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The thought did nothing to ease his concern. Richard Delaney still worked for BPD, and Gary Maynard had been convinced to drop the matter twelve years earlier when it happened.
Nick still trusted Kyle — they’d been partners, and that was a sacred bond that outlasted Nick’s tenure at the department — but why would he assume everyone else at BPD was immune to Frederick Walker?
He heard Karen’s voice in the park.
I dropped the charges when Frederick sent someone to break into my apartment… tell her to lock her doors. Tell her to keep them locked.
He made a right-hand turn at the last minute, heading for Alexa’s apartment. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to see her.
But his instincts were bugging the shit out of him — and his instincts had saved his life more than once.
He pressed the gas on the BMW and watched the speedometer climb.
28
She crept toward the hall, phone in one hand, knife in the other. She wanted to turn on all the lights, illuminate whatever might be hiding in the shadows, but she had a feeling it might be a bad idea, that it might announce to anyone in her apartment that she was on to him.
That it might accelerate whatever it was that was coming for her.
She looked down at her phone, checking to make sure the number on the display — 911 — was still there. She just needed to find out if she was being paranoid or if there was really someone in the house, then she could hit the call button. Whatever happened after that, the police would come, tracing her address through the call.
She hit the entrance to the hall and almost hoped for a sound to come from the back of the apartment so she could make the call, back up, and leave her apartment without feeling like an idiot.
It was quiet. She started down the hall, her hand slick with sweat around the knife.
* * *
Nick pulled into a spot next to the curb outside of Alexa’s building. The light was on in the living room of her basement apartment but he couldn’t see far enough into the below ground windows to see if she was in the room.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, cursing the fact that they’d never exchanged phone numbers. Who didn’t exchange numbers in this day and age?
But she’d left The Friendly Toast in a hurry the first time they’d met, and he’d left equally fast the second time, worried she would refuse his invitation to come to his rugby game without even considering it. Then they’d slept together and she’d discovered Clay’s message on his phone. It’s not like he could have asked for her number on his way out the door.
He thought about calling Clay. Clay could get it for him, if he didn’t have it already, but that would be another betrayal, another way of using his resources to get information she didn’t want him to have, and if she was fine, if she was reading in her living room or working in the office room he hadn’t seen, it would be another nail in the coffin of their relationship.
He considered his other options: go to the door and knock, tell her he was worried and hope she didn’t slam the door n his face before he told her about Karen LaGarde, or leave, mind his own business.
Logic told him to leave, but sometime in the past two weeks logic had faded to make room for an unfamiliar voice he suspected came from his heart.
Fuck.
He got out of the car and crept around the side of her building, his eyes on the windows.
* * *
She hesitated outside her office, listening for sounds from the other side of the closed door. When she didn’t hear anything, she opened the door and stepped inside, making a quick sweep of the small room before heading toward the closet.
She put her hand on the knob and swallowed hard, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone. The hall was dark but still empty, the little bit of light from the living room a beacon beyond the door.
She gripped the knife tighter, turned the knob with the hand holding her phone, and opened the door.
It was empty, the cubbies she’d set up to hold her notebooks, envelopes, printer ink, and other office supplies staring back at her.
She made her way back toward the door and stepped into the hall, glad she was in socks, her feet silent on the hardwood floor as she continued down the hall.
The bathroom was on her left and she forced herself to step inside, to look behind the door and shower curtain before easing out of the room. Her hands were shaking and she tightened her hold on the knife, wishing she could wipe her palms on her leggings, wishing she’d taken all the cops she’d known over the years up on their offers to teach her how to shoot a gun.
The knife was all she had. The knife and her phone.
