told me so during our phone call.
See you,James had said, moments after he snapped the picture of me.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONECATHERINE
My heart is hammering in my chest as I tap my knuckles on the door of George and June’s apartment. They live on the first floor, in a two-bedroom corner unit. I can’t count the number of times I’ve knocked on this door before. The Campbells have always opened it with a welcoming smile.
That’s not going to happen tonight.
It takes them an unusually long time to answer. Finally, the door eases open and I see June.
