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Margot nodded and said, “I’d better get going, I’ll call you.”
“Cool, I’ll answer this time.”
Margot called Mal on the way to let him know they’d be headed out east tomorrow.
Chapter 4
Today
As had been the pattern lately, when she went out with Detective Rick Radcliff, he picked her up, they ate dinner without talking much, ended up somewhere for drinks where they managed to have conversations about anything but their jobs and then headed to his place where, once again, they didn’t talk about much. When the sun came up, Radcliff got ready to go to work solving homicides and Margot took an Uber home. Radcliff always offered to pay for the ride back to her apartment and she always said no.
It was a good pattern as far as Margot was concerned. No one talked about moving in together or long term relationship goals. They didn’t plan weekend outings. Other than picking her up, he’d never been to her place. As long as he had the nicer house, as far as she was concerned, he never needed to.
Meet, eat, drink, get naked, and go home. Maybe someday they’d both need more, but for right now, as far as Margot was concerned it was perfect.
She liked to think he was on the same page, but she wasn’t sure. He wasn’t complaining, but the last time they got together he called to make sure she got home. She wasn’t sure she liked it. It seemed the first step to a more serious relationship.
She didn’t complain though; she didn’t see how she could protest him caring about her well-being without sounding crazy. Considering all the trouble that had come Margot’s way lately, it wasn’t really unreasonable.
It still felt like an advance in the relationship and the last time she wanted more out of a relationship, she ended up following Mal as he destroyed both of their lives to the point that she wondered later if she had wanted things to go bad in her life.
The funny part about that was they were still friends and she trusted Mal more than anyone. She really liked Radcliff, but she’d still rather have Mal watching her back when things got ugly.
Margot was tired when she got home, but she figured she needed to start driving out to Dan’s trailer to pick up Lori fairly soon.
She almost opened the door and stepped inside without looking at the piece of tape she put on the bottom of the door before leaving. She had already unlocked the door and was twisting the handle when she remembered someone still probably wanted her dead. If someone wasn’t looking for it, they would never see the clear tape at the bottom of the door. Like a lot of the extra precautions Margot had been taking lately, it felt silly, like a waste of time and energy.
Upon seeing the tape peeled back—indicating someone had opened her door while she was gone—Margot no longer felt like she’d been wasting time and energy.
It was tempting to walk to the parking lot, get in her car, and drive away. No one breaks into someone’s house with good intentions. Whoever was in there wasn’t likely to give up and go away though. It felt like if she ran away now, she’d just be putting off the problem for another day.
Margot took out her phone and considered calling Mal or maybe even Radcliff but looking at the tape she started to have doubts. Margot meant to change the tape every day, but as the days without incidents piled up, she hadn’t been very diligent about it. She wasn’t sure of the last time she had changed out the tape. Even in the best-case scenario, Margot lived a block from the beach and the tape had been out in the elements nearly twenty-four hours. The sea air and the sun were hard on things; it could be that the tape had just peeled away on its own. Margot wasn’t above asking for help, but she didn’t like to do it unless absolutely necessary.
Margot turned off the ringer on the phone, just in case it wasn’t just sun and wind. She put the phone back in her purse, drew her gun, and chambered a round. She stepped to the side and pushed the door open. No one opened fire, but Margot didn’t go inside. The temptation to just leave was stronger than ever.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” a familiar voice called from inside.
Margot stayed where she was and called back in, “Stone?”
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m alone.”
“You sure you’re alone?”
“Do you think the assholes after me would go to the trouble of letting me live a second longer than they had to? Get in here. There are no gun thugs in your place right now, but the longer we’re yelling at each other, the more likely they are to show up.”
Margot poked her head around the corner and drew back twice. The third time she stepped inside with her gun raised. No one was in the living or kitchenette except for Dean Stone, who was sitting on her sofa watching her television with the sound off.
Margot checked her bedroom and her bathroom. No one else inside but Stone. She walked out to find he hadn’t moved. She stepped in front of the television and aimed her pistol at his head.
“Be careful with that,” Stone told her as he looked down the wrong end of her gun.
“How do you get in here?”
“I’m a criminal. I know a lot of criminal shit. Can you quit pointing the gun at me?”
“You’re a criminal who broke into my apartment. So no.”
“Come on, Margot. You know I don’t mean you any harm.”
