The Unseen Enemy Series

Chapter 108

“Anyway,” Greg said more calmly. “I kept giving her chances. You know? I sent her texts and pictures as her stalker, and I was sorry to scare her so bad, but all I wanted was for her to let me hold her. Comfort her. Take her to bed. But she never let me touch her, f*****g not once. No matter how scared she was, no matter how hard I tried to get her to see me as someone to turn to, she just didn’t.” He shrugged again. “You can only give a skank so many chances, right?”

Olivia thought back to the texts at the very beginning of this whole nightmare. Yes, they had been offensive, but not s****l or even very aggressive. More… bitchy, almost. There had been a short reprieve, and then suddenly, they’d just started up again. She recalled that this was when the name-calling began, when the sender started attaching pictures of ejaculating p*****s and sliced-up breasts.

That was when Greg got involved. He just took over the stalking, pretended to be the same person, took it up a notch. Several notches. Oh, my God.

“But you, Foreman.” Greg’s voice changed now; it was slower and quieter and Olivia shivered. “The very first time she called you, she f*****g threw herself at you, didn’t she? There you two were on her bed, her crying in your arms, and you calling her baby. After everything I’d done for her, you get to call her baby?” He was running the knife up and down his leg now, seemingly unaware that he was cutting himself. Olivia watched in horror as the blood seeped through his dress pants. “And you took her to your house? What – did you two f**k that night, or did the slut wait until the next morning to open her legs, huh?”

“Why didn’t you answer her call that night?” Dallas asked. “Olivia called you first, man. She only called me because you didn’t pick up your phone.”

“I wanted her to wait a few more minutes before I called her back… I wanted her good and freaked out when I pretended to arrive so I could score for sure.” Greg narrowed his eyes at Olivia. “I never imagined she’d actually call you. I didn’t think she’d give up on me so easy, you know. Stupid f*****g mistake, right? This skank just rolled right on over me, and moved on to the next man. And the next day, you show up in my office and tell me I’m fired? The b***h doesn’t have the courtesy to let me know herself, after everything I did for her? f**k that.”

“So are you mad at me, Greg?” Dallas asked softly. “Or at Olivia? Because if the problem here is me, I can come in there and we can talk…”

“Oh, f**k off, man. You really think I’m going to let you come in here with us? Jesus.” He rolled his eyes at Olivia as though expecting her to commiserate with him over Dallas’ stupidity.

Outside, the SWAT team vans had just pulled up, and Dallas nodded at Mark to go over and deal with filling them in.

“So what about Abe Castell?” Dallas said, trying to keep Greg talking. “He was a great fall guy, man. Except that even if SWAT had shot him up this morning, what you’re doing now would make the whole set-up pointless. You had the perfect plan, Greg. Why are you blowing it now, taking Olivia hostage in my conference room?”

“Because it only makes sense if everyone thinks Castell is the guy and he’s dead and she f*****g goes home, thinking it’s all over!” Greg shouted. “Your security guys back off because the job is over, and the b***h goes about her life unprotected. Then I wait for my chance to grab her, take her somewhere private for a few days, make sure the body is never found afterwards.”

Dallas bit his lip as the final pieces clicked into place.

“But you f****d that all up for me, didn’t you?” Greg said. “When you figured out Castell wasn’t the guy… I left you the most perfect trail of breadcrumbs and you just didn’t trust it, did you?”

“No,” Dallas said. “I didn’t. It was too perfect.” And I was just a bit too slow to know that. Goddammit.

“Oh, by the way?” Greg said. “Tell that little loser PA that his boyfriend Castell is a cheating son-of-a-w***e, would you?”

“That’s how you got him to go with you?” Dallas said. “You hit on him, offered to take him home?”

“Yeah. The two queers had a fight, apparently, about where Castell was the night of the cancer b***h’s party, and Castell was drowning his sorrows in some f*****g gay bar. I listened to his bullshit sob story and bought his drinks and we left together. When he tried to stick his filthy tongue down my throat, I knocked him out. Wasn’t hard.”

“Then you drugged him and put him in Olivia's house. Waited for the cops to take care of him for you.”

“Yep. Ingenious, huh?”

“Not bad, man. One more thing.”

“The floor plans, right? How’d I know about the room?”

“Yeah."