He was thinking about her face. He hadn’t stopped thinking about it since the moment she’d walked away from him.
He thought about the way she’d stepped into his space and tilted her chin up. Her lips had parted, and her eyes had gone dark and certain. His body had committed to the trajectory of her mouth and was just about to close the space between him when she’d stepped back and closed the door between them.
For a moment, one blessed moment, he was sure she’d wanted him to lean down and bridge the space between them. He had been certain of it.
You imagined it.
That was the cleanest explanation. He’d been projecting his own want. Manufacturing reciprocity. He’d imagined the intentin her eyes. Imagined the way her weight had shifted onto her front foot, closing the distance. He’d imagined?—
His comm went off.
His feet froze, and he yanked the comm from his jacket. The screen read CALLOWAY, P. on the dedicated channel, the one he’d programmed to go off at maximum volume and the one he still checked four times an hour since the moment he’d pressed the comm unit into her palm.
He pressed his thumb to the unit, and her voice coming through was thin and reedy, barely sounding like her. “Thorne, I need you to come back.”
He was already moving.
He ran the distance to her quarters in minutes, his stride eating ground and frost crackling under his boots with every step, spreading in a fine lattice across the cobblestones behind him. The streets were dark, the festival shuttered at this late hour, and the market lane was empty. He saw none of it.
Then his hand was on the latch of her door, the biometrics reading his fingerprints and unlocking before his boots stopped moving.
Phoebe was standing in the doorway to her bedroom, her face pale, holding something in her shaking hand. Her body was still, her shoulders locked, chin level. She held out her hand.
He crossed the floor and took the item she was offering, forcing himself to ignore the desire to pull her into his arms. She was scared. Terrified. And the overwhelming need to protect her was at war with his duty to remain the professional guard.
He couldn’t control the frost, though, no matter how much he might try. Ice bloomed across the floor and up the vanity mirror before he could stop it. Delicate, lacelike fractal patterns spread from a perfect circle around their feet and made their way across the room as he read the note.
Thorne ignored the frost just as he ignored his need to wrap Phoebe in his embrace.
He opened the card and read the message while Phoebe’s voice filled the air from the sound chip embedded inside. He recognized it and his stomach dropped even further. This wasn’t a recording taken at one of her concerts. These were private sounds. Anxious hums she ran alone backstage and sometimes on their walks back to her apartment. These were sounds no audience member could hear from their seats; sounds she made when she was alone.
Someone had been close enough to capture them.
He closed the card, and the recording stopped.
“Where was it?” he asked.
“Here,” Phoebe said, pointing to a spot on her vanity table.
“Is there anything else that doesn’t belong here?”
She wrapped her arms around her body and shook her head.
“Anything missing?”
She looked around, her eyes glazing over. Her voice was thin when she answered him, “I don’t… I don’t think so. I’m not sure. Should I?—”
“We can determine that later. Right now, we’re getting you somewhere safe. You’re not staying here tonight.”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t argue. That alone would be enough to show him how scared she was.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
“Get your coat and try not to touch anything you haven’t already touched since you returned.”
Phoebe nodded, and Thorne made a call to headquarters. Before he had finished his report, other officers had already arrived and begun the work of investigation. He placed his hand around her elbow, the first time he’d ever deliberately touched her, and guided her toward the door.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
