The restaurant was packed, buzzing with people coming and going, waitstaff moving between the round tables scattered in the space decorated in dark woods and cream paint and upholstery. With all this around her, Bevis couldn't rid herself of the feeling she was being watched or followed. Perhaps it was both. Looking around, she glanced out the window and frowned. A car sat in the shadow across the street, in a section of the road where the lamp light didn't reach. Bevis stared in that direction before turning toward the restaurant's interior. She was sure it was the same car she had seen outside her apartment building. That would be for another day ... sighing, Bevis wandered between the restaurant tables, looking for Chelsea. Strangely enough, she found her in a far back corner, unusual as they both preferred the middle to the front of the restaurant, granted that was the old them. This may be the new Chelsea.

"How come we're all the way back here?" Bevis asked as she hugged her friend, "There seem to be a few tables open in our preferred area."

"Did you see Brad when you came in?" Chelsea asked, looking over her friend's shoulder and scanning the occupants and staff.

"No," Bevis said, "was he here?"

Chelsea nodded, "I ducked into the ladies, so he didn't see me," she said, "I thought I heard him ask one of the wait staff if you had arrived."

"We'll have to change our eating places," Bevis said, "come to think of it, I think he may have been waiting for me outside my apartment building and could be parked across the street right now."

"Do you think you must take a restraining order against him?" Chelsea asked.

"For what? Following me, asking people if I'm here," Bevis said, "it's not enough to get anything against him."

"If there was proof he had been in your apartment, going through your things, would you consider it then?" Chelsea asked.

"What are you talking about?" Bevis asked.

"When you moved in, I thought it was strange that Brad demanded you take that particular apartment," she said, shifting uncomfortable, "you wouldn't listen to any amount of reasoning ... so I had a friend install a surveillance security system."

Bevis paled, "I have a bad feeling about this," she swallowed hard, "what did he find?"

"You're not angry?" Chelsea asked.

"Not at all," Bevis said, "I wasn't thinking, and you were looking out for me. What did he find?"

"There are thousands of hours of Brad being in your apartment," she said, "moving things, hiding things, stealing things."

"Why?" Bevis frowned, "why would he do that?"

"The only thing I could think of was to undermine your self-confidence," Chelsea said, "so when he called you names, you'd believe it, and he could control you."

"That makes sense," Bevis said, frowning, "I wish he would ..."

"He's also tapped your laptop feed," Chelsea said, quickly interrupting Bevis mid-sentence, "we know where he is accumulating the information of what you're doing."

"What? No, that isn't good. Chels," Bevis gasped, "I just looked at a cabin and asked if I could see it."

"Cabin? What cabin?" Chelsea said, "Where is it?"

"I was going to tell you about it now," Bevis said, pulling the piece of paper out of her handbag, "I found this in my clothes from the week away ... I nearly washed it."

Chelsea took the paper from Bevis, "An address," she said, "to ... the cabin?"

"I made an appointment to see it tomorrow," Bevis said, "Chels, if your friend is correct and Brad can see everything I'm doing, he knows I'm going there tomorrow."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Relax," Chelsea said, "remember I was on that very long call the night we came back from the trip; you were being attended to by a doctor staying in the hotel," Bevis frowned, then nodded, "Well, I received a text that night from ... my friend that he had located where the information was going to," Chelsea said, "I told him to hijack the link and turn it around on Brad, see what he is doing, going, saying and so on."

"So you're telling me he doesn't know about the cabin?" Bevis said, figuring out an answer from all the information coming at her, "Chels, I'm starving. Let's order, and then we can really talk."

"Good idea," Chelsea said, signalling the wait staff nearby, "can we have some menus."

Bevis glanced up, flashing a smile, her eyes locked with a pair of hazel eyes; her eyes travelled down to a strong jaw and onto the ebony hair.

"Have we met before?" she asked as the waiter handed them menus.

"No," he said; the answer was simple, but the timber of the voice was familiar.

"Are you sure?" she asked, surprising a significant glance between Chelsea and the waiter.

"Very," he said, his eyes snapping back to her, and he smiled.

Suddenly Bevis knew, "You're Jake."

Surprise flashed across his face, and his eyebrows rose high on his brow; he cleared his throat, "My name is Jake."

"Not just any Jake," Bevis smiled, "you're Jason's brother ... Jake, who gave us the outdoorsy tickets to get away from it all."

A slight flush crept along his cheeks bones as he looked at Chelsea and shrugged, "Correct; how did you know?"

"You look like your brother, a little, but when you smile, you could be twins," Bevis said, "are you really our waiter for tonight, or is something else going on?"

Again he looked at Chelsea, who sighed, "Jake can you get us a Martini each, please."

He nodded and walked away toward the bar. Chelsea watched him go before turning to Bevis, looking at her for the longest time before taking a breath.

"Jake is here tonight not only as our waiter but also as security," she said in a whisper, looking around, "we're back here so that it's easier to keep a handle on who comes toward the table and who is looking for us."

"Meaning whoever it is would need to enter the restaurant to see us," Bevis said, "why do we have security?"

"When I started standing up to Brad, defending you, I noticed a few times that things around my place had been moved," Chelsea said, "I asked Jake to deck my place out the same as yours and ..." she sighed, "Brad has been breaking into both our apartments. Why mine? I don't know, but I'm not taking any chances. The windows in both your apartment and mine were changed from windows that can open to solid glass ... unmoveable, there is no longer a latch he can break."

"I wondered how that latch got broken," Bevis said, "when was he last in our apartments? "

"Right after he was fired and airlifted out of the camp," Chelsea said, "the night you went missing."

"If the windows are changed," Bevis whispered, frowning, "how did he keep getting in?"

"He has his own set of keys," Chelsea said, "when I saw that I pulled information about the owner of both apartments ... it goes to a corporation, but..." Chelsea paused, looking around, " ... the corporation's CEO..."

"Don't tell me," Bevis said, "not Brad."

Chelsea nodded, "It is," she said, "he owns a few places, and all of them have reported that someone has been in their apartment when they aren't."

"No wonder there is a definite clause about no pets," Bevis said, "he sounds like a monster."

"We know where he is and what he is up to," Chelsea said, "if he is following you, we can add that to the restraining order."

"We?" Bevis said, "you and I?"

"There are a few more than you and I," Chelsea said, smiling as Jake put their drinks before each woman, "thank you."

"Thank you, Jake. So those tickets were just to get me out of the way," Bevis said, looking between the two.

"No, those tickets were genuinely given to get rid of them," Jakes said, "I offered them to a few people before Chelsea, but she was the one who didn't dig too deep into what they were about and was happy just to get away. I could understand why; it also gave us time to look into a few things while you were away."

"What did you find?" Bevis asked.

Jake stared at her, "How have you stayed alive for so long?"

"What?" Bevis asked, blinking and frowning as confusion clouded her eyes, "that is a strange question."

"When looking into your life, it seems like a series of events made at the spur of the moment without very little thought," Jake said, "but somehow you have lived as long as you have."

Bevis cocked her head to the side, frowning in thought ... his words sounded familiar from years before.

"Let me order for us," Chelsea said, "she is going to be considering her life choices for a while."

Jake nodded, pulling out his pad and pencil and writing Chelsea's requests.