Chapter 1

Lisa didn't mean to lie to the police.

The day of the hotel attack, she and Cynthia had gone to a nearby bar to take the edge off. She bucked convention by ordering a Jim Beam on the rocks and then cursed when she realized she had inadvertently ordered Jackson's drink from the Tex Mex bar. It was the first in "little incidents" she would have. While Cynthia manically chattered about the day's events, Lisa sullenly swirled the ice cubes in her glass and thought about Jackson. Every time she licked her lips, a shiver would run down her spine when it crossed her mind this is what his mouth would have tasted like.

Why am I even thinking like this? He's sick. I hate him.

By the time she made it back to her dad's house she was tipsy and confused. Law enforcement and agents immediately swarmed her.

"Miss Reisert, it would help this investigation if you could remember what you did with Jackson's phone," the officer said. "We swept through your house and tagged some items as evidence, but the phone is our best chance to find out who was behind the whole thing."

Lisa had shrugged helplessly.

"I'm sorry. The last time I used it was in the car I borrowed." She blushed. "Anyway the phone was dead."

The officer nodded and signaled for his counterpart to look closer at the car. They found nothing.

Days later, after countless interviews with both local police and the FBI, Lisa received word Jackson had escaped the hospital. Her reaction was eerily calm as the investigator explained they would have someone stand guard for her.

"If you'd rather, go ahead and check into a hotel," he said. "But we don't think he'd be dumb enough to come after you."

"I'm fine," Lisa assured him. "I want to stay at my house."

Maybe he will be dumb enough to come here.

But Jackson did not come for her, and she felt a disappointment she couldn't explain.

With a manhunt underway, the issue of the missing cell phone was put on the back burner, and the updates from officials were less frequent. They had come to a dead end, and Lisa was losing her mind. She kept busy as a way to escape her never-ending thoughts. She cleaned her condo from top to bottom, and when there wasn't a speck of dust left, she moved on to her father's newly-repaired house. The plants had been neglected while the contractors were fixing the entrance, and it was while Lisa was wresting with a planter that she discovered the phone hidden amongst the fronds. It must have flown out of the car when she hit Jackson's cohort. She bit her lip and considered her options. Her first instinct was to call Agent Braun, but a stronger, more curious, inclination caused her to pocket the phone and hide it in her closet.

There it sat for three months—until today.

Driving to the store to buy a replacement charger felt downright criminal, and Lisa found herself excessively looking over her shoulder. She took a roundabout way home (in the event she was being followed) and left the phone to charge in a shadowy bedroom. Lisa was a jumble of tension as she watched the little light blink in the darkness. She had to distract herself.

Dinner. Let's make dinner! She was wildly hyper, ransacking the pantry and cupboards for a meal she couldn't possibly eat. Her stomach churned against the food as a frission of nerves set her body on edge. Abandoning the charade, she flicked through a magazine, her eyes boring through the walls to where the phone was charging. After an hour (possibly one of the longest of her life), she ran into the bedroom and wrenched the phone out of the socket. Sixty percent battery life. Just enough.

She stared at the phone. A sleek, gunmetal Nokia stared back at her. Holding her breath, she held down the power button and watched the screen come to life.

Turning on the phone felt risky enough. Lisa had seen enough movies to know there was a possibility it was being tracked. What would Jackson's employers think if they saw the signal blip across their radar? At this point, Lisa wasn't sure if his old agency was protecting him or looking to retaliate against him for the botched Keith job. A vision of menacing assassins bursting into her living room gave her momentary pause, but she saw no other way out.

Emboldened, Lisa ran her thumb over the contacts button and gave it a defiant jab. An empty phone list was all she got for her effort. Shit. Remembering his conversation on the plane—"Work, for the last time"—Lisa eagerly scanned through the features until she located his recent calls. This time, she was rewarded with a phone number.

A sharp, metallic taste filled her mouth, and she realized, with horror, the last time her adrenaline surged like this was when Jackson was hunting her down in her childhood home. Setting the Nokia gently on the couch, she buried her head in her hands and felt the thrumming of her heart through her temples.

The conflicting emotions were back in full force. This was not fear. This was something more perplexing. Something worse.

Butterflies. She was getting fucking butterflies at the thought of being one step closer to finding him. It was so shameful that she couldn't even imagine telling her therapist about it.

"It's not excitement over seeing him," she told herself. "It's making that bastard pay for screwing up my head." She glanced around the empty room, eyes sweeping over the dirty dishes in the sink and a stack of old movies on the coffee table. "Screwing up my head and making me talk to myself like a crazy person," she added darkly.

She abandoned the phone on the sofa.

I can't do this until I can get my emotions under control.

Lisa laid on her bedroom floor and practiced the breathing exercises Dr. Kohler had taught her. Once her heart rate had resumed a normal pace, she resolved to sleep on the phone issue and make a sound decision in the morning. It was too much to handle at the present. She spent the rest of the evening in bed, reading a thriller she had borrowed from Cynthia. It was around 11:00 when she decided to resign for the night.

The phone was weighing heavy on her mind and she spent a few fitful hours tossing and turning. At three a.m., her eyes popped wide open and she sighed loudly. Unable to keep up with the pretense of sleeping, Lisa threw off the duvet and padded into kitchen. She set the kettle on for tea and made way for the living room. It looked like another night of falling asleep in front of the TV. Not that she minded. The combination of a snack and late-night movie always worked to cure her insomnia. It was then her thoughts circled back to Jackson. How many times had he seen her play out this exact scenario? She wrapped a chenille blanket around her shoulders as her skin broke out in goosebumps. She could almost feel his eyes on her now…

"Stop."

Her voice was stark in the silence of the room, and she felt somewhat startled. She hadn't even meant to say anything. Shaken, Lisa went back into the kitchen to tend to the whistling teapot and relaxed in the midst of preparing her cup of peppermint tea. She blew on the steaming mug and took a few scalding sips as she retreated towards the television. The stack of old movies beckoned to her, and she carefully set the hot cup on a coaster to peruse them. On the very top was a copy of "Belle de Jour." Lisa dropped the DVD and covered her mouth to suppress the scream that threatened to wake the neighbors. This was not her movie. This had not been here earlier in the evening. Her eyes shot to the phone still innocently resting on the couch. The battery power was now at five percent.

Someone had been in her house tonight, and she was certain that someone was Jackson.