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She nodded stiffly. “I’ll get my car. You can follow me to the rental office.” She nodded at his phone, sitting in one of the cup holders in the console. “Find out where the nearest office is while I get my car.”
“Sierra.” He touched her hand, and she snatched it away. “I’m not letting you walk into the garage. You wait in this car. Give me your keys and I’ll get your car.”
“Fine,” she muttered, her head bent as she searched in her tote bag for her keychain. Curling her fingers around it, she dropped the keys into his hand and snatched her fingers away before he could touch her.
“I’m leaving my keys in the ignition. If anything bothers you, anything at all, lay on the horn. Drive away if I don’t come running.”
She whipped her head around to stare at him. “Why wouldn’t you…?” Sucked in a breath at the realization that he might be walking into an ambush in her garage. “Oh. Right. Okay.” She drew in another breath. “The garage code is 7454.”
“Got it.” Cody slid out of the car and closed the door carefully, making very little noise. Then he loped down her driveway.
She watched her garage door rise slowly, groaning all the way up. The door stopped. She heard nothing for what felt like hours.
Finally she heard the rumble of her Subaru’s engine, and moments later, the red car rolled down the driveway. Cody steered the car onto the street and parked in front of his car.
They exchanged keys, then he said, “Give me your phone.”
She unlocked it and handed it over. He pulled up her maps and typed in an address. “This is where we’re going,” he said, handing it back to her. “I’ll follow you.”
“Got it,” she said.
An hour later, they were back at her house. He drove into her garage without hesitating, like he did it every day, and she curled her fingers into her palms. Every moment of the next week or two would be a painful reminder of what she’d miss after Cody left.
She wouldn’t let the pain own her, she vowed. She’d live her life and ignore Cody’s presence. She could survive anything for a couple of weeks.
“Wait in the car until I check the house,” Cody said, handing her the keys. “But get into the driver’s seat, in case you need to drive away.”
“How will I know?”
“If you hear gunshots, drive away. Get away from the house and call the police.”
She nodded. Maybe they shouldn’t have come back to Evanston. Maybe Cody had been right.
But then Jack would have been on his own. And she would have worried the whole time.
What felt like hours later, but was probably only a few minutes, Cody came out of the house. He opened the back of the car and removed their bags. “Grab the pizza and I’ll bring in the luggage.”
“Got it.”
A half-hour later, they’d finished the pizza and had each drunk a beer. Neither of them had said much, and she’d been uncomfortable the whole time. She didn’t want Cody sitting across her tiny kitchen table, his knees bumping hers when he shifted in his chair. She didn’t want to watch him savor the pizza and enjoy his beer.
As soon as he’d eaten the last bite of his pizza, Sierra jumped up from the table. Grabbed their plates and set them in the dishwasher, along with their forks and knives. She was anxious to escape into the privacy of her room. Get away from Cody. But she needed to know the plan.
Bracing her hands on the counter, she said, “Can we talk about how this is going to work?”
“It’s not complicated,” he said. “You can go back to work, but I’m coming with you. Every day. And I’m not sitting outside in your car. I’m coming into your office. If you can find a desk for me that’s close to your office, that would be perfect. I’ll work on my stuff while you work on yours. Any time you have a client, I’ll need to search them before they go into your office.”
She opened her mouth to object, and he held up his hand. “No one gets near you with a weapon, Sierra. Period. That includes your clients.”
“What if they’ve been a client for a long time? Or if I’ve met with them a few times already?”
“Anyone who walks into your office gets searched.” He leaned toward her. “That’s non-negotiable. You can have your receptionist tell everyone who makes an appointment that they’ll be searched when they get to the office. If they’re not willing to be searched, they don’t get in. And you probably don’t want them as a client, anyway.”
She sighed. He was right. “Probably not.”
“Gideon Wolf is going to be searching your partner Alex’s clients, too.” He smiled. “Part of our full-service policy.”
“Fine. But I’ll have to smooth some feathers.”
