Dr. Good by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Five

Macie

I pace up and down in my bedroom, tapping a pen against my teeth, my laptop open on the desk. I’ve got the curtains closed and the lights off, the only source of light coming from my laptop screen, a glowing white rectangle.

Usually, I’m a sprinting sort of writer, manic finger-hammering out sessions, and then I go back with a meticulous eye and edit.

But this evening I find myself doing everything except for writing.

I abandon my laptop and give my two-bedroom apartment a tidy up. I’m renting this place with the money from Jackie’s will, but I haven’t splurged too much. It’s a simple apartment, with an office and a bedroom kept neat because that’s my habit.

Neat house, neat mind, Aunt Jackie used to say, and it’s a lesson that stuck.

What she usually left out of her pithy statement was the fact she had cleaners to handle all of this for her. I suppose I could pay somebody to tidy my apartment, but it just seems so indulgent when I can do it myself.

Once I’ve finished the dishes, I return to the bedroom, glancing at the word document on my laptop.

The…

That’s the only word I’ve written all night. It’s freaking pathetic.

But every time I sit down I find my thoughts straying to Miller and the way he glared at me as I left his office, as though I’d somehow offended him, and now my overactive mind is preoccupied with going over the meeting with forensic precision to try and work out what I did.

But I can’t think of anything.

Was it how nervous I came across?

Or maybe he could tell how badly I wanted him and it disgusted him.

I’m supposed to be working on the fourth chapter of my fantasy romance novel, about a woman who falls for a giant, born from a race who, sometimes, are born somewhere approximately human-sized. I already have all the chapters mapped out so it’s a simple case of breathing as much into the scene as I possibly can.

But every time I try to write about this woman and this giant, my fingers itch to do other things, to take me to other places that have nothing to do with my fantasy world.

Or maybe that’s wrong.

They have lots to do with fantasies, but not the exact fantasy that I am supposed to be plucking into existence.

I sigh and slam the laptop shut, pulling out my cellphone to see if Lexi has texted. When I see she hasn’t, I think about messaging her. But my best friend is on holiday with her boyfriend in Australia, and I don’t want to impose too much on her. She and Ryan have been doing so well lately, after a few roller coaster ups and downs over the years, and I don’t want to spoil that.

No, I need to deal with this on my own…

Not that there is a this.

It’s all in my freaking head.

Either that or it’s burning around my body in patterns of surging starlight, making every inch of me ultra-sensitive and alive to the tiniest friction against my body, as though I could pull on a T-shirt and cause an orgasm to thunder through me from the contact of the fabric against my nipples alone.

Knock-knock.

I pause at my bedroom door, staring across the apartment at the front door. It’s double-locked like it always is, but still, a note of fear moves through me.

I try to tell myself it’s not Derrick, that Derrick moved to Canada a year ago and he’s probably moved on to some other poor girl now, but the words ring out hollow in my mind.

Knock-knock-knock.

The noise gets louder, as though whoever it is – it’s Derrick, a vicious voice hisses – is getting tired of waiting. And soon they might simply kick the door down.

I hurry across the apartment, reaching over the kitchen partition and taking a knife from the block.

I know it’s probably going to turn out to be an over the top reaction, but the anxiety flurrying through me makes it impossible to do anything else, and there’s no way I’m taking any chances.

“Hello?” I call, creeping closer to the door.

“Maintenance,” a man says gruffly.

He’s got an East Coast accent, not Derrick’s deceptively friendly Canadian… that’s why he moved back up there, to be with his sick mother. Which seemed strange to me because Derrick is the least caring person ever.

He is probably hoping to work her out of her inheritance.

“I didn’t call maintenance,” I murmur, not trusting the relief that moves through me.

“There’s a possible gas leak,” the man snaps. “Miss Grahams, there isn’t time to argue. Please open the door.”

“I don’t smell any gas,” I say.

Part of me aches with the thought I’m making a fool of myself, that word is going to spread around the building that apartment ninety-seven put everybody’s lives at risk because of some silly unfounded fears.

And yet another part of me sends urgent signals through my body, rivaling even the signals I feel toward Miller, screaming, Stay safe. Don’t you dare open that door.

“You’re not here for the gas, are you?” I say, my voice trembling when the man doesn’t answer.

“I have a note for you, Macie,” the man says, his voice low and gruff.

“Who are you?”

“He said to tell you it doesn’t matter who I am. I don’t know you. I don’t know him either. He said to tell you… fucking hell, he said to tell you I’m just some homeless worthless bum, and maybe he’d slit my throat after I gave you the message. He said I had to say that or I wouldn’t get my money.”

My throat tightens, my skin pricks like thousands of sharp needles are being jabbed into me.

“What note?” I murmur.

“He said I had to give it to you in person.”

“He’s not a freaking psychic,” I cry. “How would he know?”

“He said…”

“What?” My voice is shaking now, my words bubbling up like hot lava, burning my insides. “What the fuck did he say?”

“He said he has your place bugged.”

My blood turns cold, my mind stampeding ahead to try and figure out if this is possible, if he could’ve been here.

But even though I double-lock it when I’m inside, I don’t when I’m outside. And when I take the trash out, do I lock it at all?

No, the answer is no.

Which means it’s possible.

It’s also possible that he’s just trying to scare me, but that doesn’t do much to calm my hammering nerves.

“I’m not opening the door,” I manage to say, my heartbeat shattering in my chest. “So you can slip your twisted note under the door or you can go to hell. I don’t care.”

He sighs. “Fine. But if he doesn’t pay me…”

He leaves the threat unfinished, but I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about Derrick, about the sick lunatic who’s returned to make my life a living hell for the second time.

How can I possibly become a mother with him stalking me?

The man pushes a folded-up piece of paper under the door.

I wait until I hear him walk away, and then dart forward and grab it, being careful not to stumble with the knife in my hand.

I pick it up to find the familiar-looking handwriting – a jagged scrawl – taunting me from the paper.

I’ve come back to claim what’s mine. Don’t worry, my sweet angel. I’m watching you. Love, D.

I yell when my cell phone blares from the kitchen divider, dropping the note and the knife, my heartbeat feeling like it’s going to throttle me.

Who’s calling?

Is it Derrick?

Oh, God, why can’t he just leave me the heck alone?