Chapter 9
To Do:
- Pencil in hot yoga
- Persuade Barney to murder Luke
Claire threwher purse onto the couch and kicked off her shoes, utterly exhausted from the trial and fighting with Luke. Not even a long walk with Rosie had been able to lift the crushing weight of this day from her shoulders. Moonlight streamed through her kitchen window, casting a pale glow on the murder binder she had abandoned shortly after returning home from the hospital. It still felt strange to walk into her apartment alone. Prior to her abduction and Barney’s subsequent arrest, her friends had rotated through her apartment, barely leaving her alone long enough to pee in solitude.
She trudged to the bathroom and glanced in the mirror. Her eyes were hollow, her skin paler than usual. But at least she wasn’t a vagina billboard anymore. She washed her face furiously in the sink, eager to rinse off the day.
Her phone vibrated, and she picked it up to see a text.
Luke: Can we talk?
Her shoulders hunched up around her neck. She decided a middle finger emoji was a sufficient response and opened her bedroom door, tossing her phone onto the bed where she wouldn’t have to see it.
She started for the shower but remembered the bottle of pinot grigio that Past Claire had very thoughtfully left in her refrigerator. She padded down the hallway on bare feet, and then yanked the refrigerator door open as if it had personally wronged her. With her fingers inches away from the bottle, Rachel’s allegations crept into her mind. An alcoholic?! She snatched her hand back.
“I don’t have a problem,” she shouted at the bottle, slamming the fridge door and filling up her water thermos instead.
Though a shower water was substantially less fun than a shower wine, Claire needed one either way. She closed her bathroom door to prevent Rosie from gnawing on her bathmat, lit the aromatherapy candle on her sink, and dimmed the lights. After she removed her courtroom outfit, it puddled on the floor. She ducked under the steaming head of her shower, welcoming the warm spray on her exhausted body.
She scrubbed at her mascara and lathered shampoo into her mass of curls, still fuming over Luke’s lie and his mother’s surprise betrayal.
“Is that the kind of wine you were drinking the night of your alleged abduction?” she mimicked to herself, angrily gripping her bodywash. No wonder Rachel had interrogated her so heavily. She was using her, preparing more information for Barney’s case.
Suddenly, a loud, pulsating wail sounded from the hallway outside her apartment. Claire flinched. Crash. The bodywash dropped to the floor, narrowly missing her big toe. Rosie barked furiously. Shit.
Claire shut the water off, stumbling out onto the wet tile of her bathroom floor. She wrapped a towel around herself and threw open the door.
The flashing light of the fire alarm system illuminated the gap beneath her front door. Groaning, she hesitated between her bedroom and bathroom. Should she try to fight her way back into the button-down shirt or risk having no clean laundry besides her Camp Susquehanna T-shirt from eighth grade?
“EMERGENCY. ALL RESIDENTS MUST IMMEDIATELY VACATE THE PREMISES,” a prerecorded voice announced in her hallway.
“Ugh!” Claire scuttled down the hallway with wet feet. There was no time for dillydallying about clothes. On the off chance that this was real, she had to save the essentials. She shrugged into a bathrobe and flung open the hallway closet. A pink backpack hung on a hook inside, and she yanked it off the wall. Darting from room to room, she tossed in a picture of her and her mom, her wallet, phone, Rosie’s favorite stuffed toy, her laptop, and Tyler and Aaron’s proposal binders. Between those essentials and the water filtering straw and emergency flashlights, the backpack was at capacity. With a wistful look at her row of designer shoes, she closed the closet door and padded back to the front door.
“Damn you, Mrs. Kline, and your burnt popcorn,” she said. The third-floor resident had set off the fire alarm twice last year.
Claire threw her front door open, tightening the sash of her robe with one hand while the other clutched Rosie’s leash. The backpack dug so deeply into her shoulders it might as well have been filled with bricks. Maybe she needed to switch to virtual binders.
Claire joined the shuffle of sleepy residents heading toward the staircase. She didn’t smell smoke or burnt popcorn, but she didn’t like to take chances.
“Oh, Mrs. Dodge, you really shouldn’t take the elevator.” She rushed over and gripped the arm of her kind and elderly neighbor.
“Nonsense. If I lived through World War II, I can live through this damn fire alarm,” Mrs. Dodge said, stubbornly pressing the down button. The elevator was a dimly lit, outdated nightmare at the best of times. In a fire, it would be a death trap.
“How about you come with me,” Claire suggested in her best customer service voice, trying to banish the mental image of the elderly woman trapped in an elevator as the world burned around her.
“All right, fine. At least let me walk your dog,” Mrs. Dodge said, extending a hand for Rosie’s leash.
Claire happily released the leash to Mrs. Dodge and helped her down the remaining three flights of stairs and then outside.
A handful of stars were scattered across the inky black of the night sky. The temperature had once again dived sharply into the fifties. A breeze bit at Claire’s calves, still coated in small beads of water. She retreated to the far end of the walkway in front of her building, shivering and drawing the robe more tightly around her. A crowd of neighbors grew, most of them retirees with bifocals and fuzzy slippers.
A fire truck pulled up to the curb, siren blaring and lights flashing. A handful of firefighters leapt off the truck and entered the building. Claire blushed as one glanced at her. She hadn’t even had a chance to wash the shampoo out of her hair. She sat on the low brick wall that lined the entrance to the apartment building, crossing her legs at the ankle and sitting erect, as though someone was going to come by with a ruler and judge her posture.
Doozer, a neighborhood English Mastiff who weighed more than Claire, lumbered up to her and Rosie. His owner, Chuck, was infamous for never leashing him. Rosie recognized her friend and play bowed, tiny stub of a tail wiggling. The dogs circled repeatedly, bounding after each other and barking. Rosie gently nipped at Doozer’s ankles.
“Rosie—don’t.” Claire sighed. She eased the backpack off and set it on the wall next to her. If this leash broke, Doozer’s owner certainly wasn’t going to be any help tracking the dogs down. Chuck was thirty yards down the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette under a streetlight.
Doozer had somehow looped a leg through Rosie’s leash. Claire stood and bent at the waist. A gust of wind descended, and her robe flapped in the wind. Doozer grabbed the end of her robe and tugged.
“Doozer, no! That’s not a toy!” Claire cried, but it was too late. He ripped at the robe, tearing it from her body and darting off across the front lawn. Claire shrieked and lunged for it, but she had forgotten about the low wall. While Doozer and her robe cleared it easily, Claire slammed her shins into it and tumbled, completely naked, through the frigid night air. She landed in a holly bush, sticks jabbing her in a number of unmentionable places.
“Ow,” she said breathlessly, stunned by the impact. For a moment, she simply looked at the night sky. What had she had done to piss off the big guy upstairs? She had just wanted to get through the hearing without any issues. Instead, Luke’s mother had publicly slandered her, her mother had nearly been arrested, and she had screamed at her lying boyfriend in the front yard like she was auditioning for an episode of Jerry Springer. Now she was lying naked in a bush while her apartment building might be on fire. Where could she go from here?
There wasn’t time for more introspection. Claire flailed her way out of the bush, cheeks hot. Rosie’s leash was still wrapped around her wrist. At least she hadn’t escaped and started a colony of feral, cheese-loving Corgis. Claire ripped her backpack from the wall and slung it over her front, covering what she could and crouching behind the wall.
“Claire, dear, are you all right?” Mrs. Dodge asked, clearly holding back laughter. “That damn dog. Here, take my dressing gown.” She struggled to untie her sash.
A black SUV with a Sanctum Security logo pulled up behind the fire truck, and Sawyer Goulding emerged. Oh, good. Another person to witness her humiliation. He slammed his door shut and strode toward the building like he was preparing for battle.
Oh, hell. Claire tried to duck behind the wall again. But Sawyer, a good foot taller than the other nosey nellies who had gathered, spotted her easily.
“Claire, are you okay? Why are you hiding behind—oh,” he said, visibly doing a double take. He stepped in front of her, obscuring everyone else’s view. He shrugged off his jacket and held it out in front of her, craning his neck to look behind him rather than at her naked body. Should she be grateful or insulted? Sure, she hadn’t made it to her hot yoga or core crusher class this week, but she hadn’t completely dissolved into a shapeless puddle of wine and pizza. He waited for her to drop her backpack and crawl into the jacket. He zipped it up for her, thumb accidentally grazing the side of her right breast.
“Sorry,” he said before quickly patting Rosie on the head and leaping back over the wall.
“Thank you so—” Claire began, but Sawyer had already disappeared into the building.
The sleeves of the jacket dangled almost to her knees. It smelled like Sawyer, citrusy and bright. She zipped Rosie into it with her, allowing her furry face to poke out the top. She had a feeling Sawyer wouldn’t mind.
After what felt like hours, the firefighters filed out of the building, signaling an all clear to the residents. Claire rolled her eyes, accepting that she was correct in her burnt popcorn assessment.
She ran into Sawyer as he was leaving the lobby.
“Oh, Sawyer,” she said, gently dropping Rosie to the floor. “Thank you so much for this. Tonight wasn’t exactly an opportune time for burnt popcorn. If you don’t mind, uh, following me back to my apartment, I can give you your jacket back.” Her robe, which Doozer’s owner had finally returned, was slung over her shoulder, now dirty and frayed from the dog’s wayward adventure.
Sawyer looked around for a moment and leaned down to pet Rosie.
“Sanctum manages the fire alarms in this building. It wasn’t burnt popcorn. Someone pulled an alarm on the second floor,” he said quietly as they walked to the staircase. He held the door open for her.
“Oh,” she said, eyes widening in surprise. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. They didn’t find a fire. It could have just been a punk kid pulling the alarm,” he said as they climbed.
Claire tilted her head. She hadn’t seen any children outside. “I don’t think many young families live here.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“I didn’t know Sanctum was in the fire alarm business,” she remarked as they climbed the stairs.
“These are not ordinary fire alarms.” Sawyer gestured to one on the stairwell wall. “They’re Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled and can be monitored from anywhere with the Sanctum app. They also have a pinhole camera that records for ten seconds after the alarm is pulled. My own design. We’re strictly business-to-business right now, but someday I hope we’ll be able to sell home systems for consumers.”
“That’s amazing. So there should be footage of who pulled the alarm?”
He frowned. “Someone covered it with a piece of electrical tape.”
“That is one dedicated and suspiciously informed prankster,” she said as he held the door to the fourth floor open for her.
They walked down the hallway, passing several unremarkable still life paintings of the West Haven area. Rosie darted from side to side, sniffing each doorstep.
Claire approached her door and slapped her forehead.
“Shit. I didn’t do a dance.”
“What?” Sawyer asked.
She twisted the doorknob and found it unlocked. She pushed it open. Whoops.
“You know, your new security system is only as good as the door that’s keeping people out,” he hinted.
“I forgot in all the kerfuffle,” she said, shrugging. “I’ll be right back,” she said sheepishly, running into her bedroom and throwing on her Camp Susquehanna shirt and a pair of paint-stained athletic shorts she found in the back of a drawer. She really needed to do some laundry.
“That looks bad,” Sawyer said when she got back to the living room.
She looked down at her T-shirt. Her nipples had hardened in the frigid air and were definitely poking through the shirt. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I wasn’t planning on hitting the runway in it.”
“Not your shirt. Your shins.”
She glanced down at her battered shins. “Oh. That does explain the searing pain.” The jacket was heavy in her hand as she passed it back to him. “Thank you so much. You saved me. Again. At least this time I was only likely to die from embarrassment and hypothermia and not from a homicidal maniac.”
“You were significantly easier to rescue this time. I’ll see you later. Lock the door behind me.” He waved as he left.
Claire let Rosie off her leash and rinsed her hair in the sink. She towel dried it as best as she could and collapsed into bed, a halo of wet hair surrounding her. The news of the fire alarm clouded her mind. Who had pulled it? And why?
After plugging her phone in, she briefly ran through her schedule for the next day. It was time to put this catastrophically crappy day behind her. She stretched, thoroughly exhausted, reaching one hand under her pillow to support her head. Her fingers brushed against something, and she shot up like she had been electrocuted. An envelope slid out from under her pillow.
What the hell was this? She hadn’t been sleep-hiding her mail, had she?
There was no name or address on the outside. This hadn’t come from the postal service. Her stomach dropped, and she tore the envelope open. Inside was a plain white sheet of paper. Spiky, slanted handwriting covered the sheet.
You won’t escape next time.
Claire froze. Her pulse skyrocketed. The note fell from her hand and fluttered onto the duvet. Static buzzed incessantly in her ears as she tumbled out of bed and onto her hardwood floor.
It couldn’t be happening again. Barney was in prison. Had he paid someone to harass her? Even though he was imprisoned, he had vast reserves of cash.
Were the walls closing in? That must be why her vision was darkening at the edges. Her heart thudded erratically. She climbed to her knees. Pain shot through her chest. Oh god, was she having a heart attack on top of everything?
Rosie leapt down from her side of the bed and whined, pressing her front legs onto Claire’s chest and licking her face.
Summoning every ounce of strength she had left, Claire crawled out of the room and away from the note. Short gasps racked her body. What was wrong with her? Her anxiety had been through the roof since the abduction, but this was something worse. Was she dying? Some latent injury from her stab wound?
She needed to go check the security camera and look for footage. Or call for help. But her limbs weren’t cooperating, and she had just abandoned her phone in the room with the threatening note. Could the note-leaver still be here?
The thought drove her to her feet. She stumbled to the front door and smashed the panic button on her security alarm. An LED on the console blinked.
Brrrrrr. That was the sound of Claire’s phone vibrating on the bed. But she wasn’t about to go fetch it. The intruder could still be in the apartment. She hadn’t even checked the bedroom closet. A prickle of fear ran up her spine.
Acting on instinct, she grabbed the console table in the hallway and dragged it in front of the bedroom door. There. That would at least slow him down. Now what? She crossed to the living room and pulled a Taser out of her purse. It settled in her pocket, but it didn’t feel like enough.
A sword on her drying rack caught her eye. Kyle had used it to dramatically open a bottle of sparkling wine on pizza night. She darted into the kitchen and picked it up. It swung in front of her as she moved into the hallway.
Rosie followed hot on Claire’s heels, still whining. The sword trembled in her hand while her breath came in sharp jabs. She approached the hallway closet, stepping silently across the floor.
“HA!” she screamed, flinging the doors open with one hand and stabbing into the closet with the sword.
Shit. RIP winter coat.
She shoved her clothes aside and thoroughly inspected the closet. Apart from a handful of coats and some cleaning supplies, the closet was empty. She slunk back into the living room. Someone could be hiding underneath her couch. She dropped to her knees and slashed the sword underneath the couch. It clanged off a leg, and Claire jerked her arm so hard that the sword ricocheted and sliced across her left forearm.
Fuckity fuck. That would be a tough one to explain to her doctor.
Blood oozed from her wound, running off her arm and spattering onto the hardwood floor. She toddled over to the hallway closet and yanked her least-favorite scarf from its hanger. The wound burned as she wrapped it repeatedly around the wound, tightening the knot with her teeth.
She picked up the (now-bloody) sword. Ignoring the stabbing pain in her chest and the blood-soaked fall accessory on her arm, she yanked open her bathroom door. The shower was next—no intruder in there either.
She strode systematically through the house, peeking behind curtains and checking every nook and cranny. No one was hiding behind the bottle of creamer that had the whole refrigerator to itself. There wasn’t an unusually small intruder curled up in the kitchen sink. Rosie followed every step of the way, licking frantically at Claire’s bare legs. Not her most helpful moment.
Finally, she came to rest against the refrigerator. The stainless steel cooled the back of her neck. Her heart no longer galloped, but her limbs shook like leaves in the wind. Should she brave the bedroom and snatch her phone? There was no telling how long it would take Sanctum to respond to the panic button.
A thudding came from her front door. Thank god. Backup.
“Come in,” Claire croaked. Her voice was like someone who had smoked five packs a day for a decade.
The knob rattled, then the door flew open. A large, dark shape ninja rolled into her apartment. Rosie immediately barked and growled. Her lip curled as she approached the figure with bared teeth. Claire gripped the handle of her sword.
Sawyer leapt to his feet, holding his stun gun out in front of him.
“Is someone in the apartment?” he barked, spotting her frozen at the refrigerator.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t checked the bedroom.” Her voice wavered again. Get it together, Claire.
Sawyer strode down the hallway like he was about to storm a castle. He thrust the table out of the way and threw the bedroom door open. He disappeared inside.
Claire’s knees gave out. She slid slowly down the refrigerator until she puddled on the floor. She was safe. So why was her vision going dark again?
Painful, shallow breaths stole past her lips. The chest pain was back. Maybe she really was having a heart attack.
“All clear.” Sawyer stepped into the hallway. He looked around for a moment before spotting her on the floor. The entire kitchen shook as he dropped to his knees.
She turned to him. Tears leaked out, spilling down cheeks that twitched on their own. Was she going to die?
“Woah, hey. Are you having a panic attack? Here.” He gathered her into his arms and pressed her into his chest.
Oh, a panic attack. Not death, then. That was good.
“Breathe with me, Claire. Feel my heartbeat.” He said, gently tugging her palm upward and onto his broad chest.
In for seven, out for eleven. Was it possible to breathe away a panic attack? Her body still trembled, but as he held her, the panic edged away. There was no one in her apartment. She was safe. Rosie was safe.
“You’re safe,” he said, as if reading her mind.
Thank god it had been Sawyer who responded. He had such a calming presence. She wasn’t sure how many surveillance techs worked at Sanctum, but Sawyer had already seen her blood-drenched and inches from death. Explaining her circumstances to a newbie would have been even more painful.
Minute by minute, her breathing slowed and got deeper. The sense of dread was still there, but it began to fade and blur at the edges like an inky watercolor.
Was she going to have to tell Luke about this? Even though they weren’t officially together, it felt strange to be held by another man. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she would have given her last bottle of wine to be in his arms right now. She pulled back and leaned against the fridge again.
“Could you check the rest of the apartment too? In case I missed anything.”
“Absolutely.” Sawyer set to work re-investigating the spots she had already checked. “Can I ask what happened?”
“I found a note under my pillow.”
He swiveled and stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“It’s on the bed.”
He walked toward the bedroom, boots thumping heavily on her wooden floors. He pulled a pair of gloves from the utility belt he wore. A moment later, he reappeared with the letter and envelope in hand.
“Jesus. Do you still have Detective Smith’s phone number?”
“In my wallet,” Claire said, pointing with a shaky finger to a hook by the front door. She hadn’t bothered to take it out of her backpack.
Sawyer pulled out a bottle of water, bag of dog treats, travel umbrella, emergency thermal sleeping bag, and a plastic pouch with twelve pens in different colors before successfully finding her wallet. He fished Detective Smith’s card out and dialed, quickly relaying the information. Then he made sure the door was bolted tight before coming to sit with Claire again.
“The apartment’s clear. Detective Smith is on his way. Are you feeling any better? And what the hell happened to your arm?” he asked, spotting the ugly beige scarf that was now largely saturated with blood.
“I may have impaled myself while checking the apartment for intruders.”
He shook his head. “Self-defense class. This week. No arguments. Do you have a first aid kit?”
“It’s at Luke’s,” Claire said, marveling at how wildly unprepared she was. How unlike her. Barney had really messed with her equilibrium. “It’s fine.” She gestured weakly with her bloody arm.
“I think I have one in my car. Let me just?—”
“Stay. Please,” she said, heart rate escalating at the thought of being in the apartment alone.
“Okay. Why don’t we at least wash the wound and find something a little better than a scarf to dress it?” He took her hand to help her to her feet.
“I can do it.” She took her hand back and straightened her shoulders, standing tall as she walked to the sink. She didn’t need a man to tend her wounds. She was a grown-ass woman. A grown-ass woman who had just dissolved into a panic attack and who may have been targeted by someone yet again, but a woman nonetheless.
In a refreshing change of pace, Sawyer didn’t follow her and micromanage every aspect of her wound care. Luke flat-out refused to let Claire dress her stab wound. Or at least he had before she decided she wasn’t speaking to him.
Sawyer tapped at her security system as she flicked on the light above her sink. Blood swirled down her drain as she rinsed her arm. When the dish soap made contact with the cut, she flinched.
Sawyer swore, and her eyes snapped up.
“What?” she asked, wrapping a layer of paper towels around her arm. She shoved her hand into an oven mitt to keep them in place. Close enough.
“I’m not sure if you want to see this,” he said, standing in front of the touchscreen mounted on the wall.
“Show me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Enough with men trying to protect her feelings.
He stepped away from the screen. Footage rolled of the empty hallway outside her front door. The alarm blared in the background as a figure dressed all in black approached, darting its head from side to side repeatedly before it came to a stop in front of the door. The figure was tall and lanky but had broad shoulders and a visible Adam’s apple. A black ski mask covered all but the person’s eyes, which were so dark that they appeared black. The doorknob rattled, and the figure disappeared from the screen as he entered her apartment. The video captured the man leaving a few minutes later.
Claire backed away from the screen, gripping the countertop to keep herself steady. A stranger had been in her apartment. Again. The four walls that were supposed to be home suddenly felt like a prison.
“Couldn’t he have at least worn a less stereotypical outfit to break into my apartment? He looks like a cat burglar from the 80s,” she joked in spite of the lump that was lodged in her throat.
“Here,” Sawyer said, laying her cell phone on the countertop. “Thought you might want this. I texted Luke from my phone and let him know what was going on.”
She groaned and turned away.
“Should I not have done that?”
“We’re not in the best place at the moment,” she said,
“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you want to talk about?—”
He was cut off by a sharp knock at the door. “West Haven Police Department,” Detective Smith announced.
Claire crossed to her front door and unbolted it, peeking through the crack before removing the chain.
Detective Smith asked what felt like a million questions, especially about the bloody sword on Claire’s countertop. He was accompanied by two other cops, one of whom was kneeling at her front door, dusting for fingerprints. At their request, Rosie had been barricaded in the bathroom because she kept rolling over next to them, demanding belly rubs.
“Can you think of anyone who would do something like this? Maybe as a practical joke?” the detective asked, nub of a pencil poised above a miniature spiral-bound notebook.
“Wendy Flutter is suing me,” Claire said wearily, resting her head in her hand. She had collapsed into a chair at her dining room table, an untouched glass of water next to her.
Detective Smith’s eyebrows knit together, and he glanced again at the note.
“It doesn’t look like her handwriting,” she admitted. Wendy had a looping, flowing script and dotted her I’s with hearts. The intruder on the video didn’t look like her either. If it was Wendy, the figure surely would have been wearing a designer catsuit and ski mask. “She could have written it with her nondominant hand, I guess. It doesn’t look like Barney’s handwriting either, for what it’s worth.”
“We’ll get this to a handwriting expert,” the detective said, sliding the paper and envelope carefully into an evidence bag.
Great, a handwriting expert. That would surely result in all kinds of leads.
“I can’t believe it’s happening again,” she said to Sawyer as the cops reviewed the footage from the security system, which Claire had downloaded and emailed to Detective Smith.
Sawyer laid a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing is going to happen to you. It’s probably just some copycat asshole playing a joke.”
“An asshole who knows where I live?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I’m going to go re-calibrate your motion sensors again,” he said, sliding his chair back from the table and disappearing down the hallway.
Claire’s phone buzzed in her hand. She turned it over, expecting more empty apologies from Luke, and instead found a series of texts from her downstairs neighbor, Kara, and her mother. She opened the text from Kara first.
Kara: Is there a herd of elephants in your apartment or are you having extremely passionate sex that’s measurable on the Richter scale? My chandelier is swaying.
Claire smiled in spite of the circumstances. Kara had moved in the month before, and she and Claire had instantly bonded over their love of dogs. Kara had an Australian shepherd named Sammy, who tried to herd Rosie at their first meeting.
Claire: Rosie has taken up CrossFit.
By some miracle, Kara had no idea who Claire was, or at least pretended not to. It was nice having an acquaintance who didn’t walk on eggshells around her.
She switched to the message from her mother. Should she tell her about the note?
Alice: Are you okay, Clairebear? I’m sitting on the tarmac and I felt a disturbance.
Suddenly, her front door banged open. All three cops whirled with blinding speed and pointed their guns at the intruder. Claire kicked her chair behind her and dove under the dining room table, slamming her elbow off a leg as she went down. She flipped onto her back and ripped away the duct tape securing the aluminum baseball bat to the underside of the table.
“Hands in the air,” Detective Smith barked.
“Get down now,” the female cop closest to the door yelled.
“Shit,” the visitor said.
Were those worn high-top sneakers? She would have recognized them anywhere.
Luke dropped to his knees and raised his hands.
“It’s okay,” Claire said to Detective Smith as she crawled halfway out from under the table, still clutching the bat. “It’s just my… Luke.”
“Is this your first visit to the apartment tonight?” Detective Smith apparently recognized Luke from the hospital, because he didn’t bother asking for identification.
“Yes. I got a text from Sawyer that said there was another break-in.” Luke’s eyes zeroed in on Claire’s makeshift oven mitt bandage.
“Where were you between the hours of 6:30 and 8:00 p.m.?” Detective Smith continued.
“I was at home.”
“Can anyone corroborate that?”
“I have a security system that records when I leave the house,” Luke offered.
“You’ll send me the footage,” Detective Smith said, lowering his gun.
“Of course,” Luke said, still on his knees.
Detective Smith nodded to the other cops, who lowered their weapons and went back to canvassing Claire’s apartment.
Luke stood and walked over to where Claire sat on the floor, half under the table. He crouched next to her and pulled her into a tight hug.
She was still beyond furious at him, but their argument suddenly seemed less devastating than it had a couple of hours ago. While the identity of Luke’s mysterious brother remained a burning question, the note had shifted her perspective. The nightmare she thought had ended appeared to be ramping up again. There was time to argue about mystery brothers later. She melted into the hug, taking comfort in the familiar shape of Luke’s torso.
“Are you okay? Why the hell are you wearing an oven mitt?”
“There was a minor sword incident,” she admitted.
He tugged the mitt off and began unwinding her paper towel bandage. “I leave you alone for three hours and your apartment gets broken into and you, what, stab yourself with a sword?”
“I also fell over a wall and into a holly bush completely naked.” She flinched as he examined her forearm.
“What?”
“Never mind.” She was still mad at him. He hadn’t earned all the details.
“You need more pressure on this.” He shook his head. “Where’s your first aid kit?”
“At your house.”
“Shit. This is pretty bad.” He straightened up and tugged his T-shirt off.
“Luke, you don’t need to?—”
Luke ignored her and twirled his T-shirt between his fingers until it resembled a rope. He wrapped it tightly around her forearm and tied the ends together. The wound smarted.
“Ouch.” Claire flinched.
“You’re coming home with me.” As was often the case with Luke, it wasn’t a question.
“No,” she said firmly, thrusting the end of the bat in Luke’s direction.
“You can’t stay here. It’s a crime scene. Again,” he added, gesturing at the female cop, who was inspecting the floorboards with a black light. Claire hadn’t vacuumed since coming home from the hospital. The cop would be able to collect enough dog hair to knit a winter sweater.
“Then I’ll get a hotel room.” He and his tantalizing gray sweatpants weren’t about to cloud her judgment.
“You know the hotels around here aren’t dog-friendly.”
“Then I’ll stay at the warehouse,” she said stubbornly.
Luke lowered his voice. “If this creep knows where you live, he sure as hell knows where you work. And if the press hear about this, they’re going to swarm you even more. Do you really want to put Rosie in danger?”
Claire bristled. “It’s not like your house is any safer. Do I need to remind you what happened to Rosie at your house?”
“I’ve completely upgraded the security system since then. We have a gate to keep the press out. It’s much safer than the warehouse.”
She refused to respond.
“Half your clothes are there. I won’t even talk to you. And I have wine.” He extended a hand to her.
Claire sighed and accepted his hand. She loathed having to rely on other people. Luke helped her to her feet. She brushed against his bare chest as she stood and stubbornly ignored the butterflies that had suddenly taken up residence in her stomach.
Stupid, bossy, pathological liar with abs she could bounce a quarter off.
Detective Smith came over, apparently unconcerned by Luke’s new shirtlessness, and assured her that he would call if they found anything. He gave her permission to leave. Sawyer said he would make sure the place was locked up tight. As strange as it was to leave four people alone in her apartment, she didn’t have much of a choice. She looped Rosie’s leash around her wrist and followed Luke downstairs. For once, he didn’t try to coerce her into using the spooky death trap elevator.
“I’m driving,” Luke said.
“Whatever.” The day was catching up with her, and she could barely keep her eyes open as she climbed into Luke’s car.
Rosie refused to sit in the back seat and insisted on perching on Claire’s lap. She hugged the dog to her chest and scratched her behind the ears as the city flashed by.
Luke’s eyebrows were knit together. Something was clearly bothering him, and the quiet hung heavy between them.
“Your nipples are looking particularly brown this evening,” Claire said as they paused at a red light, bathed in the unflattering yellow neon from a bar sign.
“Why did you call Sawyer?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You called him instead of me.”
“I didn’t call him. I hit the panic button on the security system.”
“Oh.”
There was silence for several more minutes as Luke drove. A club passed by the window, thumping with electronic dance music. The streets were mostly empty at this time of night, but a group of teenagers perched on a bench.
“But you still didn’t call me,” he said as they passed the city limits. His hands tightened on the leather steering wheel.
She stared at him. “Do you not remember three hours ago when you refused to tell me the truth about your brother?”
He looked back at her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about your dad?”
She glanced at the speedometer. How many injuries would she sustain if she jumped out of the car? What were a few more bangs and bruises? She was already covered from head to toe. “You met Roy at the hospital.”
“Your bio-dad,” Luke corrected.
“Because he’s a piece of human garbage who isn’t worth the breath it would take to explain him.”
Luke sighed and tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. “So is my brother. It’s not easy for me to talk about.”
“That doesn’t mean you should keep it bottled up forever and lie to me about his existence,” she chastised.
“I’ll tell you what happened. But not tonight. This day has already been enough of a shitshow.”
“You’re not kidding.”
Finally, they turned onto Luke’s road. At least she could hide in one of the fifty-seven rooms in his house and process what had just happened. Luke hit the button to open his gate. It rose slowly in front of them.
“I thought maybe you called him because he was there for you. During the Barney incident. He saved you.”
Apparently, they were still talking about the Sawyer thing. Claire tilted her head. “Is this why you’ve been acting like a grumpasaurus every time he’s around?”
He shrugged. “I was too late. Sawyer wasn’t. It would make sense for you to feel like you can rely on him.”
She rubbed at her temples. “Sawyer was only ‘there for me’ because he happened to be the closest Sanctum personnel to both crime scenes.”
“Conveniently,” Luke muttered to himself.