When I took Ziggy into the yard earlier, he seemed happy to play there. But now he looks up at me and whimpers.
“I’m sorry, boy.” I stroke his soft head. “I’ll come for you in the morning and we’ll do something fun.”
Not that I can promise that. I can’t promise anything about tomorrow.
Ziggy whimpers again—his expression breaks my heart. I still can’t figure out why he bit Graham. It doesn’t make any sense. But then again, nothing about this day makes any sense.
I feel terrible about leaving Ziggy in the backyard, but he’ll be fine out there. As for me, I’m not so sure.
When I get back into the dining room, Graham is still upstairs. I look down at the beer bottle and glass of water he dropped on the table before he left. I think of the words I found written on my thigh. Graham is drugging you. Is it possible that he put something in my water glass?
I lift the glass of water. I hold it up to the light of the ornate chandelier above our heads and peer at the clear liquid. But it’s not entirely clear. When I squint, I can just make out little particles of a white substance swirling in the water.
Graham’s footsteps on the stairs startle me and I nearly drop the water. He’s coming downstairs. Now. What am I going to do?
I can’t think of anything else to do, so I toss the contents of the water glass into a nearby plant. I’ll tell him I drank it all. Hopefully, the plant will be okay, but that’s the least of my concerns.
“Tess?” Graham is at the entrance to the dining room, now dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. He looks handsome in his casual attire, but there’s something in his eyes that makes me uneasy. “What are you doing?”
I force a smile. “I was just thirsty and gulped down all my water while I was waiting for you. I’ll just grab some more water from the kitchen.”
Graham narrows his eyes at me. He takes a step closer to me and I instinctively take a step back.
“No,” he says. “You’re lying.”
Chapter 26
I hold onto the edge of the table because my legs have turned to jello. Graham’s blue eyes look almost black as he glares at me.
“You’re lying,” he says.
“What… what do you mean?” I plaster an innocent expression on my face. It’s hard to believe it looks even remotely realistic.
“You didn’t drink that water,” he hisses at me.
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t. You poured the water into the plant. I saw you do it.”
Crap.
I think back to the conversation I had with Harry at the dog park. You have said those exact words to me multiple times now. You knew he was drugging you. You tried to avoid it. And the next day, nothing has changed. You’ve still lost your memory.
Is this what happened all those other nights? I tried to get rid of the tainted water and Graham caught me? And now what will he do?
“Why did you do that?” he presses me. “Why did you dump out your water?”
I tug on the sleeve of my sweater. “It… it looked cloudy. I don’t know… like, maybe something was floating in it…”
He narrows his eyes. “Did somebody tell you I was putting something in your water?”
“No,” I say quickly. Maybe too quickly.
Graham is looking down at something. I follow his gaze and realize he’s staring at my arm. I was fiddling with the sleeve of my sweater, and I had inadvertently tugged it up several inches. And now Graham can see the last several digits of a phone number.
Oh no.
He crosses the distance between us and seizes my left arm in his hand hard enough to leave behind bruises. He wrenches up my sleeve, revealing the digits Harry scribbled on my arm. Graham’s eyes widen behind his spectacles. “Really? Are you kidding me with this, Tess?”
I open my mouth to say something, but no words come out. I’m starting to see why Camila was only allowed to set the table with butter knives.
He releases my arm and glares at me. “Whose number is that? Who have you been talking to?” Before I can answer, he says, “Is it Harry?”
I shake my head as vigorously as I can, but it’s clear Graham doesn’t believe me. He marches into the living room, and after a second, I can see what he’s going for. My phone. He picks it up and unlocks it with his thumb. I hold my breath as he scrolls through my messages and phone calls. Thank God I deleted those text messages from Harry. He was right when he instructed me to do that.
Graham shakes the phone at me. “Did you delete the messages from him?”