“What?” Devin’s voice is high and nervous.
I look at her and watch as tears she’s obviously holding back well in her beautiful eyes. Before my very eyes, her skin turns pale and almost green, the same as it did in my office the day the picture of us hit that tabloid, leaving me unsure of whether she’s going to vomit or pass out.
One mention of Crystal and something falters inside of her. The anxiety that was temporarily relieved at seeing her brother comes slamming back into her with full force.
I pull her into me and rub my hand up and down her arm, trying to instill some sense of security into her.
“Do you have any leads on where she might be?”
Mark sighs, running his hand through his hair. “No, but we’re searching high and low.” He takes a breath, looking between me and Devin. “She’s dangerous, Dev. I don’t want you going anywhere without me or Sebastian. If she’s still looking for you, she’s going to go out of her way to get you alone, even if it’s only for a minute.”
“Mark’s right,” I agree. “She’s unhinged.”
“Sebastian, are you sure you didn’t know Crystal before the office?” Mark asks in an unsettling tone.
Devin tenses, and I give her a squeeze to reassure any doubts she might be having.
“I’m positive.”
He frowns. “Look, I’m not saying that you’re lying, but we got a warrant for her apartment yesterday. We found some extremely alarming shit inside.”
I want to stand up and shake Mark to make him tell me everything without all of the suspenseful bullshit, but I keep my ass firmly planted on the love seat with Devin, thumping my leg instead.
“Alarming?” Devin asks. “What are you talking about?”
He turns toward me after giving Devin a look of compassion. “Crystal had a shrine in her house.”
“Of?” I’m sure the confusion is clear on my face.
“You, Sebastian.”
A shrine? Of me? “What does that mean, Mark?”
A look of discomfort washes over his face. “She has a collage of photos of you tacked to the wall—you leaving the building you work in, you outside this building. Newspaper clippings. AForbesarticle about you. Press releases. Photos of you and other women with their faces scratched out. A tie. There were some intense things.”
Devin jumps to her feet and paces back and forth. “It’s been her this whole time,” she mumbles as our suspicions are confirmed. “She’s been stalking you right under our noses, not that it was hard, spending eight to ten hours a day in the same office as you.”
Devin continues to pace and mumble to herself while I sit, surrounded by the new information. I try wrapping my head around it but keep falling short.
“Holy shit,” I whisper under my breath.
“I know. Imagine my shock when I saw it in person.” Mark shakes his head with a look of disgust. “I don’t mean to put you in an even more awkward position, Sebastian, but do you ever remember sleeping with Crystal? It doesn’t matter how long ago. There were pictures on the walls that she couldn’t have gotten without being in a less-than-flattering position with you.”
“Less than flattering how? What the hell are you talking about?” My tone rises as Mark throws accusations at me.
He shifts in his seat, looking me in the eye. “She has pictures of you… naked… in a hotel room. They looked like images she had taken herself, probably on her cell phone. There were also selfies of you and her together.”
I groan, scrubbing my hands over my face. “Fuck.”
“Did you really sleep with her, Sebastian?” Devin’s voice is small and laced with hurt, and I turn toward her.
“I’ve made some bad choices in life, Devin. I can’t sit here and say I didn’t sleep with her, because it’s very possible that I did, especially if she has pictures of me and her together.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, glaring. “How can you not remember who you slept with? You should have remembered her the minute you saw her at Midtown.”
Mark interrupts our conversation. “Whoa, sis. Relax for a minute. You can’t blame him for not remembering.”
Her lethal gaze cuts to Mark, and she huffs. “So you agree with him—that it’s okay not to remember who you’ve fucked?”
