Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (13 page)

“Hey, you!”

“Hi, Darcy,” she said. She reached for a piece of paper and a pen, scratching out a note about the passwords. She’d never remember if she didn’t write it down, not now that Darcy had her on the phone.

“So how are things going?”

Shay scowled and lowered the phone. Darcy’s overly cheerful voice just seemed … wrong. How in the world could she be
that
happy right now?

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t
Darcy’s
world that was coming crashing down around her, but still. “Well, frankly, things suck,” Shay said, staring at the computer, clicking back to her website and rereading the note that had made her all but sweat blood just to post it.

“Aw, hon, I’m sorry … the recovery going rough? You know, I could come up and stay with you for a while.”

Shay frowned. “Recovery?” Shaking her head, she said, “No, Darcy, it’s not the recovery. I’m moving around slower than normal, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that damn Facebook page, that damned imposter, and the fucking
lies
she’s telling.”

Silence crackled between, heavy as the stillness before a summer thunderstorm.

Darcy broke it with a forced laugh. “Oh … that. I’d forgotten about it. I mean, since it wasn’t your page and all …”

“Yes. That.” A nerve ticked in Shay’s forehead and she reached up, pushing on it. “I haven’t forgotten about it. It’s getting worse, Darcy. Hell, it’s getting
much
worse.”

“Oh, honey.” Darcy made a soothing noise, humming under her breath a little.

Shay felt some of her tension ease up and she sighed, rolling her shoulders, trying to brush off the anger rising inside her. Maybe what she needed to do was just talk this out. She hadn’t really talked with Angie all that long. They’d been focused on the note, but if she talked about it, she’d feel better. Darcy would listen. She could offer some advice and Shay could decide if she liked it not, but somebody would
listen
, and she’d feel better.

Right?

“Internet scandals always get hot, but they fade away pretty fast,” Darcy said softly. “How bad do you think it can get?”

“She’s trying to take my life over. She’s telling lies about a man I care about.” She stared at the computer, at the note. She remembered what Angie had said … 
what else do they have access to?

Shit, that was a scary thought.

“I’m afraid it could get pretty bad.” Spinning around in her chair, she stared toward her books. There was one on the shelf that had been a favorite of hers for years—it was out of print, but she’d always loved it. She found herself staring at it now, though, and a chill raced down her spine.
She’s trying to take my life over …
Rising from the chair, she moved toward her shelves and pulled it down, staring at the bright red cover. It was worn, faded, and well-read. Dog-eared, the spine
cracked. She’d lost count of how many times she’d read that book.

“I’ve got this book,” she murmured. “It was written back in the nineties. The hero was a writer … and some guy tries to take over his life. All of his contracts, all the proof that he was who he says he was, it all burned up in a fire. And nobody believes him. Except the heroine. She doesn’t believe him at first—he actually kidnapped her. But she comes to believe him. But nobody believed he was who he said he was. Not even his agent.”

Shay swallowed, thinking about how Anna hadn’t returned her call. Fear threatened to swallow her but she shoved it back. She’d lived through a screaming hell the likes that others couldn’t imagine. This wasn’t going to defeat her. And she was just being paranoid now. She’d get hold of Anna tomorrow and everything would be fine.

“Wow. That’s freaky. I want to read it. Can you send me the book?”

Shay put it back on the shelf. “Maybe later.” Turning away from the books, she moved to the window. Lately, she found herself at this spot more and more, as though she’d find the answers written in the pristine white of the snow.

Darkness had fallen and the moon was high, falling across the icy expanse in silvery swaths.

“You sound so depressed,” Darcy said, her voice soft. “Maybe you should stop worrying about all of this for a while. Do something that makes you feel better.”

Scowling, she shook her head. “Hell, I
can’t
stop worrying about this.”

“You need to.” Darcy’s voice took on a no-nonsense quality and she pointed out, “It’s not like worrying nonstop is
accomplishing
anything, right? Is worrying about this making you feel any better?”

Caught off guard, she stopped in midstep.
How is it
making me feel better?
“Darcy, what am I supposed to do? Ignore it? She’s trying to take away everything I worked for.”

“But worrying isn’t helping. I mean, what have you accomplished?”

“I got her fucking blog down,” Shay snapped. “And I went to the store where the books were and I bought them, brought them back, and burned every last one. And let me tell you … 
that
made me feel better.”

Silence crackled between them, so heavy and thick, the hairs on Shay’s arms stood on end. Her gut clenched and crawled and the moment stretched out, endless and tight, before Darcy whispered, “You did
what
?”

Her voice was low and ugly, just a few steps above a growl. Just a few steps above angry.

That awkward, horrible silence lingered and Shay turned away, staring at her bookshelves, concentrating on them. Easier to do that than think about how uneasy she suddenly felt.

“I went down there.” Frowning, Shay turned away from the window. The peace she’d been trying to find staring out into the moonlight had shattered. Returning to her desk, she sat down and maximized the browser that had her email. She needed to get to work on those passwords.

“But what good did it do to go and burn a bunch of books? Or even go down there to begin with? I mean, you can’t help that somebody is pretending to be you.”

“No, I can’t
help
it, but for one, I know the guy. We used to date and she’s fucking with him now, too. And for another, seeing somebody else’s signature on
my
books makes me sick to my stomach.” Shay clenched a fist, angry all over again, but this time, it wasn’t
just
at her imposter.

Why did it feel like
she
was suddenly in the wrong? She hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, had she? She
wanted her life to stay
her life
. What was so wrong with that?

“It’s just a signature,” Darcy pointed out. “The people who buy it don’t know if it’s hers or yours!”

“
I
know.” Pain flared in her hand and she made herself relax her fist. Opening her hand, she realized she’d been squeezing so tight, her nails had bitten into her palm. “Don’t you get that?
I
know … and it’s a lie. Whoever she is, when she signs her name to my books, it’s a damn lie. Seeing those books in
his
store, with her signature … it’s a lie. And what’s more, what she’s doing to him? That’s another fucking lie … and it’s
wrong
.”

“How do you know?”

Shay tensed at the low, flat tone of Darcy’s voice.

“I mean, you weren’t there, right?” Darcy continued. “That’s what your website says. You weren’t there, so how do you really
know
what happened? Maybe he
is
a rapist. Do you really think you can trust him? Are you sure you can take such a chance? I mean, seriously, it’s not like you’ve ever been all that good at relationships. Maybe you just trusted the wrong guy.”

Curling her hand around the edge of the desk, Shay shook her head, even though nobody was there to see it but her.
Maybe you trusted the wrong guy
 …

No. Hell,
no
. Her voice was a thready, bare whisper of a sound as she said softly, “Elliot isn’t a rapist.”

“You don’t know that … you never really know about people, do you, Shay?” Darcy paused and then asked softly, “Do you even know me?”

You never really know …

Those words tried to settle in her heart, tried to take root. There was fertile soil there, and the seeds of distrust were already planted deep—it was second nature for her to fear, for her to doubt.

But not Elliot.

“Shit. Enough of this, Darcy. Yes, I do know you. We’ve been friends for years.”

They had been
best
friends. For the longest time, Darcy had been her only connection to the world, aside from Angie. She loved her, trusted her, needed her.

“We’ve known each other for more than ten years, Darcy,” she said quietly. “I know you. And I
know
Elliot. He’s not a damned rapist.” She let go of the desk and reached for the mouse, clicking to the folder on her computer that held her pictures. She searched for the one of them together at Earthquake Park and once she found it, she made it the desktop background.

Just seeing him grounded her. The aching in her chest eased and she could breathe, could think, could focus. Reaching up, she touched the image of his face. Heavy with five o’clock shadow, laugh lines fanning out from his eyes, a smile on his face as he stared down at her. She didn’t have to doubt him. Whether they were together or not, she could trust him.

“You don’t know him. I do, Darcy. And I’m not going to listen to this … as a matter of fact, you don’t seem to understand my problems with this anyway, so I’d rather just not discuss any of it with you, period. I’ll talk to you later.”

Darcy was in the middle of saying something. But Shay didn’t know what, nor did she much care. She’d already disconnected the call.

For another minute, she let herself stare at Elliot’s picture.

Then she brought up her email; she wasn’t going to hide in the sand over this anymore. Come tomorrow, if Facebook and Twitter hadn’t taken any action, she was contacting a damn lawyer.

First … the passwords.

Yeah, yeah, she knew it was a bad idea to store passwords in her email account, but she was always forgetting
them. Plus, some of them were passwords Darcy needed, too, so it only made sense to keep that information all in one place. It wasn’t the smartest solution, she knew, but she didn’t keep any financial information stored and that was what would cause the biggest problem, she knew.

Out of habit, she did a quick skim through the inbox, looking to make sure neither Anna nor the evil overlords of Twitter or Facebook had emailed in the last five minutes since she’d checked
—nada
.

Shit
. Why in the hell hadn’t she heard from Anna …?

That niggling worm of paranoia, the one that had arisen when she’d thought about that book—another author with a stolen identity—rose to taunt her, and all thoughts of changing passwords slipped from her mind.

Anna had yet to email. Yeah, it had only been two days and it was the weekend. But Anna would realize this was important—unless she was either sick or out of town, she would have
called
. And if she couldn’t call, she would have emailed.

Hunching over the keyboard, Shay clicked on the folder that held the correspondence between her and her agent. Except … there was nothing there.

Empty—

“Now, that’s not right,” Shay whispered. And that niggling worm of paranoia grew, shifting into a massive, bloated monster in the blink of an eye. That folder should be fucking
full
.

“Shit.” Her gut twisted and an odd, sick sensation slithered through her.

She loved Gmail. It had all those nice little folders where she could keep things organized, and it even had little bolded numbers to indicate emails she hadn’t read—useful when she was keeping track of receipts, or just keeping email responses in case she needed to go back and check on things later.

As she was staring at the screen, one of those folders went from having a bolded
5
to nothing. The one below it did the same thing. A bolded
8
to nothing.

Hissing out a breath, she scrolled down and stared at the bottom.

Gmail also had a nifty little feature—it let her see when her account had been accessed last … and from what IP. The IP at the bottom wasn’t hers. Swearing, she copied it and then clicked on the link that would let her sign out of all other sessions. Somebody had hacked into her email.

“Crap. Angie, I shouldn’t have waited,” she muttered.

Quickly, she changed her password and then, since she wasn’t sure if her backup email was secure or not, she changed that password, too. This time, she didn’t let herself get distracted, and she kept at it until she’d changed every single password that she could think of.

Her desk was littered with notes by the time she was done, but she didn’t trust those little pieces of paper. Just staring at them made that ugly paranoia monster in her gut roll and thrash around, so she did a search online and found an app that would store the passwords on her iPhone, with the ability to back it up to her desktop. It also randomly generated passwords and she’d have to copy and paste the damn things, because there was no way she could remember
those
.

She secured
that
app with another password and it was one that nobody but she … and maybe Elliot … would think of.

It took almost an hour, and by the time she was done it was nearly eight o’clock. Nearly eight, and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Hunger was a gaping hole in her belly and she took a few minutes to make herself a sandwich before returning to her computer.

How much is missing?
she wondered.

Logging back in with the new password—one so
complicated she’d
never
remember it—she stared at the folders listed along the left. The bite of sandwich in her mouth turned to sawdust, but she kept chewing. She wasn’t going to do herself a damn bit of good if she kept forgetting to eat.

“Years’ worth of shit, gone,” she muttered. Not everything was lost—that was a relief. That monster of paranoia currently tormenting her wasn’t always a bad thing. Important stuff, she’d always copied—paranoia was sometimes a blessing. But still, her idea of important was probably skewed.