We stared out at the mess below us. I didn’t want to pick that up. And I didn’t want to stay here either. The whole place seemed tainted now. How much of my stuff did they touch?
“Your phone?” Dane asked, staring at me and not the mess.
I opened my purse and pulled out a small blue book with my pen looped through the spirals. “And this notebook.”
“That’s not helping me think better of your skills right now,” Dane said as I tossed the notebook back in my purse. “Why didn’t I notice this before?”
“You’re bad at your job?” I said as we started back down the stairs. “You even let them break into my place.”
“You probably didn’t lock the door,” Dane said at the base of the staircase. “Be right back.”
He left my place, was gone for less than five minutes, and then returned with confirmation they hadn’t gotten into his room.
I scoffed. “Obviously, someone isn’t happy we went to the plantation rather than leave town.”
“How do you do all your work on a phone?” he asked as he picked up the larger pieces of the mug from the kitchen floor.
We were back to that again? “I can do everything from my phone. It’s a minicomputer.”
Video, email, documents. What more did I need?
“It’s still weird. Grab your stuff. It’s not safe here.”
I grabbed a paper towel to get the smaller bits of the broken mug. “Where are we going?”
“My place. They might not realize we had two rooms.” He ran upstairs and returned with my suitcase. “I threw your bathroom shit in there.”
“I don’t have bathroom shit. That is a perfectly curated skincare routine.”
Dane opened his door as I watched the hallway in case someone came rushing at us. We made it inside safely. His place had the same layout as mine, but the owner had decorated it differently. I liked my place better. That’s why I put myself in that spot originally.
“There’s only one bed,” I said as he closed and locked the door.
Dane ran upstairs with my suitcase. “I’ll take the couch. You can have the bed.”
When he returned to the first floor, my suitcase was missing.
The destruction at my place had to mean we were on the right path. But where and who? Was it the people from the different walking tours we’d been on or the trail we followed at Boone Hall? It seemed like we were super close to an answer but were still wandering around in the dark.
A part of me wanted to freak out about this, but the increased violence had to mean we were close. Which was technically a good thing.
Dane grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, handed it to me, and then opened his own. I plopped down on his couch. It wasn’t as comfortable as the one at my place. Nor were the pillows as good. Fear set in as I sat in unwelcome silence.
All of this was my fault.
“I did this,” I said to Dane. “I put us in danger.”
He was right when he called me reckless.
“Oh, princess.” He grabbed me off the couch and forced me to stand. He wrapped me in a tight hug and tucked my head against his shoulder. “Did you kill William Drake?”
“No.”
But if given enough time, I could probably find a way to blame it on myself somehow.
“Then you didn’t do this,” he said, running his fingers through my hair. “A deranged person did this. Not you. And there’s some good news.”
How the fuck did he find good news in this situation?
