by G. G. Andrew
He shut the door and moved to the driver’s side.
They were both silent most of the drive to her apartment, both of them seething, playing a game of verbal chicken. Whoever talked first would lose.
Scott lost. “Look,” he began, unable to stop himself, “that thing that happened between us last night?”
“The thing where you kissed me?”
He glanced over and observed her profile. She didn’t glance at him. She was leaning back in the seat, her face in profile and her neck long. He wondered how it would feel to run his finger down her throat, to slide his lips along the same path. He jerked his gaze back to the road. “Yeah.”
She didn’t respond, so he plunged on. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I took advantage.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You were doing me a favor, and you were only half-awake, and I—”
“Woke up other parts of me?”
She didn’t sound flirty, more like irritated, or matter-of-fact, but he swallowed, feeling himself get half-hard from the memory of that hot, sweet kiss. It didn’t help that she was a foot away now, wearing that perfume that attacked him in places his logic couldn’t shield. The orange scent drew him in, refreshing him like a breezy walk through an orange grove. The note of spice at the end snuck in like a whisper, curling its fingers and beckoning him close, closer, back behind the trees where he’d be brought to his knees by something he couldn’t fathom but would probably ruin him.
He swallowed again. Focused on the road. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he braved on—though even he heard an unsteadiness in his voice.
“Right,” she said. “I figured.”
His eyebrows drew together and he fought the urge to look back at her as they pulled up to her apartment. She sounded tired and resigned, barely disappointed. Obviously their kiss hadn’t affected her half as much as him.
He got out of the car and slammed his door shut.
He should be relieved. He’d put a stop to what shouldn’t have even happened to begin with. She’d let him off easy.
He wanted to open his car door just so he could slam it again.
She opened her own door, got out, and started for her apartment, not looking back at him.
“Wait.” He caught up with her, walking side-by-side, his bare forearm brushing the nubby material of that shiny shirt. Temptation or not, he needed her close to him. He needed to keep her safe.
“It’s fine,” she said stiffly, still not meeting his eyes. She climbed up the steps as he kept pace with her.
“You advertised your whereabouts to probably dozens of people tonight,” he said, the sternness creeping back into his voice. “It’s not fine. Stay close. Do what I say.”
She stared at him, her eyes large with incredulity.
“Please,” he added.
He kept her beside him this time as he entered with his gun drawn—he didn’t trust that there wasn’t somebody out there, waiting for the moment to find her alone. When he’d determined the place was clear, he gave her a quick head nod, and she walked back to her bedroom without a word.
He followed at a slower pace, examining the place to see if anyone had entered since they’d been there two days ago.
“Have you returned here?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. “I grabbed some clothes and other things when I came here with you.”
“Good.”
Nothing seemed awry, but that didn’t mean the person hadn’t been back.
As she reached her bedroom, she turned suddenly. “Do you mind?” she snapped—and slammed the door in his face. She missed his nose by centimeters.
Maybe she wasn’t as cool with the conversation they’d had in the car as she’d seemed.
He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled a long breath as he waited by the door. He kept one ear listening to her movements in the bedroom—soft clacks and rustling, like she was digging through something. That box of small plastic items he’d seen the other day? With the other ear and both eyes, he monitored the rest of the apartment for anything unusual.
“You almost done?” he called after a few minutes.
She opened the door so quickly, he almost fell in. He’d been practically leaning on it, holding himself back from busting in. What if someone was watching her through her bedroom window? That thought had popped into his head thirty seconds earlier and had proved difficult to shake.
She held up a leopard-print flash drive. She was staring at it like it was a voodoo doll, with a mixture of curiosity, slight reverence, a bit of disgust.
“Is that it?” he asked. Such a small thing to have wreaked such havoc in her life.
“That’s it.” Her eyes met his.
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You going to put it in the mailbox?”
Normally, he would’ve told her to hand it over to him, that it was police evidence. But she hadn’t filed a police report yet, and this wasn’t any official case, as much as he wanted it to be. Plus, he knew by the fire in her eyes that she would take whatever he told her tonight and do the exact opposite.
“Yes.” She slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. “But first I’m going to find out what’s on it.”
Chapter Eighteen
Kim
Kim woke to the ghost of her mother from twenty years ago kneeling by the couch.
“Shit!” she exclaimed as she bolted upright.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Laurel said.
Kim exhaled hard, realizing the brunette woman staring back at her wasn’t a time-warped version of her mother but her older sister, her eyes wide with concern.
She’d made Scott drive her to Laurel’s late the previous night, knowing that whoever wanted that flash drive knew where her parents lived. They might’ve known where Laurel lived too, but Kim wasn’t sure where else to go, and at least there were no children in this neighborhood.
Scott had said, “What are you not telling me?” when he’d braked in Laurel’s driveway.
She’d slammed the door in his face. Again. It’d felt good. Again.
She hadn’t been in the mood to tell him about the knife. Not when she already felt so raw.
“Ugh.” She sat up, swiping the hair out of her eyes. She thought of Scott’s words in the car and her chest ached. She figured after he’d interrupted her with Hutch that whatever was happening between them was going to come to a screeching halt. What better way to advertise her shitty past to him than by hanging out in an alleyway with her drug-dealing ex after leaving an illicit party? Scott was too much of a Boy Scout to ignore all those red flags. Still, his words had stung more than she’d expected, and she’d been close to tears in his car last night, despite her anger at his going alpha on Hutch and lecturing her.
First the knife, then a pseudo-firing followed by a not-quite-breakup. Man, Wednesday had really sucked.
“You okay?” Laurel asked.
“More or less.” Not really, but Kim didn’t quite know where to begin with all the not-okayness, and she wasn’t about to try until she had a lot of caffeine and an antidepressant or twenty. She’d texted her sister before she arrived last night, and Laurel had let her in, but Kim had said she was too exhausted to talk, and something in her expression had made Laurel back off to let her sleep.
“Where were you last night? Mom kept calling.”
Kim lay back on the couch, groaned, and put a pillow over her face—a little because she didn’t want to face the day, but mostly so she couldn’t see her sister’s face when she said, “At a Yale party to meet Hutch.”
“To meet Hutch?” Yeah, Laurel was starting to sound like their mother, too.
“I know,” Kim mumbled into the pillow.
“But—why would you—did he—”
“Coffee first. Then questions,” she told the pillow.
Laurel sighed dramatically
, slapped her thighs, and got up to walk to the kitchen. She was silent as the faucet turned on and the coffeepot hummed, but Kim had known Laurel her whole life, and her silent fuming was nearly deafening. She kept the pillow over her face.
When her sister walked back into the living room, Kim reached out a hand and Laurel placed a warm mug into it.
Laurel spoke the moment the cup left her own fingers. “You know this is terrible for your recovery, right?”
“Yes.” Kim scooted upright and rearranged the pillow so she could take a sip, still keeping it in front of her face as a shield from her sister’s damning gaze.
“You can’t go back to that lifestyle. Hutch and all the parties and those people.”
“I know.”
“What would Dr. Park say? I hope you called him. You need to call him right now if you haven’t.” She slid her cell out of her pajama bottoms and shoved it between Kim’s face and her pillow. “Here.”
She ignored the phone. “I didn’t call him. I cancelled our appointment yesterday.”
“What? Jesus. I can’t even…”
“Someone’s really after me, Laurel,” she whispered. “They left a knife on my car.”
Laurel grabbed the pillow and threw it to the other end of the couch. Her blue eyes were sharp, but flickered with fear. “Who? Why?”
“I don’t know. But I think they want this.” She pulled the flash drive out of the wrinkled jeans she’d slept in.
Laurel studied the leopard-print device. “What’s on that?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t understand it. It’s not anybody’s English homework, though. I borrowed your laptop on the table last night, but I couldn’t open whatever’s on it. It’s encrypted.” She sighed and took another sip of coffee. “This is what I needed Hutch for. He’d heard about someone trying to track me down.”
“Isn’t Scott Culpepper helping you?”
“I’m trying to figure this out myself. I got myself into this mess, and I’ll get myself out of it.” She rolled her eyes. “Though he’s still trying.”
She’d have to shake him somehow. Despite him obviously not wanting to kiss her ever again, he was still acting like a white knight around her. But she didn’t want him around. Not after last night and how embarrassed and hurt she’d been.
“It shouldn’t have happened.” Yeah, he’d projected his regret, loud and clear. He wanted to take back that kiss. Her chest ached again and she rubbed it absently. It was probably heartburn, but it felt too close to sad for her liking.
Laurel sighed. “Trying to figure this out alone is not a good idea.” Now her sister was starting to sound like Scott.
Kim swallowed. “There’s other stuff you need to know.” She regretted telling her about the slip-up at Hot Haven, but she needed to come clean to someone. “I think I got fired.”
Laurel closed her eyes, took a slow breath, and released it. She stood up. “Now I need a cup of coffee.”
Kim followed her into the kitchen, explaining about finding the knife that morning, what she’d done at the coffee shop, and Boyd’s reaction. She tried to couch it in a way to make her sister less hysterical, but it was hard to do that when your story included the word “knife.”
“Maybe Boyd’s right,” Laurel said, leaning against the kitchen counter after she calmed down about the whole sharp-instrument thing. “You need a few days off. You’re under a lot of stress. There’s some asshole out there that… It’s just, I’m sure he didn’t mean to fire you.”
Kim raised an eyebrow. “This is Boyd I’m talking about. Maybe I haven’t described him enough to you, but next to his girlfriend, Hot Haven is everything to him. He doesn’t want someone working for him that’s going to be pilfering the merch.” She shook her head. “No, I’m just going to check out this flash drive, and then put it in my mailbox like that asshole told me to in his note.” It was counterintuitive, but something in her wanted to know why she’d been terrorized these past couple days, what was so worth that drama. Her fear wanted her to get rid of it immediately, but curiosity had taken hold of her last night—and more than a little anger. What was so important on this stupid thing? If it wasn’t English homework, what was it?
Of course, she’d been prone to bad decisions lately.
Laurel didn’t respond. She was the oldest sibling—and a heap more responsible and rational—but Kim knew she had that curiosity too.
She skipped the part about kissing Scott and his backpedaling. Despite the knife, the stealing, the pseudo-firing, and her reunion with Hutch, that was the thing that felt the most raw.
“Oh, and guess who I ran into earlier this week?”
“Who?”
“Taylor Stiles.”
“Lovely.”
“Yeah, she was as sweet as usual. Talking about how she was so busy and saying I’d never understand because I’ll never have kids.”
Laurel shook her head. “Ignore her. She’s just upset you had sex with her boyfriend on prom night.”
“Yeah, and it totally wasn’t worth it. He got on top of me, it lasted two minutes, and then he asked me to bring him a glass of water.”
Laurel snorted.
The floorboards creaked above their heads in Laurel’s kitchen, and Kim knew that her sister’s boyfriend was waking up.
“Do you want me to get out of here?” she asked.
“No. I want you to stay here,” Laurel said. “Every night from now on, until we get this figured out.”
“Then can you make me pancakes?”
“Maybe.”
Footfalls came on the stairs, and a few seconds later, Jamie appeared in the kitchen doorway, rubbing the sleep from his hazel eyes and wearing a pair of wrinkled jeans, the hems spattered with black paint.
“There’s two of you,” he concluded in his sleepy British accent.
“Congratulations, I’m your new roommate,” Kim said drily.
“Hmm?” Jamie walked to Laurel and pulled her close.
Laurel’s eyes warmed as she wound her arms around Jamie’s neck, but her voice was tight. “Kim’s going to stay here for a while, okay? She’s in trouble.”
Jamie’s eyes found Kim’s. “All right.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Jamie, still half-asleep, went to bury his face in Laurel’s black hair, to her sister’s giggles. Kim was about to mutter, I’ve made a huge mistake, when Laurel stiffened and pushed Jamie away.
“Jamie!”
“What?” he mumbled.
“You know how you’ve been wanting to make an art installation in the front yard?”
“What, now?”
“Yes! I mean, after you make us pancakes.” Holding her boyfriend by the shoulders, she looked between him and Kim. “If Jamie is out there creating something, there’ll be press everywhere. We won’t have to worry about some dangerous weirdo showing up to slip any more knives on your car.”
“Knives?” Jamie said, a line forming between his eyebrows. “Pancakes?”
“Long story.” Laurel looked the most relieved she’d been all morning. “It’ll be protection. I mean, in a weird way.”
“In a really weird way.” Kim nodded to Jamie. “Do your thing.”
He nodded back, unsure what he was agreeing to, and pulled his girlfriend close again.
“Check out the file, see what’s on it, and get rid of it as quickly as you can,” Laurel told her over his shoulder. “Although, how the heck are you going to do that anyway?”
“Ian.”
Now Laurel was confused. “Ian’s not good with computers. I mean, not that good.”
Kim shook her head. “Nope, he’s not. But he knows someone who is.”
The realization erupted over Laurel’s face—then a look of amused horror. “Oh, he’s going to kill you.”
“Kill us, you mean,” Kim said. “I need you to help me double-team him.”
Chapter Nineteen
Kim
“No,” Ian said. “No way.”
�
�Please, Ian. It’s important,” Kim said. “I’ve got a flash drive with a file on it I can’t open. We need someone who knows her way around computers.”
They’d cajoled Ian into coming over for pancakes with maple syrup—he was free of appointments for a few hours. But once he’d gotten a few bites in, Kim had started asking him about Prudence Davenport.
Prue had been a classmate of her brother’s at Yale Law, but she’d dropped out their second year and started her own business. A tech whiz, she knew the ins and outs of computer security and now worked as a consultant. She was a busy woman, and they needed Ian to go introduce them.
Ian had choked on his pancakes when Prue’s name was first uttered, and he was still putting up a good fight.
Gesturing with his fork, Ian said, “I thought you guys wanted to actually hang out, not to manipulate me into seeing the woman who—” He stopped.
Laurel raised her eyebrows. “The woman who…”
“Nevermind.” Ian said. “Forget it.”
Kim and Laurel had long known that Ian had a thing for Prue Davenport. It was the way he’d talked about her when he’d started law school—constantly, and also like he was holding back—and that look he got when he said her name, like it was an incantation to make a door to a magical world appear. When the Xaviers had gone to Yale receptions in support of him, he stared at the redhead like she was the shiniest thing on the planet. Kim and Laurel would kick each other under the table like they were kids when Ian talked about Prue, biting back laughs.
Kim went on the offensive with her baby brother. “Did I mention someone dropped a knife on the hood of my car?” she said. “This is the same person who left me that threatening note. I found out what they wanted, and it’s this flash drive. I want to know why it’s so special. There’s something weird about it.”
Ian ran his fingers through his hair, making a tuft stick up on top. Her brother had their mother’s black hair, brown eyes like she and her dad, and glasses. Kim wondered why he didn’t date more between his law practice and adorable good looks. Also, he was way nicer than either her or Laurel. Though they were definitely testing that today.