Page 74 of Perfect Fling
Nicole swallowed hard. “Supposed to be. But she has a history of stopping when she’s feeling good, of refusing to believe she needs to live on them in order to function in the same world as the rest of us.”
So they were dealing with a sick woman. Cole hoped that was better than her being purely delusional. Maybe there were threads of humanity in there that they could work with.
“Did she tell you where she was going when she left the program?” Cole asked.
Nicole shook her head. “I asked, and she said that Cole was meant to be hers and she was going after him. That’s when I knew she was probably off her medication and I tried to keep closer tabs on her, but she never answered her phone, and her contact was sporadic.” She twisted her hands together in a way that had to be painful. “Then a few days ago, she called in the middle of the night, hysterical. She was rambling about how this Erin Marsden was ruining all her plans. She said something about watching Cole, waiting for the right time to approach him, but Erin was in the way.”
“That’s another thing that doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t she just come find me right away?” Cole asked.
“From what I could understand of her rambling, when she first came to town, she watched. She wanted to get an idea of your life. And she saw Erin leaving your apartment.”
“That was over four months ago!” Cole’s head nearly exploded.
“I know. Like I said... bipolar. She’s always spent more time plotting and planning than doing. But when she makes a move, it’s big.”
“Like running away with Vincent,” Sam said.
Nicole nodded.
“When did you hear from her again?”
“The day she saw Cole and Erin talking at some coffee shop. She went ballistic. I guess that’s when she started targeting Erin specifically, but I didn’t know she’d hired someone to shoot her! I didn’t think she was violent.” Nicole lay her head in her hands and moaned. “I don’t know what to say.” She lifted her pain-filled eyes to Sam’s.
The way she kept focusing on Sam and not Cole, despite Cole’s association with her sister, he knew he hadn’t imagined the connection there. Interesting.
“Do you know where she’s hiding out? Because this is a small enough town that we’d have had a sighting by now if she was living here,” Sam said gently.
Her eyes shimmered with tears. “I don’t even know how to tell you this.”
Cole’s nerves jangled. “What is it?”
“Last time Vicky called me, it was right before the weekend. She was hysterical because she’d been setting up a special place for the two of you to live and she found out Erin was pregnant.”
“Where is this place?” Cole asked.
Nicole spread her hands wide. “I don’t know.”
“Who would?” Cole asked.
She shrugged, looking helplessly at Sam.
Sam cleared his throat. “We just need you to think. You said she’s setting up a special place. Would she use a real estate agent? Does she have any friends she’d confide in?”
She pressed her fingers against her forehead. “Umm...”
“Anyone you can think of,” he encouraged her.
“No friends. She’s not good at keeping them,” she muttered.
“Real estate agent?” Cole asked.
She shook her head.
“Decorator?” Sam said, obviously grasping. “Someone who’d have the address for deliveries.”
“Well... there’s this antiques dealer she’s used for unique items in the one apartment she had on her own and both houses Victor owned.”
Cole exhaled a long breath. “Call him.”