Page 99 of No Good Fight

“Alex.”

I take the key from the ignition and look around again. My building sits squat and ugly under the gray afternoon, first-floor windows reflecting the lot. No dark SUV. No strange man pretending to fix something. Nothing except wet pavement, two trash bins, and Mrs. Vance’s lace curtains shifting again in the apartment beside mine.

“I don’t see anything,” I tell him. “I’m going in, grabbing a bag with my stuff, and leaving.”

His breath changes over the line, but he keeps his voice level. “Keep me on speaker.”

I tuck the phone into the outer pocket of my bag with the speaker facing up. “Bossy, but acceptable.”

The second I step into the covered walkway, the smell hits me. Damp concrete. Old paint. Someone’s cigarette smoke from last night. My apartment door is at the end, directly beneath the motion light Ryder installed before Preston broke it. The replacement bulb buzzes weakly overhead, trying its best and failing to be comforting.

Halfway down the hall, I slow.

My door isn’t closed.

It’s cracked open by an inch, maybe two, enough to show the dark seam of my living room beyond it.

Ryder says my name through the phone before I make a sound beyond the gasp of breath.

I stop so fast my shoulder hits the wall. My keys cut into my palm. “My door’s open.”

“Back away.”

His voice drops low enough that it doesn’t sound like a request anymore, and for once, I don’t have the energy to be mad about it. I take one step back.

The door swings inward.

A man in a black ski mask comes out of my apartment so fast my brain can’t make sense of him as a person. One second there’s a gap in the door. The next, there are gloved hands on my arms and the hard shove of his body forcing me backward.

My phone hits the floor.

Ryder’s voice comes through the speaker, sharp and distant, but the man’s hand clamps over my mouth before I can scream. My bag slips off my shoulder. I twist, slam my heel down, miss his foot, hit the side of his shin, and bite the leather of his glove hard enough that he curses.

He tries to drag me through the open doorway and into my apartment.

That’s when the world gets loud.

“Get your goddamn hands off that girl!”

Mrs. Vance comes out of her apartment in a purple housecoat, orthopedic sneakers, and pure fury. Her cane cracks across the attacker’s shoulder with a sound so loud it echoes down the hall.

The man releases my mouth.

I suck in air and scream Ryder’s name because it’s the only thing in my head.

Mrs. Vance hits him again, this time across the arm. “Coward. Sneaking around in a mask like a pervert.”

He shoves me hard enough that I hit the wall, but before he can run past her, she swings low and catches him in the knee. He goes down badly, one hand slamming against the floor, and I see the black glove, the muddy boot, the flash of pale skin at his wrist where his sleeve rides up.

Then he’s on his feet and running toward the back exit.

Mrs. Vance starts after him.

I grab her sleeve before she can chase a masked man into a parking lot with nothing but a cane and unearned confidence. “Don’t.”

She turns on me like I’m the one being unreasonable, hair rollers trembling in her silver curls. “I had him.”

“You absolutely did,” I manage, because my voice is doing something strange and thin. “Please call the police.”