After returning to my room, I turn on my laptop and rewind the footage of our front gate camera to a few hours back in the evening.
Clementine’s hand rests on the gate latch for a beat too long before she opens it. My heart thuds painfully as she ambles farther in, swinging the two shopping bags in her hands. Unbeknownst to the fact that this evening isn’t going to turn out as she had planned. She finally steps into the foyer, walking out of the view of the camera.
Nothing out of the ordinary happens and I fast-forward until a black delivery van stops outside the gate.
No one steps out but the driver-side window slides down a little and I notice the lens of a long-distance monocular extending out of the opening.
“Fucking bastards.” My hands tighten around the edge of the table as my blood boils watching these fuckers peeping Clementine.
Time passes and they lie in wait. Finally, the van doors open. I sit straight, watching the two men blatantly crossing the street. These fuckers don’t even hide their faces as they break inside my house. The old-and-young duo look like dirty street thugs. My gaze doesn’t waver for a second as I try to identify them, but nothing about these worthless pieces of shit stands out.
My hands clench as I wait, dreading what’s happening inside my house.
Minutes later the old man emerges and plods back to the van. Their recklessness takes me by surprise. These fuckers are in no hurry and make no attempt to hide their identity.
Several minutes pass and nothing changes on the screen. My eyes are fixed on the front door when the younger man drags Clementine by her arm. She is dressed in a red blouse and blue jeans and for a second, I thank God that she has stopped roaming in those nightshirts without any pants. Just at the doorstep, I notice her sliding something inside her bra.
What the fuck?
Before I can think more, they are pushing her into the van and driving away. I rewind the tape to when Clementine is being dragged out of the door.
I again don’t get a view of what she hid, but just before she is pulled away, her eyes lock with the camera and incidentally meet my gaze. My heart fucking stops.
Her scared face has never looked more beautiful.
I trace her on my screen, and before I know it, she’s gone.
For the second time in my life, it feels like something precious has been snatched away from me. But only this time, I have a chance to save it.
I make a copy of the recording and email it to Gavin. If there is anyone who can find what Clementine was hiding, it’s him.
I look around the house one last time to see if I’m missing anything. My gaze hesitates at the stairs leading up to her loft. I have not stepped foot in her space since her first night in our house.
After a moment’s reluctance, I climb the stairs and enter her room, which is no longer as it was when I handed it to her.
The rumpled sofa bed looks as if someone just rolled out of it. There are her shoes, not one or two but more than twenty pairs facing a large mirror, which is definitely not my purchase. There are clothes thrown above the blankets as if she was undecided on what to wear for work. It’s only her kitchen that is pristine, untouched.
I sit on the edge of her bed, my hands grabbing her blue silk top. Seeing this space, which is so her, a feeling of emptiness hits me hard. In such a short time, this girl encroached on not only my house, but also my heart.
I cannot imagine how Mere and I would be without her. A smile crawls up my face remembering the two arguing last week about how much tomato paste to add in a pasta sauce, which they eventually burned.
I bring the silk material closer to my face and it drops when Snowy mewls loudly near my feet.
Fuck! What the hell am I thinking?
Clementine is a fleeting passenger on our life’s train. She’ll move out eventually, if not to Cherrywood, then some other place. I just need to bring her home safe.
I don’t need to fucking forget that she’s my tenant and nothing else.
I dial Gavin, ignoring my rapidly beating heart.
“You found something?” I leave the loft and jog back to my room. The cat hot on my heels.
“It’s hard to see what she slid under her shirt. I’ve tried several filters, but she’s hiding it from that fucker.”
My lips pinch together. “Anything else?”
“I’m now running our tracking software, but I don’t have much hope. We don’t have any trackers on her, right?”