I couldn't imagine her not opening them, though. I would have thought the curiosity would be enough to get her to look at them immediately.
She was still ranting, clearly pissed. “I can't fucking believe you! And coming after my family as well? What the hell is that? It's bad enough that you spread all those lies about us to anyone who would listen, but now Dad says you've quit investing in all of the companies that he has stock in, and that's making him look really bad. Our stock prices are plummeting. Honestly, with the way that you've been acting lately, I'm starting to wonder if you've been poisoned or something. It's just not like you! I mean, you were always a cold, insensitive bastard, but this is just crazy.”
“Renée, I'm going to give you ten seconds to hang up the phone,” I said, feeling almost like I was reasoning with a child. But then again, Emma was never like this.
I didn't know why I was reasoning with her, either. I ought to just hang up and let the judge know that she had violated the restraining order. There would be evidence in the phone logs. But there was something that kept me on the line with her, listening to her hurl insults at me.
I wondered just what that was. I had never been a masochist before. Maybe it was just the fact that I had been trained, as a businessman, that you don't walk away from your arguments. Instead, you sit down and reason things out.
Or maybe it was that I thought I deserved every insult that she wanted to hurl at me. Especially after the whole debacle with Lexi over the DNA test and the crime rap. Or maybe it was something else, something to do with the weirdness of her calling me in the first place. If she didn't know about the restraining order, as she claimed, why hadn't she shown up at my work again? She seemed to have no problem doing that, and even though I'd threatened to call security on her the last time, I wasn't really stupid enough to think that would actually deter her.
“You bastard,” Renée snarled. “You picked the wrong person, but I'm going to fix all of that; don't you understand?” She said something else that I didn't quite catch.
&nbs
p; Come to think of it, there was something weird about the phone quality in general. There was a lot of background noise, including what sounded like cars. But it wasn't typical cell phone quality; it was worse than that. I could hardly hear her at times, as though she was too far from the microphone for it to pick her up.
I gave a mental shrug. She was probably just doing something strange with the phone while she had her little hissy fit.
“Renée, you're a deluded fool. You know we're never getting back together again. I have made that quite clear. You're lucky that I haven't done worse than I already have to you. I could ruin your whole family if I wanted to.”
“Do you actually love the bitch that much?” Renée asked.
“If by 'the bitch,' you mean Lexi, then yes. I do.”
Renée laughed. “Oh, that's rich. Like you would ever be capable of love. You don't even know what love is, you twisted bastard. Did you hear that? He says he loves you. But love isn't going to save you from a bullet.”
I frowned, trying to piece together exactly what I was hearing, when suddenly things became all too clear. “Renée, where are you?” I asked, trying to keep my tone level and careful when really, I was starting to panic inside.
She laughed again, sounding manic this time. “Wouldn't you like to know,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Renée, what have you done?” I asked.
I inwardly cursed the fact that I was on my office phone rather than my cellphone, since it meant that I couldn't go tearing out of there like I so desperately wanted to do. That was probably for the best in the long run, because I knew that confronting Renée right now was only going to make things worse. But at that moment, thinking of the things that she could have done to the people who I loved, made it impossible to stay calm.
“You really should get better security at your place,” Renée said, sounding careless and nonchalant, as though she were talking about the weather. “I know you've never cared about your money, but now that you do have something that you seem to care about, you'd think that you would take better care of it,” she continued. “Unless maybe that's the whole point of it. You don't actually care about the bitch and the brat at all, do you?”
My blood ran cold. “Renée,” I said warningly, but I couldn't get anything else out.
I frantically searched through my laptop for the number that I needed, and I knew that the longer I could keep her on the phone, the more time I would buy.
“Don't worry,” Renée said sweetly. “I'm not a total bitch, although that's what you seem to think. I left the brat and your maid at your house. They're locked in a closet and can't get out, but they're safe. I don't care about them. No, your bitch is the one who I've got a problem with.”
I was flooded with relief hearing that Emma and Janice were unharmed, but that didn't change the fact that I still didn't know where Renée was or what she'd done to Lexi. I remembered what she'd said about a bullet and realized that Lexi must be there, and that Renée must be planning to shoot her. She hadn't shot her yet, but she was planning on it.
I swallowed hard.
“Please, Renée,” I begged. “Please, let Lexi go. It's me that you have a problem with, not her. If you let her go, I'll give you anything. You know that I can do that. I'll give you anything.” I hated sounding that desperate. I hated begging, and I hated that I was bending to her game. But it was all worth it, if it meant that I could ensure Lexi's safety.
“The only thing that I want, you're never going to give me,” Renée said acidly. “Not as long as this bitch is still here to poison your mind. Don't you think I don't realize that? But once she's out of the picture, you can be mine again. Just like it's meant to be.” She was quiet for a moment. “You and I were meant to be together. I knew that long before you did. Our families are meant to be joined, with all of our wealth pooled together. And you and I would have been the poster children for the elite, the perfect relationship standard. We'll look so good on the cover of all the magazines, don't you think?”
I could tell from the way that she was changing between different verb tenses, between what she wanted to have happen and what she imagined would happen, that she was totally gone. There wasn't anything left.
And logic didn't work on someone who had no sanity left.
But I had to at least try. “Renée, please. There must be something else that you want. I could give you everything that I own; wouldn't that satisfy you? You'd be one of the richest people in the world. I'm sure men would be knocking themselves out trying to get a date with you. You'd forget all about me. Wouldn't that be better?”
“You bragged about your wealth and power before,” Renée said mockingly. “You thought it made you so high and mighty. But now I have all the power. Right here.”