She switched back to her inbox to let her attorney know she’d tried and would notify him if she heard anything—and found an email from an address she didn’t recognize. She was half-convinced it was spam disguised as personal correspondence, except the subject line read: Emery, I loved it, and I love you! Since it had her name, and a positive subject line, she opened it just to be sure it wasn’t something from an old friend.
It contained the picture of a man, naked from the waist down. His face was blocked out but he was wearing a Santa hat and showing off an erection so large it didn’t look as though it could be real.
“Ew!” She was so shocked she dropped her phone, then had to twist and bend to scoop it up so that she could delete the picture. Her spam filter was usually better than this. Figuring it had to be some porn site that had found a work-around to the latest firewalls, she sent it to the garbage.
But as it disappeared, some of the words above the picture registered in her mind. There was something personal in the message, too.
How could that be?
She retrieved it from the trash and, her chest rising and falling as her breath came quicker, read it carefully.
How would you like to work in the porn industry? It’s not the nightly news, but I’d be happy to give you a ride you’ll never forget—and we could capture what a real climax looks and sounds like. With the proper lighting, maybe viewers will even be able to see that little heart-shaped freckle on your thigh when I spread your legs.
She looked around as though she expected someone to jump out from behind one of the dumpsters in the alley and start pointing a finger and laughing at her. What was going on? Who had done this? And how did whomever it was get her email address?
She studied the sender’s address: majorhardon. This wasn’t spam. Whoever had sent the email had targeted her. Not only did he know her email address, he knew her name, her past occupation and about that sex video. She wrote back:
Who is this?
The answer came right away.
If you really want to know, meet me at the Blue Suede Shoe at midnight tonight. Then you can see the size of the woody you give me in person.
There was a knock on her window.
Startled, she screamed, but it was only Susan. Quickly shoving her phone in her purse so that her boss wouldn’t look a little closer and see that obscene picture, she opened her door a crack.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Susan asked, perplexed. “It’s ten after twelve, and you’re just...sitting here.”
“Oh. Sorry,” she said, and scrambled from the car. “I was reading a good article and must’ve lost track of time.”
“No problem. What was it about?”
“What was what about?” she asked as she slipped past Susan to go inside.
“The article.”
“Oh. It was about...it was about how...some guy mugged one of those bell ringers for the Salvation Army and stole all the money in his bucket,” she said, grasping at anything she could think of.
“You’re kidding!” Susan sounded horrified. “I haven’t heard about that.”
“It wasn’t around here,” she said, and hoped her boss would let it go as she put down her purse and moved into the front.
Fortunately, they were busy from the moment she put on her apron. Susan didn’t have the chance to ask any more questions about that nonexistent article or anything else.
Emery was grateful that she couldn’t dwell on Tommy’s lack of response, that strange and upsetting email or how things had ended with Dallas last night. She was tempted to contact him, to tell him about the email she’d received, but she couldn’t allow herself to lean on him. That wasn’t fair.
He’d gotten her back on her feet. She had to navigate from here.
But as she closed up that night, she had to ask herself—was she going to the Blue Suede Shoe?
22
Emery felt self-conscious entering the bar alone. Because it was always busy on the weekend, and she couldn’t imagine she’d be unsafe with so many people around, she’d decided to go. She’d once reported on a story about a spurned lover who’d impersonated his ex-girlfriend online and provided her personal information to men hoping to connect with women seeking a rape fantasy experience. Strange men had come to her house at all hours of the night, thinking she’d requested a sexual attack. Fortunately, nothing truly terrible happened to her, but it was frightening and sometimes difficult to convince her would-be “attackers” that her refusal wasn’t part of the game.
Emery had to wonder if Ethan had posted her email address in a similar forum, hoping the men there would begin to harass her. If so, and she could prove it, the police would have to get involved. Setting her up went well beyond loading a sex tape onto the internet. Something like that could potentially result in physical harm.
She hadn’t gone home to shower and change after work—she’d sat in her car and read for over an hour to pass the time—so her hair and clothes smelled like fresh-baked cookies. But at least most people liked the scent of vanilla. She’d been reluctant to return to Aiyana’s for fear she’d bump into Dallas. She knew he’d ask about Ethan and if she’d heard anything on the lawsuit—they’d talked about that almost every day—and she’d decided not to tell him the latest. Not only was she determined to do a better job of handling her own problems, his brothers were coming into town today—she’d been hearing about their arrival all week—and she didn’t want to get in the way of the family reunion.
After slipping through the crowd to reach the bar, she ordered a Sprite with a wedge of lime before picking her way along the wall to the far corner. She was hoping to find a vantage point from which she could view most
