I snapped my mouth shut when I realized it was hanging open. The thought of spending that much money on something and then discarding it just as easily was crazy. I shifted uncomfortably in my dress. “It’s all for a good cause, I suppose. Right?”
Caleb shrugged.
An assistant came around and handed him some paperwork for his golf clubs and swiped his card through a reader. Some part of me waited for the big red cross and the declined ‘buzz.’ Of course, it didn’t come. The woman handed Caleb his receipt, and he thanked her with his charming grin.
The ring Sandra had thought Caleb might be considering for me was the next item up, and I held my breath while the master of ceremonies went into detail on the piece of jewelry. It really was beautiful. Close-up images of the ring sitting in a bed of black silk shone up on the screen behind the announcer’s podium, and there was more than one gasp from the women around the room.
The bids came in thick and fast from a roomful of men who seemed intent on buying their ladies something special.
Caleb didn’t raise his paddle once.
In fact, he seemed entirely uninterested now he had the item he’d come for.
Sandra shot me a pouty, sympathetic look when the auctioneer slapped his palm against the wooden lecturer’s podium and the gorgeous ring became the property of Mr. and Mrs. Kemp, an older couple at the back, for forty-seven thousand dollars.
Less than Caleb had paid for the golf clubs he didn’t even want.
Oh well, so much for that.
The ringing of a phone cut through the next round of bidding, and frowny faces all turned in our direction. I gaze around, adding my frown to the ones around me.
“Is that your phone?” Caleb whispered.
My face heated when I realized it was, and that I’d forgotten to put it on silent as we’d arrived. Red-cheeked, I took my cell from my purse, frantically trying to silence it.
But the name flashing on the screen froze me to the spot.
Axel.
Caleb glanced at me like I’d lost my mind. “Bethany-Melissa!” he hissed. “Can you shut that thing up?”
I still couldn’t move.
Caleb leaned over and peered at the phone. “Who’s Axel?”
Hearing his name out loud was enough to finally shock me out of my stupor. “No one. Never mind. Sorry.”
I silenced the ringer, pulling it away from Caleb and pushing back in my chair so fast he had to grab the back of it to keep it from falling over.
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
Without waiting to hear if Caleb said anything in reply, I spun on my heel and hurried for the safety of the ladies’ room, my phone still vibrating in my hand.
I never made it to the bathroom. The moment I was out of the ballroom and into the hall, I hit the green answer button. “Axel?”
The sound of labored breathing came down the line. “Bliss?”
“It’s me. What’s wrong? Why are you calling?” I swallowed hard. “Is it money? If you need help, I can’t ask Dad but I—”
“Do you want some Goldfish crackers?”
I stopped breathing.
Memories I’d fought hard to forget flooded back, swirling around my head in a tumbling dark mass, sinister and terrifying.
“Why would you ask me that?” The words came out as barely more than a croak, the tremble in my voice matching the one that had taken control of my fingers.
There was nothing but his breathing.
“Axel! Talk to me! Why would you say that after all these years—”
The crack of a gunshot, even down the phone line, ripped a scream from my chest. On instinct, I threw my phone across the hallway and covered my ears, shrinking down and cowering like I was five years old again, in my mother’s vermin-ridden trailer, my big brother the only protection I knew.
I stared at the phone with terror clawing at my throat. “No,” I whispered, the word coming out as a sob. “No. No.” I crawled across the floor, my dress tugging and twisting and dragging along until I had the phone to my ear again. “Axel? Axel!”
There was nothing but a deathly silence on the other end.
My heart pounded against my rib cage, and my whispers turned to screams. “Axel!”
There was no reply.
But I heard his voice in my head anyway.
Do you want some Goldfish crackers?
It had always meant one thing.
You’re in danger. Hide.
2
BLISS
“I need your keys.”
Caleb glanced up, irritation etched into his handsome features. “I was in the middle of a conversation.”