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She glances at me. “I haven’t heard anything about this before tonight.”
“We don’t want to alarm people unnecessarily, ma’am,” the detective explains, giving her a warm smile. “We like to handle these situations under the radar. There are a lot of older folks living in this neighborhood and we’re always mindful of how we roll out information.”
“But Uri—I mean, Mr. Bugrov was informed tonight.”
She’s definitely suspicious of something. But Vincent has credibility. I planted him in the L.A. police force years ago. I wasn’t interested in finding a crooked cop and putting him on my payroll; I wanted someone who was already loyal to the Bugrov Bratva infiltrating the department.
Enter Vinny. With his deep brown eyes and dark blonde hair, he looks like a Ken doll in uniform. No one distrusts Ken.
“Mr. Bugrov has licensed security that we can communicate with directly. We—”
BOOM!
The sound of shattering glass has Alyssa jumping in place. She whirls around and her jaw drops when she realizes that it’s coming from her house.
Vincent rips his gun out and makes a very convincing fake call for backup into his walkie-talkie before he turns to me urgently. “Get her to your house and keep her there, sir.” Then he darts around back to try and accost the “intruder.”
Alyssa is breathing hard and looking around as though the sky is going to cave in on us at any moment—which, conveniently enough, is exactly the headspace I want her in right now. It means that when I grab her hand and pull her towards my house, she doesn’t put up a fight. She’s a ragdoll in my arms. She barely even speaks until we’re inside and the door is closed.
I lead her into the living room, the same place where I’d bandaged up her leg what feels like a lifetime ago. “Are you okay?”
She shakes her head. “I… I think I’m in shock…”
“Sit. I’ll go get you something warm to calm your nerves.”
Leaving her on the couch, I walk down the hall into the kitchen that adjoins the dining room. Once I’m out of earshot, I call Vincent.
“Well?” I ask the moment he picks up.
“Ratimir and I are looking, but so far, there’s nothing.”
“No package?”
“Not yet. Ratimir is looking in her bedroom now.” It’s annoying how much that bothers me that Ratimir is in her bedroom and I haven’t been. “We’ll do a full sweep of the place and let you know if anything noteworthy pops up.”
After I end the call, I brew a cup of tea and take it to Alyssa in the living room. She’s not on the couch where I left her. She’s pacing in front of the bow windows. The pacing stops abruptly the moment she sees me.
“Tea?” I offer without commenting on her obvious anxiety.
“Y-yes, thank you.”
She accepts the teacup but she doesn’t take a sip. Instead, she looks back out through the bow windows. “You had a break-in last night?”
“Why do you think I was so fast to catch you scaling my fence?” She frowns and glances down at her tea. But again, she doesn’t so much as take a sip. “Drink. It’ll calm you down.”
Her frown gets deeper before it disappears altogether. She sits back down and brings the cup to her lips gingerly. But I’m pretty sure that, even though her lips touch the rim, she doesn’t take a sip. She definitely doesn’t swallow.
Suspicious.
My phone starts vibrating silently in my pocket. I check it subtly when she’s looking out the window again.
VINCENT: We’ve checked the whole house. There’s no package.
Fuck me. How can that be? I know she has it. There’s no other explanation for her skittish behavior or the fact that it’s disappeared into thin air over the only border of my property we happen to share.
“When do you think I’ll be able to go back home?” she asks.
I get to my feet. “Stay put. I’ll go see what’s going on. I’m sure they have the situation under control.”
