Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
She scoffs. “Not gonna lie, I kinda figured between the two of us, I’d be the one to bring home a psychopathic stalker.”
I can’t help but laugh because honestly, it’s not the first time the thought has entered my brain. “There’s still time,” I tell her. “It doesn’t need to be a competition.”
Nat laughs, and we both scootch down into her bed again, pulling the blankets right up to our chins just like we used to when we were kids sleeping over at each other’s homes. “Do you think he’s done this before?” she muses, rolling over to face me.
My brows furrow as I start thinking it over. “I mean, because it’s Alex, I kinda want to be the only woman who’s ever made him cross lines like this, but he’s too good at it for this to have been his first time,” I tell her. “From the way he was able to hack into my security system and seamlessly create loops to how confidently he welcomed himself into my apartment. Someone doing that for the first time would have been nervous and made mistakes, but he had me playing his game the whole way through. I didn’t even get a sense that he’d been in my apartment until he wanted me to know that he was there.”
“Well, maybe if he’d done it before, there might be something about him online.”
“I don’t know,” I say, clutching the blanket as though it could somehow protect me from all of this. “I doubt he’s the kind of guy to allow a story like that to get out.”
“Right, but surely if he’s done it before, these women might have filed police reports or something like that? There has to be some kind of trail, something we can look into.”
I shrug my shoulders, and before I know it, she has her phone in her hand. “What’s his last name?” she asks, already typing into her search bar.
“Ummm,” I start, thinking back to the name I saw scrawled on the top of his consent form for his tattoo. “His full name is Alexander Reid, but it’s super common. I doubt you’ll find anything.”
“We can always try,” she says before getting busy in her search. She rolls onto her back and holds her phone above her face so that we can both see the screen, and I watch as she starts clicking on random links.
Nat searches for about ten minutes before finding a news article. As she reads through it, I look away, certain we’re not going to find anything, only as she gasps, my gaze shoots back to her phone. “What?” I rush out.
“Holy shit,” she says, her eyes widening as she continues scanning through before scrolling back up and pointing out sections. “Look here. Decorated soldier discharged from the military after the murder of his mother, Francis Reid.”
“What?” I say again, my eyes widening as I grab the phone from her hand and start looking over the article. “Alex told me his mom abandoned him and he lived in foster care until he aged out, and then joined the military. He said she died while he was on tour.”
Nat scoffs. “I think he might have fudged the details just a little there.”
“Shit,” I mutter, continuing to scroll. “It says here that he was never caught. After killing his mom, he basically became a ghost, and there’s a message for citizens to be on the lookout and exercise caution if they come across him. Don’t interact, and call 911.”
“Fuck, girl. I really don’t like this.”
“Are you sure this is the same Alex?” I ask, my heart racing. “There could be a million Alex Reids out there.” Nat gives me a blank stare before clicking on the attached image, and as if on cue, a photo of Alex appears on the screen, dressed in his military uniform. “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Nat agrees.
My heart shatters, feeling as though everything I’ve come to love about Alex has been nothing but a cold lie, and while we haven’t known each other for long, I had thought there was a real chance at a future together. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t even a little close to thinking about marriage and kids or any of that stuff, but what I felt for him—feel—is as real as it gets.
Rolling onto my back, I stare up at the ceiling, and before I know it, Nat crashes, leaving me with nothing but my torturous thoughts and the tears I’m desperately trying to hold back. I’m not the girl who cries over a man, but he made a fool out of me.
It’s almost two in the morning when a text comes through on my phone, and I reach over to the small bedside table, scooping it up. My breath catches in my throat when I find Alex’s name on my screen, and for a long moment, I simply stare at the notification, not wanting to open it and actually read what he’s written.