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“You got a wit, kid. A genuine laugh riot. Now you wanna pay attention?”
Her lips twitched, but she nodded and focused on the box.
He indicated a row of buttons along the top labeled with the numbers zero through nine. “You use these buttons to key in your code when you set or deactivate the alarm. Pretty easy,” he said, “so long as you don’t forget your code.”
She tapped her temple. “Got it.”
“Good. And this little baby,” he said, pointing to the red button situated right in the middle of the box, “is your good old panic button. Anything hinky goes down, you give it a push and you got the calvary at your side in seconds.”
“How?”
“Whassat?”
“How would they get here in seconds? All that stuff you were doing to my apartment, wasn’t that to make it so that folks couldn’t get in like that?” she asked, adding a snap at the end of the question for emphasis.
“I like you, kid. I really like you. Good question. Shows you were listening. Remember how I said no one can port or mist into your apartment when you’ve got the system active? Well, you punch that button and all bets are off. Total deactivation, and at the same time, the cavalry comes running.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s impressive.”
“We aim to please.”
He crossed the room to close her balcony door, then returned to the front door. “You arm the system the second I’m gone,” he said.
“Promise.”
He gave her one last grin, then pulled the door shut behind him. She keyed in her code, saw the light on the panel switch to green, and smiled. Her own little fortress. Who would have thought?
And now, finally, she could go to bed.
She killed the overhead light so that the city lights were the only illumination as she moved across the room with the control box. She felt a tiny bit foolish carting it around, but Roland had told her to. And she truly was antsy. Stemmons’s escape, the truth about her father’s murder, Luke in a cage. It all came together to make her edgy and out of sorts.
She hooked the box onto the waistband of her yoga pants, then reached inside her T-shirt to unfasten her bra. She did a Houdini move and pulled it out through her sleeve, then tossed it on the bench at the foot of her bed. Next, she headed toward her dresser, tugging off her earrings as she moved.
She’d put the tulips from Luke in a vase, and now she set the earrings in a crystal dish next to the flowers, forcing herself not to reach out and stroke the soft petals. She remembered the romantic thrill she’d felt when she’d discovered the flowers on her doorstep, the care she’d taken in arranging them just so. She’d fallen asleep that night gazing at them, feeling warm and cherished.
Even now, her body tingled when she looked at the vase, her skin recalling the feel of his hands, her mouth recalling the taste of his skin.
She told herself she didn’t want those feelings, those memories.
And that meant she didn’t want the damn flowers.
Determined, she grabbed the bundle with both hands and yanked the stems straight up out of the vase. She dripped water over her dresser and floor before dumping the lot of them in the wastebasket beside her bed.
She looked down at the flowers, still vibrant, and told herself she’d done the absolute right thing.
With exhaustion dogging her every step, she unclipped the panic box and put it on the bedside table, then wriggled out of her pants. She let them fall into a careless heap on the floor. She needed sleep desperately, and neatness was the last thing on her mind.
Clad only in her T-shirt, she slipped under the covers, sank deep into the overstuffed down pillow, and finally—finally—drifted off to sleep.
The night surrounded her, caressed her, and, yes, taunted her.The dream was coming.
Except she wasn’t asleep, so how could she dream? She was awake. Very awake, and aware of everything around her. The crunch of the gravel walking path beneath her shoes. The warm pressure of her daddy’s hand engulfing hers. The moon that shone high in the sky.
And the faint but terrifying way that the trees seemed to be laughing as the two of them walked.
“Daddy?”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just the wind.”
