“Not until we get this mess figured out.”
The thought of leaving her hurt already and he’d only been in her presence for the sum of an hour. And most of that time she’d spent trying to get rid of him. He needed to slam his head in the door.
“Fine.” She took a key from her pocket and slid it into the door. “Just don’t freak out.”
That peaked his interest. “I promise not to freak out for more than ten seconds.”
Ava threaded her fingers through several loose strands at the back of her neck and shoved them through a stranger’s ponytail holder. After she dragged in a long breath she unlocked the door, swung it wide, and stepped back for him to enter. “Just remember you promised.”
He stepped into Ava’s home and indexed several things at once. It smelled like her, soft and sweet with a mysterious edge. The colors on the walls surprised him. Before everything she’d owned was white. Aluminum powder and glass littered the floor. A nice dent concaved the sharp paint job.
Judging by the scatter and indention she’d thrown it from the other side of her bed. He moved farther into the room and stopped cold.
The headlines were as familiar as the Pledge of Allegiance. The messages uncovered on them, not so much.
“Where’d you find them?” he asked in an amazingly even tone, considering the frenzy blistering just under his skin.
“Under the edge of my door.”
“Did you test to make certain they can fit under your door when it’s closed? Whoever left you these could make it look like they dropped it off under the door, when they were actually inside your apartment.”
“I didn’t think about that.” She rushed around him and to the paper farthest from him.
“Don’t use the paper.”
“Grab about three of those magazines and try. Did they come all together?”
“One at a time.”
Her answer ramped his irritation. “When did it start?”
“Two months ago.”
“Did you tell anyone about them? The police? A coworker? Your family?”
“No.” Ava grabbed the magazines and scurried toward the door.
“Fucking hell, Ava!” Keen stepped into her path.
“You promised not to freak.” She pointed at him with the rolled tips of the magazines.
“For more than ten seconds. I still have two seconds.” He stepped forward, pushing her a bit with his chest. “How could you not tell anyone about this?”
“I didn’t know the messages were there.”
“The headline and dated papers weren’t enough of a message for you?”
“Time’s up.” She ducked around him and dropped to her knees in front of the door.
He tried really hard not to think about Ava on her knees in front of him, but fuck.
“And no, it wasn’t enough for me to tell anyone. If I told someone about every ugly note, prank call, or heckler who passed my way, I’d never get any work done.” She shoved the stacked Cosmo, Elle, and Marie Claire under the threshold.
“It’s still that bad?”
“Sometimes.” With a wiggle and some oomph they cleared the door. “It goes in waves.” She turned her head and met his gaze. “I didn’t think this time was any different.”
9
He stood in the center of her apartment with an angry twitch in his jaw and sad eyes. Maybe she liked the freakout better than the sympathy. His sympathy weakened her defenses.
“I have to get rid of them tonight. Abbott and Gray could be here with that warrant any minute. If I get caught with these… Well, it’ll make a terrible situation look that much worse.”
“Depends on how you’re looking at the picture. Somebody’s threatening you, setting you up for murder.”
“And if you look at it from the other side?” She didn’t give him a second to answer. “I can’t prove it. There aren’t any fingerprints on these. With the exception of mine. They could look at these as keepsakes or threats I made to send to someone.” She pulled the band from her hair, situated the strands, and then tied it up into a fresh knot. “Annelise, that’s my best friend, my best friend for more than two years. She sure thought these convicted me.”
“She saw them?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me one of those Dexter-sized Ziplocks from your kit. I’ll put them in my trunk and grab my bag.”
“No.” She used the handle and pulled herself off the floor. Apparently murder accusations zapped the tendons in your knees and made collapse a real possibility. “If I go down for this, it’ll make you an accessory.”
“You’re not going down.”
“Innocent people go to prison every day.”
“Not every day.” His gaze tightened on her. “You’ve been spending too much time with Beaumont.”
He’d yet to notice the fifth paper—
“Tell me about the already bagged newspaper,” he requested without shifting his gaze from hers. “What makes it different?”
So much for small favors.
“I found it in my car after Abbott and Gray questioned me the first time.”
Keen’s nose and upper lip crinkled.
“No, I didn’t tell you. I still hadn’t found the messages.”
His head tilted ever so slightly. “So why didn’t you dust it for prints?”
“Its headline…” He ushered her on with a hand. “It’s covered in blood. The victim’s, I assume.”
“Fu…” His mouth clamped shut. Ever the stickler for a promise. “You didn’t want to contaminate it.” He stared at the ground and bobbed his head as though working things out in his head. “But we really need to know if there’s another clue.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. The blond whiskers on his chin scraped like sandpaper. For a second Ava forgot about everything and wondered what those little hairs would feel like rubbing across her skin.
“Do you have plastic wrap?”
She heard his question, but couldn’t quite get her mouth to cooperate with an answer. A nod worked all the same. It was cruel really, how the brain could compartmentalize the most horrific things. One second she contemplated the palatability of jail food, the next her mouth watered over the assured deliciousness of her ex.
Keen took off into the kitchen. Cabinets squeaked. Drawers zoomed on their rollers, and then smacked back into the counter.
“The drawer by the refrigerator,” Ava hollered.
Yellow box in hand he rushed through her apartment. It thudded onto the ground by the newspapers. He bent next to her kit and carefully deposited each paper into its own bag, before setting it to the side.
“See if you can salvage any of that powder.” Keen eyed the mess on her floor.
“It’s probably contaminated.”
“Desperate times.” He winked, and then dismissed her, reaching for the bloody paper on her bed.
Ava shoved at the wild flyaways tickling her forehead and made her way to the wreckage that perfectly represented her life. Small shards littered pretty piles of the metallic powder. It coated tiny dust bunnies she hadn’t known existed around her baseboards. She honed in on the largest chunk of glass, but only a small dime sized pile of aluminum sat in the awkward bowl it made. With no better options she retrieved the jagged hunk of glass and carried it to the make-shift work area.
Keen’s large hands delicately folded the plastic around the back of the newspaper, covering the bloody top section. She knelt next to him and set the glass and powder on top of the towel.
He flipped it over in front of her. “Do your thing.”
The bold crimson print smacked her square in the face. Each breath burned. Small fissures of light darted through her field of vision like the opening of Star Wars only not near as cool.
Warmth encompassed Ava’s wrist. She blinked, still saw the shooting stars, but sifted her gaze to the left.
“Breathe.”
Air mixed with the scent of a dangerous man filled her lungs. Keen posed alm
ost as much a threat as this maniac killing people and framing her, because he owned her heart. She’d do well to remember that.
“Again,” he ordered.
Her gaze shifted to his. She swallowed and breathed him in once more. The fine lines that had bracketed his eyes the last time she’d let her eyes wander with him this close had deepened. The innocent eyes she’d drowned in too many times to count possessed a sexy and heartbreaking worldliness.
“It’s just a piece of paper with some blood on it.” Keen lifted her hand from the top of her thigh, his fingers grazing her bare skin. He slipped the zephyr brush between her fingers. “Let’s get to work.”
“Okay.” Ava reclaimed her hand and her composure. She loaded the brush, carefully tapped off the excess, and dusted the lower half of the page in concentric circles.
The tips of a U appeared first. Then the arch of an O. A few passes later the word you and the arch of a lowercase n collected the powder.
“You never…” Keen whispered.
Ava continued dusting.
Something hit the apartment door.
She dropped the brush and clamped her lips together to keep from screaming as the thump reverberated through her.
Keen’s muscled calves leaped over the towel and blurred past her. “Where’s your gun?”
“Closet.”
He deftly drew a pistol from the small of his back. His right palm held the grip at the center of his chest while his left braced the weapon. At the door his steps slowed. His ear cocked toward the door.
She heard it too. Retreating footfalls.
“Get it and stay here.” The door yawned under Keen’s demands.
“I’m not a child,” she hollered, but he probably didn’t hear. His feet thundered down the corridor in pursuit. Ava glanced at herself, sitting on the floor with shaky hands—yet again. “You look like a child.”
She leapt up and bound to the closet. The matte black S & W smiled up at her from the top drawer. It weighted her hand perfectly. Some women like diamonds. Ava liked guns. She stuffed an extra magazine in her back pocket and sprinted for the front door.
Before sailing out the door, she grabbed her keys off the bed, and then locked the knob. Ava’s first foot out of the apartment landed on a raised surface and rolled off the edge of her dainty sandals.
Her left hand and hip landed hard on the gritty corridor. Keys skid across the slick floor. She maintained the grip on her gun. Dull pain throbbed, but she didn’t give it her attention.
Ava’s gaze locked on the thick paper folded in half in the middle of the hallway. Red stained the center edges.
Had the killer left this? Had Keen caught him?
The smooth bottom of her shoes slipped on the floor. She powered through it and jumped to her feet. Using the tip of her shoe, she shoved the paper inside, and then closed the door.
Whether out of instinct or habit her legs carried her to the stairwell. On the second story her grip on the rail tightened, but a buoyancy she hadn’t experienced in years lifted her heart out of her toes. Keen pinned a man by the neck to the floor. Grungy pants covered flailing legs.
“Oh, thank God,” she sighed.
The man’s hands wrestled with the deck shoe compressing his esophagus.
“I thought we moved past this already.” Keen’s leg muscles flexed. “Stop fighting. Answer my questions and I’ll let you go.”
“Let him go?” Ava gasped.
“Open your eyes, Ava. He’s not our guy.”
Sweat stains marbled his white T-shirt. Gnarly red dots tracked his arms. The man’s grease slicked hair revealed dilated pupils. His grimace flashed the black edges of rotted teeth.
No.
Hope seeped through the ventricles of her heart like helium out of a balloon. Only her grip on the railing kept her upright, but the quiver in her knees made that tenuous at best.
“Who gave you the paper?” Keen asked.
The junkie gurgled.
“Oh, you’re going to cooperate?”
Another gurgle.
“If you try to get up or spit on me, you’ll regret it,” Keen warned.
Gurgles.
“If you insist.” Keen’s knee bent slightly.
The guy heaved breaths, his chest rising and falling in rapid succession. Dirty fingers tried to slip underneath the sole of the shoe, keeping him from air. Keen gave him just enough room. The man cocooned his throat.
“The paper,” Keen reminded. “Who gave it to you?”
Ava leaned forward, but couldn’t understand the man’s gruff whisper.
“Louder.” Keen demanded. His palm came up to keep her back.
The wide spread and calluses didn’t work. She descended the next three steps on rubber legs, desperate to hear the man’s cracked words.
The addict moved so fast Ava choked on a yelp. His left hand shot out. Cold, moist fingers locked around her ankle and pulled hard. Her slick bottomed sandal glided off the step. As she fell her gaze fixed on the man’s dark, uneven fingernails millimeters from her pale skin.
Her grip doubled on the railing. A chip of gray paint flecked off and hit her eye lid. In a furious blink Ava became the rope in her own horror show tug of war. She kicked blindly with her other leg, but connected with air.
A deep thud echoed off the stairwell. The pressure around her ankle grew lax. Another thud and the man’s grip released.
She clambered up to the landing and leaned against the cool wall. Her legs automatically drew to her chest. The man huddled in the fetal position, clutching his side.
Keen stood over him. A detached reserve relaxed his shoulders, but a dark glint framed his eyes. “Who gave you the paper?”
“A little guy,” the man groaned. “A little guy.”
“A kid or a Little Person?” Keen whispered. The drop in his voice sent a chill up Ava’s spine. This guy wondered dangerously close to a chasm with a spiny bottom.
“Kid.” Beads of sweat rolled off the junkie’s forehead and puddled on the floor.
“How old?” He asked.
“I don’t know. Ten. Too young to be out so late.” The guy flopped onto his back. “He gave me the address and instructions, the newspaper, and a hundred bucks to deliver it.”
Keen stepped back, his muscles loose and ready for anything. “What was to stop you from taking the money and splitting.”
A tear seeped from the prone man’s eye. “The kid gave me something else.”
“What?”
The tear grew to a sob. “No please.”
“What?” Keen ordered.
The junkie opened his hands wide in defense. “It’s in my pocket.”
“Get it. Slowly.”
As ordered he eased an envelope from his grimy pants and handed it to Keen.
Keen opened the flap and pulled out a square of paper or maybe a picture. “Get lost.”
“No,” Ava hollered.
The man rolled onto all fours, and then sprinted out of sight before Ava climbed to her feet.
“Why’d you let him go? We could have used him as a witness.”
“We have all we’re going to get from him.” Keen held the edge of the envelope in one hand and an almost square piece of paper in the other.
“What is it?” Ava’s feet carried her down the steps.
“The writing at the bottom matches your newspapers, and I guarantee only the kid’s and junkie’s prints are all over this stuff. The instruction sheet with your address on it is in here too.”
Keen stuffed the paper that wasn’t a paper at all, but two Polaroids, back into the envelope.
“What are they pictures of?”
Keen’s gaze met hers. “His first two victims.”
She staggered. “After…”
“Yes. And there’s a message split between them. On the first, ‘Cross me.’ On the second, ‘And This is You.’ ”
Ava sank to the step and lowered her head between her knees. Her breaths came in heavy panted waves.
She jerked defensively. Her gaze landed on her finger resting against the trigger guard, flew to the barrel, and then to Keen’s chest only inches from the circular chamber. “Shit. I…” Her hand released its titanium grip. She offered it hammer first.
Deft fingers collected it from her hand. “When was the last time you slept?”
She shrugged.
His hand wrapped around her upper arm and lifted. “Come on. Go shower, wash off the day. Or try, at least. I’ll take care of this.”
Her chest squeezed. He remembered. Any time she had a shitty day, she’d scrub it off and wash it down the drain. It’d take a hell of a lot of scrubbing and an extra-large drain to make today disappear.
One step at a time, she ascended the stairs with Keen by her side, someplace she hadn’t expected him to be again. Not after what she’d done.
Like a gentleman he didn’t say anything when he plucked her keys off the floor, and then opened her apartment. Ava groaned. His hand at her shoulder steered her inside. The bloody newspaper lay in the middle of her floor like a gator in wait. He maneuvered her around it.
“Go shower. If you still take an hour, this’ll all be gone when you get out.”
Her gaze honed on the closet door. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Ava took one step and another until the scent of clothes and soap enveloped her. She closed the door, locked it, took one more step, and caught movement in her periphery. Her feet left the carpet, but she managed to clamp her scream off before it split her closet in two.
For the second time in the very long day she’d jumped at her own reflection. She very well should. The woman staring back had wild eyes, hair as greasy as the junkie’s, and skin with the consistency and color of chalk. One touch and she might crumble.
She inhaled, closed the bathroom door, and glared at herself. It wasn’t any easier than it had been just a few days ago when Annelise had wanted her to, but the distance between her and her father vanished in the matter of seconds. It had been a bubble, clear and fragile, but she’d clung to it all the same. A bubble in the tornado of her life. No surprise it hadn’t lasted long.
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