Free Shut Out (Just This Once #2) by Cee Smith Page A

blood inside was real. I escaped to the bathroom to grab a towel before returning to the office to inspect the contents of the box closer.
    I’d seen some pretty gruesome images, so I typically had a thick stomach for those sorts of things, but nothing could compare to opening this box. I felt queasy and damp and uncomfortable—the kind where you think you could be coming down with something, except I knew that I was fine. I had been feeling fine up until the moment I opened the box.
    With my hands covered by the towel, I peeled back the tissue again, this time reaching in to get a closer look at the pieces of paper I saw inside. There were bits of shiny paper that looked like the backs of printed photos. On the back of the first print facing up was the word “Is.” I flipped it over and knew I was looking at the image of the person who sent me this box.
    Lara.
    The picture had been one I’d seen before. A picture included in her file marked as evidence against Joel. I shuffled through the images, disgusted not only by the marred face of the woman staring back at me, but by the message that had been written out on each of the photos. When all of the photos had been turned over, the message read, “Is this worth losing your job over?”
    The message was loud and clear. She wanted me to be scared that she had the power to make me lose my job. But she was also trying to scare me out of seeing or speaking to Joel again. Which was silly because she had to know I’d already seen the pictures, considering that I worked at the law firm that represented her. Maybe she thought I was a receptionist. That would explain why she thought it appropriate I escort her to the damn bathroom.
    What Lara didn’t know was I’d been scared of the possibility of this happening for weeks. In fact, I’d been expecting any day I would walk in to find my crap thrown in a box and my last check in an envelope. She didn’t know that, but that was the fear I’d been living with since the day I found out who Joel really was.
    Was I scared of her threat? Of course, but I was more scared of the person who would leave a bloody box with a creepy message on my doorstep. I had no idea if the blood was real or if she was just trying to scare me, but it didn’t matter. I was officially freaked out. I had tried for weeks to keep myself out of whatever was happening between Lara and Joel, but clearly I hadn’t tried hard enough, otherwise I wouldn’t have come home to that.
    The hardest part was figuring out what to do next. It wasn’t like I could go to the authorities—something she probably knew—because then I would definitely lose my job. If I called Kerri, I was sure she would convince me to report it. I didn’t want to involve Joel either, because clearly Lara had been either watching my house or following Joel’s whereabouts. How else would she have found out our involvement and where I lived? For the first time in my life, I was without a doubt stuck between a rock and a hard place.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Friday couldn’t have come soon enough. After my lunch with Joel and returning home to find that box, the remainder of the week felt endless.   The compounding days weighed me down like a ball and chain wrapped around my leg. I needed a break, like I’d never needed one before. I wanted a day all to myself with zero work, without even a thought of work, where I could sit on my couch in a ratty shirt and sweats and drink wine to my heart’s content. Where I could mourn the loss of my blink-and-you’ll-miss-it love life. Where I could mourn the thought of what could have been. Where I didn’t have to worry about what could end up being a short-lived career.
    Henderson had me working on the deposition for the case with Lara, which was due Monday morning, while Fitz had me working on a couple pleadings for a few clients—all of this while I still had research and copious amounts of files that needed filing for Lara’s case. The last