STALKING SAPPHIRE (Sapphire Dubois: Book 1)

Chapter 12

Sapphire stood in the middle of her pink and purple room surrounded by police, some sort of CSI dusting everything, including her stuffed animals, digging around in every crescent and corner. Vivienne stood next to her, sobbing into a Kleenex; Aston barked orders to make sure the job got done right.

Her relatives had gone after the police took their statements. Her cousin had been shocked and hadn’t said a demeaning word since the hand arrived. Sapphire’s aunt had popped Valium like a mad person, while her husband had been very calm and methodical. Vivienne hadn’t stopped screaming until Sapphire slapped her. Given the fact that he couldn’t speak, Charles had been even quieter about the whole thing.

The attic flap was covered by the velvet canopy Vivienne set up above her bed years ago so that Sapphire could feel like a sultan when she slept. She found the attic by accident while searching for a place to hide when she was fifteen and supposed to attend her coming out party: an event set up for upper class societies to show off their daughters and release them to the world of young rich men. Perhaps that wasn’t the actual reason, but Sapphire assumed it had to be that or something equally idiotic.

She had climbed one of the poles of her four-poster bed wearing a white wedding-like dress with so many bows and layers of fluff that she looked like a giant cupcake. When she got to the top of the canopy above her bed, she saw the attic flap. As Vivienne and a crowd of guests searched the house for her, Sapphire had sat up in the empty dust-filled attic waiting for the event to pass. Now her entire life was up there. Every piece of material she had collected, everything she was proud of and meant the world to her was at the verge of being taken away.

One of the CSI women placed a small ladder next to her bed and dusted the bed poles from bottom to top. When she got to the fourth and last one, her eyes moved up to the canopy and focused on it. She reached her arm out to touch the ceiling and Sapphire could feel herself disappearing; her existence as she knew it was about to be destroyed. She would become an empty shell again, just like she was before that night when it all started.

“All right, let’s pack it up for the night!” Aston’s voice rung through the air: the call of a knight retreating from battle. The woman pulled her hands back immediately ready to go home.

Sapphire let the air fill her lungs. She had been resuscitated. She had flat-lined and been brought back to life. She wanted to scream for joy, but didn’t...probably would be considered slightly suspicious.

As the crew of invaders left one by one, she, Vivienne, and Aston stood by the front door.

“I was just so scared,” Vivienne sniffled, leaning on Aston’s chest for support.

Aston glanced at Sapphire and then gave her mother a few pats on the shoulder and pulled away. “We will find the perpetrator; don’t worry.”

“Bye, Detective,” Sapphire said and went to open the door for him. Her body blocked him from going anywhere but out.

Aston put a hand on the door and smiled at her. “Oh, I’m not leaving. I’m grabbing my overnight bag from the car.”

Sapphire stared at him, hoping he was joking.

“I’ll be staying here with you until the matter is resolved. Your mother requested the full observation and protection of the police department.”

Sapphire glared at Vivienne. Of course you did.

She was furious and worried about how to handle her future endeavors with a nosy detective two feet behind her at all times. She was on a tight schedule and the cops would just slow her down. On the other hand, she thought, compared to being exposed, this was just a minor inconvenience and she would not let it get in her way. “Of course.”