"Got something?" I asked, watching as Mackey came walking in, sitting behind Gunner like a trained work animal, not some random, wild, rescue dog.
"Thank God for this beast getting a bite of her. There wasn't dick to go on before. But once the light came up, there were dried blood drops from the back of Aven's house, then disappearing on a small backstreet over by the school. Just four little shacks that someone has the nerve to call houses."
"And?" I pressed, knowing that wasn't it.
"And I jacked Aven's car, and sat there for a few hours." Aven's car because he knew his SUV would look way too out of place on a street like that, but that Aven's little lemon would go by all but unnoticed. "Junkie couple went off on foot. Likely to come over to this side of town to score. A single mom took her three kids off to school. An old man wobbled down to get his newspaper. But the last house had nothing. No activity."
"Worth a look," I agreed, moving to stand. "You should go crash upstairs. You're no good to any of us if you're dead on your feet."
Gunner's brow lifted at that. "You just want me to keep an eye on Fenway, make sure he isn't making a move on your girl."
Christ.
That was the problem with Gunner; he never kept his opinions to himself. Usually, it was a trait I respected. You always knew what he was thinking, where he stood.
But every once in a blue moon, I fucking wished he knew how to filter what he said.
Because every set of eyes in the room moved to me, brows raised, questions on the tips of their tongues, ready to demand answers.
My girl.
I didn't know where Gunner got the idea. Though, maybe, there was a bit more softness toward her than my usual client. Maybe there was reluctance to change the focus away from a pro bono case to one that would make us a major chunk of change. True, the business was by no means in desperate need for cash, but my team knew me. They knew that business came first. Smart business.
How I was treating her case simply wasn't smart.
Add on the fact that Aven was beautiful.
And, I guess, it was easy to draw the conclusion that the reason I was so into her case was that I was into her.
But if something were going on with Aven and me, I would have taken her back to my place and spent the night with her in my bed, not crashing on the fucking couch in my office.
"Watch it," I told Gunner, keeping my tone even.
"Are you trying to deny it, Boss?" he pressed, really pushing it. Gunner was surly in general, but even more so when he was without sleep.
"Yes. I'm denying it. She isn't mine." She wasn't. That much was true. One kiss didn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Even if I woke up in the morning with a raging fucking hard-on just from the memory of it.
"Yeah, okay," Gunner said, nodding. "Your girl or not, I think she deserves someone who isn't going to go darting off with some French heiress without a second thought. So I'll head up. Let me know what you find."
"Want to head out now?" Smith asked as I heard footsteps above me in Aven's room. It was ten, but she had been up late. This was the first movement I heard up there since the night before.
"Yeah, let's get it over with," I agreed, going into my desk for a lock pick set and gloves.
Gunner wasn't exaggerating about the crumbling houses on the side street, even in the middle of fall, the grass on several lawns was higher than ankle-height, weighed down in spots with burnt orange and red leaves.
"Pull behind," Smith told me, keen eyes looking around. "The old man will be the neighborhood watch. If we're parked here with blackout windows, he'll call the cops."
I wondered why he would be cool with junkies next door but would have an issue with my car as I did as Smith demanded, but when it came to the tactical shit, that was what he specialized in. If I wanted a job to go smoothly, I knew I could rely on his input.
"Wouldn't even need the lockpick," I said as we rounded the back door, my chin jerking toward the blowing screen door and the broken window on the internal door.
We made our way up, slipping on our gloves.
"So what is the deal?" Smith asked, reaching inside the broken window, turning the lock that opened with a somewhat laughable click. Why even bother locking it?
"What deal?"
"With you and this chick."
"Thought you knew better than to read too much into Gunner's shit," I hedged, moving forward, but he blocked my way.
"Gunner might be a loudmouth, but we both know that what comes out is usually something you can believe. And, not for nothing, Quin, but you're on call with her? Don't think I didn't hear about that. Supposed to be radio silence after a full cleanup."
That was always the rule.
We didn't want any contact, any blowback in case they snapped and what they did got around.
"And I maybe heard it from a certain redheaded, coffee-slinger that you were having coffee with a woman who sounded an awful lot like Aven."
Fucking Gala.
I should have known she wouldn't keep that close to her vest.
"Let's not," I said, changing tactics. I knew better than even to try to lie to Smith. And, besides the fact that he was a human fucking lie detector, I respected him too much for that.
"Alright," he agreed, shrugging. "Just making sure you're head is on straight."
And that right there was why Smith was my second-in-command. A lot of men in power had prides too inflated to allow anyone to question them. Me, I was glad I had someone around that would hold me accountable for questionable actions or decisions. The choices might be mine to make, but I was glad to know I had Smith to tell me if I was being an idiot.
"I have a feeling this is going to be creep fucking central," Smith declared, pushing open the door.
The heady combination of dust, must, and dirty dishes smacked us in the face as soon as we moved in, speaking of a closed space for days.
It was the first bit of proof that we had the right place.
Not that we needed it once our eyes adjusted to the low light inside, though.
Because Smith was right.
Creep fucking central.
Before us was an open floor plan with a small kitchen to the left, the tile on the countertops cracked, the cabinets stained from cooking on the stove. Beside the kitchen were two doors to - one would imagine - the bedroom and the bathroom. To the right and forward was the living space with thick dirt-brown mohair carpet, a red and brown plaid couch with a coffee table, and simple room darkening blinds on the windows, no curtains. A man's space. No frills. No feminine touches at all.
I might have worried about Gunner's intel about the woman.
Except once you looked past the carpet, tile, and furniture, all you saw was Aven.
Her face was staring back from the walls - smiling, bitch-facing, mid-laugh. There was a whole collage of her car breaking down outside of her work, snapshots of her head hung, of her raking her hands through her hair, of her bent over the hood, trying to figure out what was wrong, on her cell, talking to the man who had interrupted our kiss outside She's Bean around.
"Christ, he even has this shit on the ceiling," Smith said, head angled up, making me do so as well, seeing her face staring down at me.
The scary shit wasn't just the mass of pictures. Stalkers stalked. They took pictures. That was, in essence, normal.
But there were pictures of her driving her car with California plates, unloading boxes into one of the mid-price-level apartment buildings in town.
"What the fuck?" I hissed, moving closer to that particular set. "Why did it take so long to progress if he's been following her for years?" I asked, not expecting a response. Because there didn't seem to be one. It didn't make sense. It didn't fit the profile.
"Hey, though," Smith said, moving beside me. "Look at that angle."
"What about it?" I asked, looking at a picture of Aven carting around a box of kitchen supplies, a handle of a saucepan resting on her cheek as she lifted it out of her ca
r.
"He's taking it from inside her old apartment building," he told me. And if maybe I hadn't been so distracted, I would have noticed that myself.
That, at least, helped the whole start of the obsession make sense. He probably spotted her, or she said hey to him in the hallway, something benign to her, but something that meant something deeper to his twisted little mind.
I suddenly understood how he got so close to her so often without her getting suspicious. He was a neighbor. Him being around wouldn't have been unusual.
And, given it was a pretty sizable complex, I could see how she didn't recognize him when he started showing up at her house. She was new to the building. He was one of hundreds of faces.
Smith moved away from me, and I could hear rifling through drawers, shocking me out of my stupor finally as I moved through to the bedroom, flicking on the light, watching as the specks of dust fluttered around the stale air before my eyes fell on another collage of photos on the wall that the full-sized bed was butted up against.
"Fuck," I hissed, closing the bedroom door, not wanting Smith to walk in on this.
Because this guy - whoever he was - liked to keep a set of different pictures by his bed. Where he could look at them at night and jerk off.
There was one of Aven at her old place still, in a white tee in a downpour, the perfect outline of her breasts on display. Then there were ones from right after she moved in, before she got the curtains on her windows. Back when she didn't know any better, when she maybe thought that the fact that her bedroom windows butted up against the woods was enough reason not to worry about anyone seeing her when she changed in her bedroom.
There she was, in jeans and a lacy black bra.
There she was, back turned to the windows, no bra, a sexy red lace thong putting her round ass on perfect display.
There she was, towel wrapped around her, brushing her hair. Then again a moment later, sans towel.
My hands reached out, clawing at the pictures, dragging them down, feeling like I was invading her privacy just to be in the same room with them. Folding them in on themselves, I threw them in the trash bin beside the bed, empty but for two candy bar wrappers.
"Jacob Hill," Smith said, coming in as I gathered the trash bag, tying the top, not wanting any of the other guys getting an eyeful of what I had already seen. "Forty-seven. Never married. Used to be a welder, but is on permanent disability after falling and busting his back."
Smith, among many other things, was fast at data collecting. While I was taken aback by all the pictures, he was already rifling through drawers.
"Started renting this place nine months ago. That's, what, a month or so before Aven said she started seeing the guy?"
"Yeah, about," I agreed, opening the nightstand drawers, pulling out an address book, cell, and notebook.
All three would be coming with me.
This place didn't need to be cleaned the way Aven's did. It just needed to be stripped of every last shred of evidence that led back to Aven.
"Got a card here in the wallet for a shrink. Wonder how long he's been fucked in the head." Smith mused, mostly to himself. "Next of kin is listed as a sister. Got a hundred that says that's the crazy chick with the chunk taken out of her leg."
That made sense.
Who else would overlook a house full of pictures of a woman who didn't know she was being photographed?
A girlfriend certainly never would tolerate that.
"Alright. I'm gonna start cleaning this shit up," I said, grabbing an empty laundry basket from the closet, and starting to pile anything that needed to go - the pictures, journals, phone, film, cameras - in.
Really, it only took about an hour to have combed through every last inch of the house, crawl space and attic included. Smith collected information on the man himself, things that would hopefully lead back to his sister. I went through his car, finding pictures of Aven taped under the visor and another camera in the glove box.
Then, finally, we were on our way back to the office.
"You work the sister angle. I'll have Lincoln deal with destroying all this shit. When are you planning to head out to deal with the Russians?"
"A week," Smith said, shrugging. "That was the soonest they could be bothered to have a meeting."
"Probably too busy having meetings with hitmen," I mused as we walked up into the office. "At least it gives us time to figure out what is going on with the sister before you head out. Jules," I said, nodding my head at her as we walked in.
"I brought them up some coffee. Even the asshole," she added, meaning Gunner. "And I picked up some essentials for Aven as well. She didn't have time to pack a bag. I figured we can't have her wearing Fenway's clothes for more than a night."
I felt my lip curl at the idea of her in his clothes at all.
"I am going to go up and talk to her about what we found. Her headache gone?"
Jules's brow rose at that, knowing that a hatchet through the skull wouldn't normally deter me from filling in a client when I had something to tell them.
"Yeah, she said she just needed some Advil this morning to take the edge off. Here," she added, handing me a coffee.
"You need a raise," I told her, moving down the hall.
"Pretty soon, I'll be making more than you," she shot back, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"And you'd deserve every last penny," I agreed, opening the door to the staircase.
I was halfway up when I heard her laugh.
It was enough to stop me in my tracks, hand on the railing, listening to the rolling, happy sound - something I hadn't heard from her before, and something I knew I was going to steal from her when I went up there.
A part of me wanted to turn back around, go back to my office to deal with work, go back up later.
The other part, well, knew that she was likely laughing with Fenway. And that was enough to have me charging up the stairs, stabbing the code into the door a little too hard, making me have to do it twice, a show of carelessness no one would ever accuse me of.
I walked in to Fenway sitting on one end of the couch, arm across the back, casual as could be in gray slacks and a white button-up, he being the sort who never dressed down except to swim or golf.
Aven was on the other end of the couch, turned toward him, her feet resting on the middle cushion, purple polish covering her toenails. Her arms hugged her legs, a huge smile lighting up her face.
"Quin, my man," Fenway greeted, seeming to see me first. "Where have you been? Sending Gunner to make sure I'm not seducing the beautiful Aven here? So not like you."
Aven's smile slowly fled, leaving just a turning up of her lips at one side. "Fenway was just doing an impersonation of the elusive Babysitter."
Also known as Ranger.
Fenway had needed The Babysitter a few times over the years, a distinction that not a single other client had to their name.
"What'd he say he sounded like?"
"Surly. Growly. Like Gunner, only more angry."
"Not inaccurate," I allowed, smiling a little because her eyes were still dancing, and not wanting to be a complete killjoy. "How are you feeling?" I asked, moving closer until I could move her coffee out of the way, and sit down on the coffee table, reaching out for her chin, turning her head to check out the cuts, looking for any sign of infection.
"Not bad, considering. Drinking was fun before I iced my lip."
"Swollen twice its normal size," Fenway agreed. "She took a sip of water, and it just came streaming back out again."
"Gee, thanks!" Aven scoffed, pulling a throw pillow from behind her back, and tossing it at him. "Because I wanted everyone to know about that."
I was everyone.
Fenway was the insider.
I was fucking jealous of Fenway Arlington.
Would wonders never cease?
"Want to get out of here for a bit so we can talk?" I asked. "I have some information to fill you in on. And we should probably stop in at yo
ur work. Figure you called out, but we need to make sure they let you slide for a week or so."
Everything about her went tense, formal.
It was a sad thing to see.
"Yeah, sure. Just let me find those shoes Jules dropped off for me," she said, jumping up, heading down the hall, leaving Fenway and me alone.
"She's okay," he said, drawing my attention.
"What?" I asked, brows drawn together, not used to seeing such a serious look on the man's face.
"She's been through the wringer. Don't know the specifics, but I see her face. And she jumps like a cat at any strange sound. But she's in good spirits. You seem worried about her."
"I worry about all my clients. Even the pain in the ass ones like you," I added, attempting to distract him.
"Yeah, I totally look at my clients like you look at her," he agreed, nodding, smile knowing as Aven came back out of the room, hair brushed more to one side, allowing some of it to fan out over the cut on her temple. She was insecure about being seen by her coworkers. It was asinine seeing as what happened wasn't her fault, but she was trying to mask some of it.
"All set," she declared, forcing a smile, reaching for a heavy knit gray sweater on the back the couch, shrugging it on.
"Take pictures of the outside for me," Fenway demanded. "It seems like I won't be seeing it for a good, long while."
"Well, that will teach you for stealing, and being an adulterer."
"Hey," Fenway called as we moved across the room, "I wasn't the one who was married."
"Right, because that excuses it," Aven shot back as the door closed, locking automatically. "He's a character," she told me as we went down the stairs. "I get why he gets into women trouble. He's so convincing. You'd swear he means what he says."
"In all fairness," I said as I led her through the reception area, putting my hand at her lower back to lead her toward the front doors, wanting to get out of the office, "I think he actually does mean it when he says it. He just has the attention span of a magpie, always moving on to the next newer, shinier object."
"I guess that makes sense," she agreed as I opened my car door, ushering her inside. "Where are we going?" she asked a moment later as I pulled out of town.
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