Protect Myself E-Book

Angel Rupert

• Herausgeber: Bentockiz
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

I wasn’t the night they first met. Apparently, I was rather hideous. The sound of her phone ringing set my heart racing so fast I had trouble catching my breath. Literally sitting on the edge of my seat while she answered and listened for a moment, I recoiled slightly as if the phone were a snake when she handed it to me.

Leseprobe

Title Page

Protect Myself

Impenetrable

Angel Rupert

Protect Myself / 9th of series: Impenetrable / By Angel Rupert

Published 2023 by Bentockiz

e-book Imprint: Uniochlors

e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden

e-book ISBN: 9789198834383

e-book editing: Athens, Greece

Cover Images created via AI art generators

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Introduction

Through books we come into contact with everything important that has happened in the past, analyzing also current events and putting our thoughts together to predict the future. The book is a window to the world, acquiring valuable knowledge and sparking our vivid imagination. It is a means of entertainment and is generally seen as a best friend, or as a slave that carries together all valuable information for us. The book is a friend who stays together without demands, a friend you call upon at every moment and abandon when you want.

It accompanies us in the hours of boredom and loneliness, while at the same time it entertains us. In general, a book does not ask anything from us, while it waits patiently on a dusty shelf to give us its information, to get us out of dead ends and to travel us to magical worlds.

This may be the travel mission of our books. Abstract narration, weird or unconscious thoughts difficult to be understood, but always genuine and full of life experiences, these are stories of life that can’t be overlooked easily.

This may be the start of something amazing!

Chapter One

Think...think...I commanded my brain, but it was rough going.

What should I do?

One thing I knew I couldn’t do...I couldn’t let Mrs. Dooley or Ian or Edward get hurt, or even worse...die. Another thing I knew I couldn’t do...I couldn’t stick that device in Ian’s computer. I had no idea what it would do, but when someone tells you to do something or else they’ll hurt or kill somebody, whatever it is they’re asking you to do must be horribly wrong and all kinds of illegal.

“Damn Lance,” I muttered then clamped my mouth shut wondering if someone was listening.

Silently, I continued my train of thought.

If Lance hadn’t set up my interview, I’d never have taken the job and wouldn’t have been put in the position of losing my best friend or the one man I cared about.

“Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed before I realized I was once again talking to myself...out loud.

If that man wasn’t bluffing and he really did know what I was doing at all times then I was bugged or someone close to me was spying for him. Either way, I had to stop doing that.

Back to my silent pondering, I decided that Lance got me into this mess, he could jolly well get me back out again. After all, he was a policeman, and even though he had done me wrong on our one and only date, I didn’t believe he was a dirty cop or anything like that.

But how do I contact him without anyone getting suspicious?

I needed to make a trip back to Rockpointe. That was vital.

First, however, I needed to figure out how that man knew everything that I did or said.

I discounted a spy close to me because nobody had been that near one-hundred percent of the time. I would have seen that.

So, it had to be some sort of bug placed somewhere I would never notice, and attached to something that I carried with me all of the time.

That only left a few items.

Of course, I kept my purse with me most of the time, but not all of the time. Like when I was working, I always left it locked in my desk drawer. Even when I went out on coffee runs, it stayed there. That ruled my purse out.

However, even when I left my purse behind, I sometimes pulled out my wallet and took it with me. That was a definite possibility.

Taking a deep breath, I lifted a shoe and glared at it balefully.

Tell me he didn’t bug my favorite pair of shoes.

Although I seriously doubted it, just the thought depressed and angered me at the same time.

Looking at it logically, I knew my Jimmys couldn’t be bugged—I only wore them a couple of times a week at most—but just the thought of that horrid man touching my shoes...defiling them...it was too much to contemplate.

Reluctantly, I had to admit that the most likely item was my cell phone. Even in the shower, it was never far from me. I hated that idea because I knew what I had to do. I had to ditch it.

At that moment, a cell rang close by and I jumped, wondering if that man was still there watching me. Then I realized it was my cell and it was the ringtone I’d given to Ian. Fumbling around on the ground, I finally found my clutch. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d dropped it when the man’s knife appeared.

Checking the screen, I realized that I was right, it was Ian calling, and very little time had elapsed since the man had grabbed me.

Still, it had been long enough for Ian to return, find out I was gone, and come looking for me. I couldn’t let him find me or that would be it. He’d figure out something was wrong very quickly—I wasn’t an award winning actress—and I’d never get to Rockpointe.

On the other hand, I somehow had to let him know I was okay, which meant I had to text him. But before I could do that, I had to get to my apartment so I could shower and change into something that I’d never worn in public before and had little chance of being bugged.

First things first, I had to figure out where I was. Moving towards the brightest corner of the building, I realized that the man had simply taken me around the side of our building. I could clearly see and hear the party in full swing only fifty yards away. It felt like a lifetime away.

Sticking the flash drive into my clutch along with my cell, I turned away from the brightly lit and crowded area, skirting the building next to ours before heading towards my apartment. Although it was only seven blocks away, they were seven very long blocks and I had to hurry. Sadly, I knew my shoes would pay the price. They would in all likelihood, be totally ruined by the distance as well as the speed I planned to travel. Futilely, I wished for my leather loafers, but I hadn’t thought I would have to do any major walking...or running. It was either sacrifice my shoes or the tender soles of my feet, and I wasn’t about to ruin my feet.

Knife-man will pay, I vowed as I made my way to my apartment.

~**~

As soon as I showered and changed into an old pair of sweats plus a well-worn pair of sneakers, an outfit that Mrs. Dooley wore only when scrubbing floors and the like, I was ready to go.

After texting Ian that I had a headache and had decided to go home, I set my cell on my dresser, slid my car key as well as our apartment key off the ring, slipped my driver’s license out of my wallet, and hurried out of the apartment. I had no doubt that Ian would show up within ten minutes, and I had to be long gone by then.

It was entirely possible that my car was bugged, but I wasn’t planning to talk in the car. I just hoped no one had thought to put some sort of tracking device on it. I hadn’t driven it since I’d parked it so maybe the bad guys wouldn’t think it necessary to track its movements.

If anyone had told me that I’d be freaking out over bugs and tracking devices in the near future, I’d have laughed at the melodrama and called them crazy. Instead, I was seeing electronic surveillance devices everywhere.

And that was when it hit me...maybe it wasn’t just one bug; maybe everything I owned and every place I spent time was bugged. That could be how the man knew so much about me.

But a bug in the office wouldn’t work because Ian said it was a Faraday cage and nothing could get in or out.

Did the man say anything that he could only have heard in the office? Flipping through my mind, I couldn’t remember anything specific other than Ian inviting me to lunch in his office. However, we’d also talked about it at the apartment like the conversation about the Macadamia cookies, so...

What if I wasn’t bugged? What if it was a recording device planted in the office?