“Dang it,” I mumble and squat, scooping them up, but the hair stands up on my neck again, and despite the cold droplets of water smacking my forehead, I don’t stand. My gaze shifts to a shadow near the open garage door, and I search to find no one there. I jerk myself upright, stomach lurching. Get in the car. Get in the car. Why are you outside the car?

Hands shaking now, I dig out my keys, and curse the out-of-character paranoia I can’t escape. I yank open the car door and throw my purse inside, get in, the journals and the box awkwardly on my lap. I can’t lock the door fast enough. A heavy breath escapes me at the sound of the clicks that seal me inside and I haphazardly stack the journals and box in the passenger seat.

I’m about to start the engine when a trickle of awareness draws my gaze to the side of the building I’d just exited, and I gasp. Standing in the shadows, beneath a slim awning, one leg propped against the wall, is the man who’d visited me a few minutes before. Watching me.

I turn on the engine and say a silent prayer of thank you when it starts. I can’t get out of here fast enough.

***

I’m halfway home when the storm explodes on the city in a fury of pounding rain and vivid lightning, no doubt the reason why, despite it being Friday night, there isn’t a nearby parking spot at my apartment complex. Thankful that a boatload of schoolwork to grade had motivated me to buy a purse the size of a small suitcase, I cram the box and the journals inside to protect them from the downpour. A wet run later, with water dripping from my hair and clothes, I flip the lights on in my apartment. I can’t shut the door and lock it any faster than I could get away from that storage facility.

Maybe my imagination is running away with me over the mystery of Rebecca Mason, but I feel like I am being stalked. That man back at the storage unit gave me the creeps. I shiver just thinking about him. Well, that and I’m dripping wet and despite the fact that it’s August, it’s a chilly fifty-one degrees outside according to the radio announcer.

Water is puddling at my feet, and I quickly pull the box and the journals from my drenched purse, setting them on the dry carpet before stripping right there in the entryway. My tan carpet is a dirt magnet but renting means you take what you can get. I start for the bathroom and hesitate, backtracking to grab my cell phone because it just makes me feel better to have it in hand, but I tell myself it’s to call Ella. I start a hot bath and dial her number, hoping she might know where to find Rebecca, and to hear she is safe and happy. Her phone rings with a fast busy signal that tells me that she was out of service range, but I still feel worried. I am one big ball of nerves and it’s making me insane.

Forty-five minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in pink boxers and a matching tee, my hair soft and dry and smelling like my favorite rose-scented shampoo, I am chiding myself for being so paranoid. I head to the fridge for my answer to all troubles—-a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Boston Cream Pie ice cream.

My gaze slides to Rebecca’s personal items still sitting by the door with my discarded clothes. I should have stayed at the storage unit until I found her information. Now, I have no choice but to seek what I need in between the pages of those journals. Or in the box...that I can’t open. I'm not even sure why I’d brought it with me.

A few minutes later, I sit down on the couch with my good friends Ben and Jerry, the stack of journals, and the box on the coffee table. The box that I still see no way to open without potentially damaging it.

With no other option, I reach for a journal and flip it open. In delicate female writing, it reads 2010 . No month. I wonder if this was written before, or after, the journal Ella had left in my apartment last night.

Thumbing through pages, I try to scan for words that might relate to a place of employment and catch little pieces of Rebecca’s life along the way. The night was hot and my body thirsty. I inhale and turn the page at the clear indication of something far more private than a place of work. This woman wrote with such flowery, exotic words. Who writes like that? My life changed the day I walked into the art gallery. Okay, that has my attention for the right reason. The gallery is clearly where I need to look for Rebecca. But did she work there or shop there? Or maybe she was an artist?

I keep reading, looking for my answers. I’ve changed. It’s changed me. This world has changed me. He says he’s simply helped me uncover the real me. I don’t even know who the real me is any more.

“He who?” I whisper at the text.

The places I go now, both emotionally and physically, are dark, dangerous places. I know this, yet where he leads-–where they lead – I follow.

I frown, thinking of the journal entry of the night before, how I’d read that someone had entered the room while Rebecca had been blindfolded to the bed.

How can fear be arousing? How can fear make me need and burn and want? But yet I want, I need, I dare things I never believed I was capable of doing. Is this the real me? That idea scares me deep down into my core. This can’t be me. I am not this person. But even more than that fear that I am, indeed, someone I do not recognize, I fear the idea of not being that person. Of going back to the past. Of once again being the good girl with a boring life, pushing paper in an eight-to-five job. Never happy, never satisfied. At least now I feel something. The rush of fear is far better than the defeat of boredom. The high of not knowing what comes next, so much better than always knowing one day will be like the last. Never anticipation, never feeling anything. No. I cannot go back. So why am I so terrified of going forward?

Thunder rolls overhead, jolting me momentarily from my absorption. Glancing at the window where rain is pattering on the glass, I absently curl up into the corner of the couch, thinking about what I’ve just read. I am so different from this woman writing the journals, yet I have an odd connection with her words. I love the kids I teach, but I feel the ache of encouraging them to follow their dreams and knowing I haven’t followed mine. Knowing my words to them are hypocritical. I understand what it feels like to have each day pass, knowing I’m no closer to my dreams. Jobs in the art world are just so few and far apart, and pay so little, that I cannot justify my passion as my job.

A heavy breath of regret trickles from my lips, and my gaze returns to the page. I am lost in a world that isn’t mine and never can be, but somehow, right now, it is.

Three hours later, the rain has calmed to a drizzle, and I am no longer lounging on the couch. Somewhere along the way, I’ve read all three journals, which have gone from erotic and thrilling to downright frightening. I’m sitting up now, hanging on the words of the final entry.

I want out. This is no longer a rush anymore. No longer exciting. But he won’t let me out. He won’t let me go. And I don’t know how to escape him. He was at the showing tonight, watching me, stalking me. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. One minute I was talking to a customer, the next I was in a dark corner with him buried deep inside me. When it was over, he stroked my hair and promised to see me later. Tonight. The minute I was alone, I rushed to the camera room to take the tape, to keep him from possessing it, and me with it. But it was gone. He’d taken it before I could. And now…

That was it. Nothing more. As if she’d been interrupted by something or someone and quit writing. I stare at the blank page, my heart thundering in my chest. Were these journals before or after the one I’d been reading the night before, I wonder again? Because if they were before, I would know Rebecca was okay. I dial Ella and once again am greeted by the fast busy signal I don’t want to hear.

Frustrated, I jump to my feet and pace, wringing fingers through my already tousled hair. Rebecca Mason must have left town, that’s why her things were in that storage unit. But why hadn’t she come back for them? Or paid the storage fee? I ball my fists at my sides and then slowly force them to open, force my shoulders to relax. I will myself to calm down with logic. There is no reason to jump to conclusions. I’ll simply call the gallery and locate Rebecca, discover all is well, and return Rebecca’s things to her. End of story. Right. Perfect. Then I’ll get on with my summer tutoring.

I snatch my phone off the coffee table, intending to make that call and immediately stop myself. It’s after midnight and I’ve tried to call Ella with no idea what time it is in Paris, and now I am trying to call the art gallery. So much for calm and collected.

Something about Rebecca Mason has reached past the pages of that journal and become personal. I’d become Rebecca while I was reading those journals. I feel a connection so intimate to this stranger that it is downright eerie. Or maybe, I think wryly, my own life is just so darn boring I’m desperate for a little excitement. Like Rebecca had been, before she met him.

With that thought, I hug myself, and head for bed. But not before I grab the journals and take them with me.

Chapter Three

“Rebecca isn’t in.”

That is the same reply the man who always answers the phone at the gallery had given me the last time I’d called. And the time before that.

“She’s on vacation,” I reply. “So I’ve been told all week. It’s Friday. Will she be back Monday?”

Silence filters into the line. “I can take a message.”

I’d already left several and I see no point in leaving another. “No. Thank you.” I hang up and sip my vanilla latte from the Barnes and Noble café where I’d just finished tutoring a football player hoping to impress colleges with more than his playing skills. This entire Rebecca situation is driving me nuts.

I’ve already double-checked the time I have left to clear out the storage unit, considering Ella hadn’t exactly been a wealth of information, and it is a short window—one more week. After that, it would be two hundred dollars for another full month. A hard blow to my cash flow on an already tight budget. The manager has given me one extra week free for which I am grateful, but I have to deal with Rebecca and do it now.

With my laptop already open and powered up, I key in the Allure Gallery website, intending to search the staff listing to be sure Rebecca’s name still appears. Sure enough, Rebecca is listed as Marketing Director. Hmm. Well, that’s good. That has to be a sign she’s okay. Doesn’t it?

An event banner on the side of the page catches my eye and I click on it. There’s a showing at the gallery the following Wednesday night and not for some unknown artist either. A thrill goes through me at the realization that the highly acclaimed artist, Ricco Alvarez, is doing a showing. I adore Ricco Alvarez’s depiction of his homeland Mexico, and though it’s rather well known in an artsy city like San Fran that someone of his stature owns a home here, he rarely makes appearances. But then, this is a good cause, a black-tie charity event with both ticket prices, and a piece of Alvarez’s art, being auctioned off as donations to a local children’s hospital. Surely, with such an event, Rebecca will be at the helm.

Tapping my nails on the wooden table, I consider my options. If I can’t reach Rebecca before the show, I’ll attend the event. Silently, I laugh at myself. Who am I kidding? I’m going to see Ricco Alvarez, even if I have to eat Ramen noodles for two weeks to do so, and since the tickets are a hundred dollars a pop, I will. But I never, ever splurge. I bite my bottom lip and fret, and then before I can stop myself, click on the "buy tickets" button and claim one of the last available tickets. I won’t be able to get a refund if I reach Rebecca before then, but I’ll just have to rough it. I can’t stop the smile from sliding onto my lips. It will be torture to have to meet Ricco Alvarez. I feel better with a plan. Now, if I can just get through to Ella and hear she is okay, I might actually sleep tonight.

***

Wednesday evening arrives and Rebecca is still "not in" per the Allure staff. So, I am off to the Alvarez event, but my excitement over the showing has been doused quite effectively by the feeling something is really wrong. The entire situation makes me anxious, and while I would have preferred some moral support, as in a friend to join me at the night’s event, I had dismissed the idea. I wasn’t about to try and explain why I was hunting down Rebecca Mason, whom I didn’t know, and who I feared had met an untimely…something. I’m not going to even let my mind elaborate on that thought. And I won’t justify my worry by letting anyone else read Rebecca’s private thoughts.

I pull my car into a parking spot several blocks away from the gallery, by both necessity and preference. The chilly evening wind lifts off the nearby ocean, blowing loose strands of my long hair astray with it. Goosebumps form on my arms and I gather my cream-colored shawl over my matching simple but elegant knee-length sheath dress. Okay, Ella’s dress and shawl actually, but we were always borrowing each other’s clothes. As a formality, I’d have asked if she minded, but I still can’t get her phone to ring through. I click my lock into place and slide my keys into the dainty, cream-colored shoulder purse that I’d bought on the pier last summer.

I inhale the air, embracing the sounds and sights, the action of the SoMa Art District, bustling with people enjoying the stores, museums, and array of art galleries. I don’t come down here often. I just can’t. It reminds me of those dreams I’ve never chased. It’s been too long though, I realize, nearly a year since I’ve enjoyed the market street scene. The architecture, ranging from newly developed shiny glass structures to old warehouses converted into home and work spaces, was as much art as the sculptures and drawings on the concrete walls of the random buildings. I feel something special here. I feel alive here. It’s what I feel when I leave that I dislike.

Bringing the gallery into view, I pause to watch a group of elegantly dressed visitors pour through its double glass doors lined in shiny silver for the black-tie affair. Artsy swirls of red letters, displayed above the entry, spell "ALLURE."