Page 100 of Unlocked

She would go to her apartment to pack first, two bags; she traveled light, she always had. It was one of the things her grandfather had taught her, don't accumulate more than you can carry. Then she would head to the office. She’d leave her bags with Carl while she told them. Then gone. Flight booked from her phone on the way.

She wouldn’t text Archer.

She sat with that for a moment. The not texting felt significant, and she knew it. She told herself it was because he was busy, because there was nothing specific to report, because she didn't want to interrupt whatever he was dealing with regarding the board meeting and Davis and Fisher and all of it.

But the truth, the honest truth, was that she didn't tell him because she didn't want him to know she was leaving. Not because she thought he would try to stop her.

Because she was terrified that he wouldn't.

That he would say something careful and measured and probably kind, something about her being safe and the case continuing and keeping in touch, and she would have to stand there and hear it and nod and pretend it was fine. It would not be fine. It would be the final confirmation of everything she already knew, and she was not ready to have it confirmed out loud by the man himself.

She picked up her bag and her key fob and left the apartment.

The Society was quiet in the early morning. She passed the dining room, considered coffee, but decided against it. She wanted to be out before anyone who knew her well enough to ask questions was awake.

She went through the lobby and pushed through the front door into the cool morning air.

Behind her, she heard the locks engage.

She turned. The heavy doors had sealed, the electronic panel beside them glowing amber. She frowned. Amber meant lockdown.

She stood on the sidewalk for a moment and looked at the building. Nothing visible. No alarm, no commotion. After a moment, she turned and kept walking.

Drill, she thought. They had them occasionally. Every few months, Archer ran security protocols, testing response times, and checking the systems. She'd been caught in one before, years ago, before any of this. It was nothing.

She kept walking.

Her apartment building looked the same as it always did. The doorman nodded to her, and she rode up in the elevator and stood outside her door for just a moment before she put the key in.

She'd been back here. She knew what to expect. Archer had restored everything. But standing here with the intention of packing to leave was different from coming to get files. The trauma of what had happened here and what it had set in motion and where it had all led felt like a weighted blanket settling over her shoulders.

She unlocked the door and went in.

The apartment was exactly as it should be. Quiet and clean and restored to itself. She stood in the living room for a moment and looked at it, at the bookshelves and the replaced furniture and the pictures back on the walls, and felt a complicated grief for it that she hadn't expected.

She loved this apartment. She'd worked for years for this apartment. She'd chosen every piece of furniture and every frame on these walls. She'd been happy here, genuinely happy, in the way that being alone in a space that was entirely yours could make you happy.

She was going to miss it.

She went to her bedroom and pulled two bags from the top shelf in the closet, and started packing. She was methodical about it, the way she was methodical about everything, folded rather than stuffed, the things she actually needed rather than everything she owned. Clothes, her laptop, her charger, the last few research files from the secret room, and her passport.

She paused on the passport. Held it for a moment.

Florence, she thought again. Or Ireland. She'd figure it out on the way to the airport.

She zipped the second bag and straightened up and looked around the bedroom one more time.

She thought about Archer. About his hands and his voice and the way he'd said her name in the low light of the apartment last night and the look on his face in those last few seconds before he kissed her.

I can’t lose you.

He’d said it, but he hadn’t meant it, not really. She thought about all the things he never said and all the things that were somehow present anyway underneath the careful surface of him. She thought about how she had never in her adult life let herself want something she couldn't have. Until now.

She picked up her bags and walked out of the bedroom.

Vince Kelly couldn't tell her anything more. That chapter was done. The rest of it she could do from anywhere. She was a lawyer with a laptop and a paper trail, and she knew how to find things. She didn't need to be in New York to do it. She didn't need to be anywhere near Archer Gray to do it.

She walked into the living room and froze.