Chapter 7: The Perfect Trap
"Get away from me," I said, backing toward the cabin door, but Adrian moved faster, stepping onto the deck and blocking my retreat.
"Emma, please. I'm not going to hurt you." His voice was calm, reasonable, but his body language told a different story. He held his hands out in what might have looked like a peaceful gesture, but I recognized it now as a way to control the space between us.
"How did you get my information? How long have you been watching me?"
Adrian's smile never wavered. "I know this seems overwhelming, but I can explain everything. Can we go inside and talk about this rationally?"
"No. Stay away from me."
I fumbled for my phone, trying to dial 911, but Adrian moved closer. "Who are you calling, Emma? The police? We both know they won't believe you. They'll think you're having some kind of breakdown, a woman alone in the woods making up stories about harmless coincidences."
The accuracy of that assessment made my stomach drop. He was right—I'd already tried the police, and they'd brushed me off.
"I know about Sofia Reeves," I said, hoping to catch him off guard. "I know about Alexander Morrison."
For the first time, Adrian's composure cracked slightly. A flicker of something—surprise? annoyance?—crossed his face before the mask slipped back into place.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"She told me everything. The surveillance equipment, the manufactured coincidences, the way you destroyed her life piece by piece."
"Sounds like someone filled your head with paranoid fantasies." Adrian took another step closer. "Emma, you're not thinking clearly. The stress of your divorce, losing your business—it's affecting your judgment."
The gaslighting was so smooth, so practiced, that for a moment I almost doubted myself. Almost. But Sofia's warnings echoed in my head: he would try to make me question my own reality.
"I'm leaving," I said, moving toward the stairs that led down to the forest floor. "Don't follow me."
"Emma, wait." His voice sharpened. "You can't just run into the woods. It's not safe up here alone."
I bolted down the stairs, hoping to reach the tree line before he could catch me. Behind me, I heard him curse—the first crack in his perfect facade—and then the sound of his footsteps pounding down the wooden steps.
The forest floor was uneven, covered in pine needles and fallen branches that made running treacherous. I crashed through the underbrush, branches catching at my clothes and hair. Behind me, Adrian's pursuit was quieter, more controlled. He knew these woods better than I did.
"Emma!" His voice carried through the trees. "This is ridiculous. You're going to hurt yourself out here."
I changed direction, hoping to confuse him, but every path seemed to loop back toward the cabin or deeper into wilderness. My phone had no signal, and the sun was getting lower, casting long shadows between the pine trunks.
A branch caught my ankle and I went down hard, my phone skittering across the forest floor. By the time I retrieved it, the screen was cracked and dark.
"Emma?" Adrian's voice was closer now. "Where are you? Let me help you."
I pressed myself against the trunk of a massive pine tree, trying to control my breathing. In the growing twilight, I could hear him moving through the forest, calling my name with that same patient, reasonable tone that had once seemed so attractive.
"I know you're scared," he called out. "But this is exactly what I was trying to protect you from. You're alone, hurt, lost in the woods. Just like that first day when I found you on the hiking trail."
The first day. The memory hit me like a physical blow. I'd assumed getting lost had been my own mistake, taking what I thought was a shortcut. But what if it hadn't been an accident? What if those trail markers had been moved, that "shortcut" deliberately designed to lead me astray?
"You planned it," I said, loud enough for him to hear. "That first day, you made sure I'd get lost so you could 'rescue' me."
His laughter drifted through the trees. "You're so smart, Emma. I've always admired that about you. Even when you were married to that idiot Marcus, I could see your intelligence shining through."
When I was married. He'd been watching me for years.
"Why?" I called out. "Why me?"
"You don't remember, do you?" His voice was getting closer. I pressed myself harder against the tree, hoping the gathering darkness would hide me. "Chicago. The Urban Development Conference, three years ago. You gave a presentation on trauma-informed architecture."
I remembered that conference. It had been one of my prouder professional moments, presenting research on how physical spaces could facilitate healing for abuse survivors.
"After your presentation, there was a cocktail reception. I approached you, told you how much your work meant to me. I'd lost my parents in an accident, spent time in the system like you did. I thought we had a connection."
A vague memory surfaced—a man at a conference reception, earnest and slightly awkward, talking about foster care and healing spaces. I'd been polite but distracted, already thinking about getting back to my hotel room to call Marcus.
"You dismissed me," Adrian continued. "Looked right through me like I was nothing. Said you had to call your husband and walked away."
"I don't remember—"
"Of course you don't. I was invisible to you. Just another admirer who wasn't worth your time." His voice was getting bitter now, the reasonable mask slipping. "But I remembered you. I researched you. I learned everything about your perfect little life with your perfect husband in your perfect house."
I was trying to place the memory more clearly, but it was fuzzy. I'd met so many people at conferences over the years.
"So you decided to destroy my life because I was rude to you at a party?"
"I decided to show you who you really were. Underneath all that success, all that confidence—you were just as broken as the rest of us. Just as desperate for someone to see you."
The psychological precision of it was terrifying. He hadn't just wanted to hurt me—he'd wanted to strip away everything I'd built until I was vulnerable enough to need him.
"Marcus's affair wasn't spontaneous," I said, pieces clicking into place. "You orchestrated that too."
"Your husband was pathetically easy to manipulate. A few carefully placed doubts about your commitment to the marriage, some fabricated evidence of you working late with male colleagues. Men like Marcus—weak, insecure men—they practically write their own scripts for self-destruction."
I thought about the months leading up to Marcus's affair. The arguments about my work schedule, his sudden jealousy over my business partnerships, the way he'd started questioning my dedication to our marriage. At the time, I'd attributed it to midlife crisis or work stress. Now I realized it had all been carefully orchestrated.
"And Jennifer?"
"Your business partner was even easier. A few anonymous tips to clients about irregularities in billing, some carefully edited emails suggesting you were planning to cut her out of major projects. She was so eager to believe you'd betray her that she betrayed you first."
The scope of it was breathtaking. For three years, Adrian had been playing a long game, systematically dismantling my life with surgical precision. And I'd never suspected a thing.
"The financial problems, the loan denials—"
"Credit reports can be manipulated if you know the right people. Amazing how quickly banks lose confidence when your business partner files complaints about fiscal mismanagement."
Every disaster of the past six months had been his doing. The revelation should have made me angry, but instead I felt a strange kind of relief. I wasn't crazy. I hadn't failed at everything I touched. I'd been the victim of an elaborate psychological warfare campaign.
"So what happens now?" I asked. "You've destroyed everything I built. Is this where you expect me to fall into your arms out of gratitude?"
"This is where you realize that I'm the only one who understands you. The only one who sees your strength even when you can't see it yourself. Everyone else in your life abandoned you when things got difficult. But I never left. I never stopped believing in you."
The twisted logic was almost hypnotic. In his mind, he really was my savior. The fact that he'd created the problems he was solving didn't seem to register as a contradiction.
"Emma, come back to the cabin. Let me take care of you. Let me show you what your life could be like with someone who truly appreciates you."
I stayed silent, hoping he'd move away so I could find another route back to my car. But his next words made my blood freeze.
"I know you're behind the big pine tree about thirty yards north of the creek. I can see the light from your broken phone screen."
I looked down and realized he was right—the damaged phone was flickering intermittently, creating a faint glow in the darkness.
Adrian stepped into view, no longer bothering to maintain the pretense of searching for me. "Time to come home, Emma."