Shadows in the Dark (Blackridge Detectives #1)

Chapter 1

The hairs on the back of Nora’s neck stood up as the feeling crept over her again—that spine-tingling sense that unseen eyes were watching her every move.

She glanced around the dimly lit parking garage, clutching her laptop bag against her chest like a shield. Nothing but rows of empty cars and concrete pillars stretching into shadow. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered, casting dancing shadows that made her pulse spike.

You’re being paranoid. Again.

That’s what Lila would say. What Nora’s therapist would say. What everyone always said when she tried to explain that something felt wrong.

But she’d learned to trust her instincts. They’d kept her alive in seven different foster homes. They’d warned her when things were about to go bad. And right now, every nerve in Nora’s body was screaming that she wasn’t alone down here.

Nora picked up her pace, heels clicking against concrete, each echo bouncing off the walls and coming back to her like a taunt.

Her car was just three rows away. She could see it—her reliable gray Honda that had gotten her through the last five years since she’d finally managed to scrape together enough for a down payment.

Almost there.

Her breath came faster, fogging in the cold January air. Nora fumbled for her keys, fingers clumsy with adrenaline. The key fob felt slick in her sweaty palm.

Click. Click.

She pressed the unlock button twice. Nothing. The familiar beep and flash of lights didn’t come.

“No, no, no.” She pressed it again. And again.

Dead battery. Of course. Because tonight of all nights, when she was already on edge, when she’d stayed late finishing the Morrison audit and the parking garage was practically empty, her key fob would die.

Nora reached the driver’s side door and jammed the actual key into the lock. Her hands shook so badly it took three tries. Finally, the lock clicked and she yanked the door open, practically throwing herself into the driver’s seat.

Safe. She was safe.

Nora slammed the door and hit the lock button, then sat there for a moment, trying to catch her breath. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

See? Nothing happened. You’re fine. Stop being so dramatic.

She stuck the key in the ignition and turned it.

Click. Click. Click.

Nothing.

“Come on.” She tried again, pumping the gas pedal like her foster mom Rita had taught her years ago when her old Buick used to do this. “Please, please, please.”

Click. Click. Click.

The engine didn’t even try to turn over.

Her stomach dropped. Not just a dead key fob battery. A dead car battery.

Nora grabbed her phone with shaking hands. She could call Lila—no, she was on a date with Jake tonight. Roadside assistance? She glanced at the time. Nearly nine PM. They’d take at least an hour to get here.

An hour. Alone. In this garage. With the feeling of eyes on her growing stronger by the second.

Movement in her rearview mirror made Nora freeze.

A figure. Dark clothing. Standing between two cars about twenty feet behind her.

Just standing there. Watching.

Her breath stopped. Every muscle in Nora’s body locked up.

It’s just someone going to their car. People work late. It’s normal.

But they weren’t moving. Weren’t walking past. Just...watching.

She couldn’t see their face, couldn’t make out any features in the bad lighting. But she could feel their attention on her like a physical weight.

The figure took a step forward.

Then another.

Moving toward her car with slow, deliberate steps.

Terror slammed into Nora. Pure, primal fear that obliterated every rational thought.

She grabbed her laptop bag and phone, fumbled for the door handle, and burst out of the car. Her heel caught on the concrete and she stumbled, catching herself on the hood.

“Hey!” a voice called out behind her. Male. Unfamiliar. “Wait—”

She didn’t wait.

She ran.

Her heels weren’t made for running but she didn’t care. Nora sprinted toward the garage exit, bag bouncing against her hip, phone clutched in her fist. Her breaths came in ragged gasps that echoed off the concrete walls.

Footsteps behind her. Getting closer.

“Please, I just want to—”

Nora didn’t let him finish. Didn’t look back.

The exit stairwell loomed ahead—twenty feet, fifteen, ten—

Her heel caught again, and this time, she went down, laptop bag flying from her grip, phone skittering across the concrete. Pain exploded in her palms and knees as she hit the ground hard.

“No!” Nora scrambled forward on her hands and knees, reaching for her phone.

The footsteps stopped right behind her.

She grabbed her phone and spun around, pressing herself back against a concrete pillar, holding the phone up like a weapon, even though her hands shook so badly she could barely grip it.

The figure stood there, maybe ten feet away, hands raised.

But the lighting was wrong, shadows falling across their face. Nora couldn’t see. Couldn’t identify them. Could only feel her heart trying to jackhammer its way out of her chest.

“I’m calling the police,” she managed, voice cracking. “Right now. I’m calling—”

“Okay, okay!” The figure backed up a step. “I’m going. Jesus.”

They turned and walked quickly back into the shadows between the rows of cars. A moment later, Nora heard an engine start, saw headlights sweep across the garage ceiling. A dark sedan—she couldn’t make out the model—drove past her toward the exit ramp and disappeared.

She sat there against the pillar, shaking violently, struggling to breathe.

What just happened?

Maybe it really was someone just trying to help. Maybe they saw her car wouldn’t start and were trying to be nice.

But then why did every instinct in her body scream danger? Why did Nora still feel like she needed to run?

She pulled herself up on shaking legs. Her palms were scraped and bleeding, her knees throbbing. One heel had snapped off her shoe.

She grabbed her laptop bag and limped to the stairwell, not caring about the broken heel, just needing to get out, get somewhere safe, somewhere with light and people.

The stairwell was better—bright fluorescent lights, her footsteps echoing off the walls as she half-ran, half-stumbled up six flights. By the time Nora burst out onto the street level, her lungs burned and her legs felt like jelly.

The sidewalk. Streetlights. A couple walking their dog on the other side of the street.

Normal. Safe.

She called an Uber with shaking fingers, then stood under a street lamp, every nerve on high alert, until the car arrived. She gave her address and spent the entire ride checking over her shoulder, making sure no dark sedan followed them.

***

Nora’s apartment building looked like a sanctuary when the driver pulled up. She thanked them and hurried inside, nodding to the night security guard—Eugene, she think his name was—without making eye contact.

She didn’t relax until she was inside her apartment with the door locked, deadbolt thrown, and chain engaged.

Then she stood there in the dark for a long moment, just breathing.

You’re safe. You’re home. Nothing happened. You’re okay.

But she didn’t feel okay.

She flipped on every light in the apartment—living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom—until the whole place blazed like a beacon. Only then did Nora dare to move away from the door.

Her hands still shook as she kicked off the ruined heels and peeled off her torn tights. The scrapes on her palms and knees looked worse under the harsh bathroom light—raw and angry, bits of gravel embedded in the skin.

She cleaned them mechanically, movements automatic from years of patching herself up after playground fights and falls when she was a kid bouncing between homes. No one coming to kiss it better. No one to tell her it would be okay.

Stop it. You’re not that kid anymore.

But standing there in her bathroom at twenty-nine years old, she felt exactly like that kid. Small. Scared. Alone.

And worst of all—not believed.

Because that’s what would happen if Nora told anyone about tonight, wasn’t it?

Lila would say she was overreacting. Her therapist would say it was her anxiety talking.

They’d say she was imagining things, seeing threats where there weren’t any, letting her traumatic childhood make her paranoid about normal situations.

They always did.

She thought about the time she’d told my third foster mother that something felt wrong about the way her boyfriend looked at her. She’d called Nora a liar and sent her back to the agency.

Or when she’d told her high school counselor that the janitor gave her a bad feeling and she thought he might be following her. She’d said Nora was being dramatic and attention-seeking.

Turned out he’d been arrested six months later for stalking a student at another school. But by then, Nora had already learned the lesson: no one believes you.

She walked back to her bedroom and changed into soft pajama pants and an old college sweatshirt. Comfort clothes. Then she stood at her bedroom window, looking down at the street below.

A dark car was parked across the street.

Her heart stopped.

Same make as the one in the garage? She couldn’t tell in the dark. There were thousands of dark sedans in Blackridge.

You’re being paranoid.

She watched for five minutes. Ten. The car didn’t move. No one got out.

Maybe it belonged to someone in the building across the street. Maybe she was losing her mind.

Nora forced herself to walk away from the window, to go to the kitchen and make chamomile tea like her therapist had suggested for anxiety. The ritual of it—boiling water, steeping the tea bag, adding honey—usually calmed her.

Tonight it did nothing.

She took her tea to the couch and curled up under a blanket, trying to watch a mindless sitcom on Netflix. But she couldn’t focus. Couldn’t stop replaying the parking garage in her mind.

The figure watching her.

The footsteps behind her.

The way they’d known exactly where she was.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Lila: Date went amazing! Tell you all about it tomorrow. Lunch at The Brew & View?