Make Time For Me

Chapter 10

“Come home with me.”

“What?”

Jason looked at Olivia, puzzled, and she didn’t blame him. They were both naked and in bed, and they were basking in the glow of just being with each other. She hadn’t managed to shut her stupid heart, but she had managed to drive herself mad thinking about it.

She hadn’t told Jason about the second note, either. It had been four days since the hurricane officially moved away, and the last four days had been hectic. There had been far less damage than she had expected, but it had still been a lot of work. She’d thrown herself into doing it with all of her heart, exhausting herself in the process as if she needed any help getting there.

But she was beginning to feel suffocated. She needed to getaway.

“Home. To my family. It’s the Fourth of July soon. We don’t do the whole Fourth of July cookout thing. We do a pre-big day cookout. Come home with me for that. It’s going to be special. Caleb will be there, and so will Cara, and Hattie and Hazel will be there. Daniel won’t be there, which is a pity, but… I want to be there, and I’d really like it if you were there, as well.”

There, that was as neutral as she could make it. She hadn’t pressured him.

Just to be sure, she might as well tell him so.

“There’s no pressure. I promise. I just want you to be there. If you don’t want to come, it’s fine. I have to go, anyway. Caleb called me the other day and he said that he’s going to pop the question. Can you believe it? My best friend will be my sister-in-law, because I know she will say yes. She adores him. They adore each other. I wouldn’t have thought that they’re a good fit, but they are. They fit so well together.”

“So, you’re asking me to meet your family.”

“I told you, my family isn’t really like that. They’re pretty easygoing about this. They won’t, you know, grill you or make you feel uncomfortable. It’s going to be fine. But I know it’s a lot to ask, anyway, so if you don’t want to…”

He leaned in and kissed her before she could babble on and on.

“Of course I’ll come. I’d love to come. I’d love to meet your family. And even if they want to grill me, I won’t mind. I’d want to grill me if I were them. But not literally, right? You’re not asking me to be the one being cooked at the cookout.”

Olivia chuckled.

“Of course I’m not. Of course you’re not. You will have fun. We’ll have to figure our shifts out and probably drive all night, but we can take turns. We’ll take my Jeep. I know, you love your car, but my Jeep is more practical and I will have lots of gifts to take. And we’ll see if we can get the twins to get us tickets for the symphony, I haven’t watched them do their thing on stage in such a long time. I’m so excited! It’s going to be so much fun!”

Jason smiled and stroked her cheek with his knuckle.

“I’m glad you’re so happy about this. You’ve been looking worried and distracted. You’ve been worrying about something. I missed seeing you happy.”

“I got another note.”

It was out before she could stop it. She hadn’t meant to tell him, because she hadn’t wanted to worry him, and she wanted time to figure out how to deal with it, whom to go to with it.

“What?”

“I… It was when we were in the hospital, the day Liza and Nikki had the surgeries. I found it in my coat pocket again.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“I found it later in the day and then you remember how it got. I meant to tell you after that, but things were busy and nothing more happened and we haven’t had time together since then, so…”

She trailed off, knowing that she was making excuses and hating it. She should have told him. Of course she should have told him. They both knew that.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“You told me now. Where is the note? You have to tell somebody else about this, Olivia. We have to make an official complaint. It’s necessary now, you understand that, don’t you? This isn’t a game. Your safety and peace of mind are not trivial. They matter.”

It was strange and a little unnerving to see that light-hearted mask he always had on slip, and see the guy underneath. She’d seen that before, and she knew she loved all of him. There, that word again – it kept slipping into her mind when she wasn’t guarding herself against it. And sometimes even then.

“I have it in my bag. I put both of them in sealed plastic bags. I thought maybe there would be something… Jason, the second letter, half of it is written in blood. I’m pretty sure of that. I’ve seen enough blood to be pretty sure of that.”

Jason looked shocked, as he very well should have been. Thinking about it still made her feel a little sick.

“What? Blood?”

“I can’t be entirely sure, but I think so, yes. I mean, we’ve been around blood enough to be pretty sure, I guess. I’m just… It’s so creepy. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted it to just go away and stop being my problem. But I want to get off the island for a while, go and see my family for a couple of days, and then come back and see what we can do about this.”

“Do you have any idea who’s doing it?”

Olivia threw her hands up, frustrated.

“I don’t know! After I got the second note, I got so paranoid that I started suspecting everybody! I wondered if Paul was doing it! Or Angela or Ellie, or even you, Jason! It was making me go mad! I can’t look around and keep wondering if my friends are writing me hateful, threatening letters. It could be anybody. You never know. I didn’t know anybody here until I came here, so it’s not anything from my past. That much, at least, I can be sure of. But I don’t think I’ve done anything to call attention to myself after coming here, not like this.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not about you doing anything to call attention to yourself, either. You know that, Olivia. This is somebody who is disturbed and seems to have developed a fixation on you. But if it’s blood, do you think it could be their own blood? If it is, it would be DNA. We can do something about it, at least.”

“Oh. Oh, but we can’t just ask people to give us their DNA like that, and DNA analysis isn’t available on demand like that! There are so many evidence kits that sit with the police and aren’t processed for years and why would this take priority when no violent crime has even been committed?”

Jason smiled, a crooked little half-smile.

“Because I’m a billionaire, Olivia, and things like this are not delayed for billionaires.”

“Oh. Oh, you know something? I’d forgotten. I’d completely forgotten that you’re a billionaire.”

“And I would give you my DNA sample, no questions asked.”

Olivia looked away, a little shy, because she knew exactly why his tone changed when he said it.

“I don’t think it’s you, I know it’s not. It was just that day, I was feeling a little paranoid and alone. It was just…”

“Don’t explain. I know. I don’t blame you. I’m not upset. It’s fine, Olivia. And even if there’s a little, tiny part of you that wants me to do it, I will. Without being offended at all. But we have to do this before we leave. We have to go to the sheriff’s office, report this, and then we have to get the notes to a lab I know so we can get it analyzed. All right?”

Olivia nodded. It was odd not to be in control of something about her, but it was a relief, too, to be able to depend on somebody and know he wouldn’t let her down. It was something she wouldn’t mind getting used to.

“Okay. Okay, we’ll do that.”

“Well then, why don’t we go out, grab some dinner, and we’ll stop by the sheriff’s and get this done before I take you home?”

Olivia nodded. That sounded good.