Page 50

I immediately cover the distance between us and wrap my arms around her, kissing her head, even as I feel the tension in her shoulders.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for; I’d forgotten about the damn thing myself,” I confess. “That’s how low it is on my list of priorities. Top of that list is this food—I am starving—and catching up with you.”

As curious as I am about what might be on that recorder, I slip it into my pocket for later.

Dinner is as tasty as it smelled, and I ended up eating a second helping, while Dana filled me in on the system Roy Battaglia installed. Pretty comprehensive, with motion-activated cameras both front and back of the property, alerts on all windows and doors, a brand-new deadbolt on the front door, and an app on Dana’s phone to manage and monitor the security system. In addition, Battaglia Security will also be monitoring any alerts as backup.

“I still think a dog will be a good addition,” I suggest, making her laugh, even though I’m not joking.

Discovering the lawyer who cold-called Dana this morning is the same lawyer who represents HDLink, the company which now owns the quarry up the road, has me more concerned than before about her safety. Especially after finding out the only other property separating the quarry from Dana’s place—the small strip of land Ben and Wanda Rogers’s double-wide sat on—was also recently procured by the same company.

That information had also come from Mancuso, and after I filled Savvy in about the phone call Dana told me about, she felt it was time to bring the feds in on the case officially. I didn’t disagree with her, especially since her main concern was Dana as well.

After a conference call with Mancuso and his team, and sending over the entirety of our investigation to date, I got ready to head out when Savvy stopped me. She asked if I was heading over to Dana’s place, and when I confirmed that had been my plan, she seemed relieved.

My only stop on the way here was at my apartment to pack an overnight bag I left in the truck for now.

“I promise I’ll think about it,” Dana returns. “But right now I’m preoccupied with going back to work tomorrow. Getting back into some kind of routine.”

“Are you looking forward to it?”

She scrunches up her face before answering.

“Not really. Don’t get me wrong, I love my work, but I have so many projects I want to get started on here.”

“Not enough hours in the day,” I offer.

“Not nearly. Even today, I’d hoped to get at least one thing off my list—getting down that ugly wallpaper—but I kept getting distracted. Now I have one half-stripped room, piles of clean laundry that still need to be folded and put away, and a security app on my phone I still need to figure out how to work. And somewhere along the way I ran out of energy.”

“It’s hard to stay focused when you’ve got so much going on.”

“You’re telling me,” she agrees, grabbing the empty bowls from the table and carrying them to the sink. “I never had too many choices before. Life was pretty simple and didn’t require much maintenance, just a steady routine of work, home, pub. Now, it’s like I have too many options and I want to do them all.”

She says all this as she starts washing our dishes, leaving them half done when she gets distracted dealing with the leftovers from dinner. And while putting those away, she bumps into a half-full garbage bag she knocks over, spilling strips of wallpaper, which then leads to picking those up along with other piles of torn wallpaper she hadn’t gotten around to yet.

“I see what you mean,” I observe, walking over to the counter where she left the container of leftover cacciatore, and I put it in the fridge.

Then I move to the sink to wash and rinse the rest of the dishes, and add, “Why don’t you get started on folding the laundry while I finish this? Then after we’ll tackle the wallpaper together, and maybe you can check one of those items off your list after all.”

It’s been years since I’ve done any painting, and I don’t think I’ve ever removed wallpaper—not with approval anyway—but it’ll give me an excuse to stick around and spend time with Dana.

“You don’t need to do that,” she protests, but I get the sense her heart isn’t really in the objection.

I don’t bother responding and simply continue with the dishes.

She clearly received the message when she says, “Fine, but I figured you’d be curious to find out what’s on that recorder.”

My hands still as I turn to grin at her over my shoulder. “Me, curious?”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, I’m curious,” she admits, looking a little guilty. “I only played a minute or so of it before I felt guilty, turned it off, and put it away to give to you, but it’s been churning in my mind, and I think you should listen to it.”

I dry my hands on the kitchen towel and immediately retrieve the recorder from my pocket, pressing play.

“…you wouldn’t want that story to get out, now, would you?”

“Are you threatening me?”

I have no trouble recognizing Merrick’s voice, but I don’t know who it is he threatened, because that was definitely a threat.