LITMIR.BIZ

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Chloe in, but didn’t want to take any chances, either.

      Turning now, she headed back down the hallway toward the stairs, stopping at the narrow closet on the left side of the landing.

      Checking the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, she quietly opened the closet door, reached to the overhead shelf and found the wooden box where Oliver had left it, almost a year ago. It was secured by a small lock with a combination that was easy enough to remember: Chloe’s birth date.

      Dialing it in, Lisa unfastened the lock, opened the box, then carefully removed the loaded pistol. She didn’t feel comfortable hefting it, but what choice did she have?

      “Just point it and shoot,” Oliver had told her during one of his more generous moments. “That’s all you have to remember.”

      Easier said than done, she thought.

      Returning the box to the shelf, she closed the closet door and turned again toward the mouth of the stairs, listening for more sounds from below.

      It was eerily silent now.

      No rummaging noises, no whispering voices—assuming there was more than one intruder—no footsteps.

      Nothing.

      Lisa had all but come to the conclusion that the burglar had left when she heard it: the faint, almost imperceptible clink of a glass and the sound of pouring liquid.

      Someone was still down there all right—but whoever it was wasn’t ransacking her house. He was helping himself to a drink from the wet bar.

      What the heck?

      Lowering the pistol to her side, Lisa started down the stairs, her heart thumping with every step. She was barefoot, but like the stairways in many old St. Louis homes, this one was made of wood and was full of creaks and groans, the carpet covering it doing little to muffle the sound of her descent. She may as well have announced her entrance with the trill of trumpets.

      As she reached the living room, clutching the gun tightly at her side, a lamp next to the sofa came to life, startling her. She was about to swing the gun upward when she stopped herself, realizing who it was.

      Oliver. Drunk or stoned, as usual, sitting on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table, a glass of vodka in hand.

      “You’ve gotta work on your stealth skills, babe. I could hear you at the top of the stairs.”

      As her heartbeat slowed, anger rose in Lisa’s chest, crowding out the fear she was already feeling. “I almost shot you, Oliver. What the heck are you doing here?”

      She glanced around the room and saw what had made the noise that got her out of bed: a picture frame lay on the polished wooden floorboards, its glass shattered. The photo inside was one she had always loved—she and Chloe in front of the lake house, Chloe squirming happily in her arms. It had been taken at a better time in her marriage, nearly two years ago, before Oliver had released Mr. Hyde from his cage.

      She had no idea if he had purposely knocked it from the end table or had merely stumbled into it. Whatever the cause, she’d now have to clean up the mess and replace the frame. Another black mark in a string of them as far as Oliver was concerned.

      He didn’t answer her question immediately. Instead, he took a sip of his vodka and gave her a long, slow smile.

      “What’s the matter, Leese, you don’t like me darkening your doorstep? This is, after all, my house.”

      “Tell that to my attorney.”

      “Ah,” he said, “your attorney. I’ll bet you’d love to have a reason to give him a call. Real movie-star material, that guy.”

      “I hadn’t noticed.”

      “Uh-huh. Sure. The two of you probably had this planned from the very beginning.”

      “Had what planned? What are you talking about?”

      Oliver smirked, but there was a coldness in his eyes that frightened her. How could she not have known that he was a sociopath when she met him? How could she have let him seduce her into believing he was her man on a white horse?

      “I’ve been thinking about this ever since you tricked me into the divorce,” he said.

      “Tricked you?”

      “What else would you call it?”

      “Surviving,” she said, then sighed. “It’s been nearly a year, Oliver. Time to move on.”

      “You and your pretty-boy lawyer planned this, didn’t you? You knew I was a rich, successful businessman and you targeted me, roped me in, used that cute little rear of yours to break me down, take advantage of me. Started snooping around behind my back, sticking your nose in things you had no right getting into.”

      She thought about Harvey, her handsome but overly earnest attorney who was nearly twice her age, married and had three kids. Their relationship had always been strictly professional.

      “You’re insane.”

      “Am I? You got your hooks in me good, babe. I take one look at you in that robe, I get as a randy as a teenager.”

      Lisa felt her dinner backing up on her. The thought that she’d ever had the desire to take this man to bed gave her an urgent need for a box of gingersnaps. Or a chug of Pepto Bismol.

      “Don’t flatter yourself,” she told him.

      “I was trying to flatter you.”

      She stared at him. “Get out of here, Oliver. You don’t live here anymore, and you know what’s at stake. So go home.”

      “And what if I don’t?” He shifted his gaze to the gun at her side. “You gonna put a hole in me?”

      She frowned at him, then moved to the long table against the wall and set down the gun down, glad to be rid of it.

      As she stepped away, she said, “You can take it with you, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t ever want you thinking I owe you any favors.”

      The coldness filled his entire face now as he swung his feet off the table and stood up. “Let’s talk about favors, why don’t we?”

      He moved toward her, and Lisa found herself backing away slightly, wondering now if she should have been so quick to put down the gun. Oliver carried with him such a sense of menace that she was unsure of what he might do.

      Despite his history of violence, however, he had never threatened either her or Chloe and she hoped that would continue to hold true.

      “You weren’t so anxious to refuse my favors when I got you out of that dump of an apartment you lived in. I didn’t see you protesting when I put you in a brand-new Volvo. Made sure you and Chloe had all those pretty little clothes to wear.”

      “I’ve never said I’m not grateful, Oliver, but none of that means you own me. And right now you’re trespassing.”

      He moved in close, trapping her against the wall. “Trespassing? I haven’t been around here in months and this is how you treat me?”

      Lisa’s heart started thumping again. “Get out of here, now, or I swear I’ll—”

      It came suddenly and without warning. Oliver’s hand shot toward her, grabbing her by the throat, slamming her roughly against the wall.

      Lisa struggled, feeling her air cut off. She tried to speak but couldn’t.

      “I’m sorry,” Oliver said. “What was that? Were you about to threaten me again? Tell me I don’t have the right to come into a house I bought and paid for? You think some computer file you’ve got stashed, or some piece of paper your lawyer drafted up is gonna change that?”

      Panic rose in Lisa’s chest. She could barely breathe.

      Upstairs, Chloe started to cry, the sound muffled by her door.

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