She would never change. So I had to.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX AUDREY

I was exhausted. After last night’s scare, I hadn’t slept well, and had claimed a migraine headache so I could leave work early and spend several more hours unsuccessfully scouring the internet for amateur paparazzi photos of myself. I sent Cat another text, begging her to call so I could talk this through, and then opened a bottle of wine I found in her kitchen. I drank one glass of the velvety cab before pouring a refill and carrying it upstairs to the bathroom. I drew a warm bath, sprinkled in some lavender bath salts I pilfered from her cabinet, and then eased into the claw-foot bathtub, exhaling audibly as I leaned my head against the gentle slope.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but all I could think about were those damn photographs. I’d been unable to re-create Max’s reverse image search, and I couldn’t decide whether that should reassure me or not. On the one hand, it was a relief to not find any creepy stalker pictures of me on the internet. On the other hand, where the hell had they come from? If I couldn’t find them in a concentrated search, how could Max have innocently stumbled upon them? Either he did a much more intensive dive into my online footprint than he wanted to admit, or he was lying about their origin.

Beneath the warm water, my skin prickled in gooseflesh, and I gulped at the wine and returned to the question that had been nagging me ever since I first opened that folder. What if Max took those photos? It was so hard to believe that someone who looked at me as sweetly, as tenderly as Max did could be the one stalking me. But was that any harder to believe than his story about how he’d found them and enlisted the help of some superhacker?

I knew I was too emotionally invested in this and needed someone to help me think rationally. I needed Cat. Impatiently, I glanced to the floor for my phone—surely Cat would return my text messages soon—and realized I’d left it downstairs.

I was debating getting out of the tub to fetch it when I heard the unmistakable sound of a door closing. My spine went rigid and my mind imagined a hundred different horrible scenarios—most of which involved my meeting a bloody end at the hands of my stalker, Rosalind-style—before I realized who it must be: Cat. She must have seen my messages and recognized how much I needed her. I relaxed. Thank God for Cat.

“Cat?” I called.

She didn’t shout hello, but I could hear her moving through the apartment downstairs.

“Cat?” I tried again. “I’m up here!”

Footsteps sounded on the spiral staircase, and pitch-black fear oozed through my veins as I realized they were too heavy to be Cat’s. You’re wrong, I told myself. It has to be Cat. You locked the front door. The footsteps continued, each footfall sounding heavier and less like Cat than the last, until they came to a halt outside the bathroom door.