I was sitting on a kitchen stool, tapping my fingertips on the granite countertop as Elliot took a seemingly endless array of phone calls.
“Okay…uh huh…” Elliot mumbled disinterestedly as he picked up one of my hands in his and slowly intertwined our fingers. “Make it happen,” He shot back curtly before ending the call.
Sliding into the seat next to me, he sighed before quickly kissing the back of my hand. “Sorry about that. I’m just trying to beef up some security measures.”
“Security measures?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I want to make sure that S.O.M.E. won’t be able to break into the house or any of the security cameras. They can’t find you here.”
“I don’t want to be a Debbie downer, but they kind of already have…”
“S.O.M.E hasn’t. One of its members has. This just means that they’ll be suspicious as Hell and stop at nothing until they assure themselves that you’re really dead.”
“So what are you going to do? Hide me away in the basement?” I blanched.
“Nope, not at all,” A devilish smile spread across Elliot’s face, “I’m going to host a ball here to let S.O.M.E know I have nothing to hide.”
“A ball?” I frowned, “That’s sounds so…unreal. I mean, do people even throw balls anymore?”
“They do when it’s a charity function. I was hosting one soon anyways. I’ll just make sure and change the venue to here – luckily the invitations haven’t been sent out yet.” Elliot’s phone buzzed and he snatched it up, and began texting furiously.
“So…where will I be hiding while all this stuff is going on?” I frowned, perplexed.
“Hiding?” Elliot chuckled, “Yeah right -You’ll be in plain sight.”
“What?”
“Look we want to make Radcliff believe that he was mistaken. You, the person he saw, was not Jezebel. We’ll create a fake persona for you, a story so believable that he won’t doubt a thing.”
“I don’t know…” I hedged.
“It’s reverse psychology. If you were alive why in the world would I be so stupid as to leave you in plain sight? It makes no sense. By having you at the ball, I’ll be showing S.O.M.E that there’s absolutely nothing to hide.”
“I guess so…” I mumbled, biting my lip.
“Don’t worry,” Elliot ran his thumb across the base of my lower lip as he looked me in the eyes, “I’ll take care of everything. I’ve already invested too much in this. I promise nothing will happen to you or anyone else.”
“Okay,” I sighed, unable to quench the worrisome flutters I felt in the pit of my stomach.
YOU ARE READING
Thanatophobia (fear of dying)
Mystery / ThrillerI tried to control my breathing, so that the knife wouldn’t be dug further into my skin by the frantic movement of air into and out of my lungs. I looked up towards him. His eyes didn’t look angry; they looked sad. But my stomach churned at the dete...
