Chapter 8
Our Uber turned onto one of the major streets in the tourist area of Charleston. I didn’t remember the name, though we’d passed by it many times before. We were getting close to our place.
“The person who got the job at Boone after William’s death is top of the suspect list,” I said as Dane tracked our car on the Uber map.
His head bobbed in agreement. “Absolutely, babe.”
“Huh?”
He turned his attention to me. “What?”
“What did you just call me?” And why was my chest tight about it?
Dane thought for a moment and shrugged. “Did I call you something?”
“Babe. You called me babe.” He didn’t realize it? What did that mean?
His eyes widened. “Oh, sorry.”
Were we so comfortable with one another that he just casually called me babe now? Did I like it?
Kind of.
“That’s like practically workplace harassment,” I said, tapping him on the arm so he saw I said it as a joke. “Watch yourself.”
Our Uber driver eyed the conversation from his rearview mirror. We both pretended not to notice when our gazes met. He pulled to a stop at the curb in front of our building without a comment.
“We should check the papers to see if they announced the new hire to the public,” he said as he got out of the Uber and held the door for me.
Wow, that was actually a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that? “That was next on my to-do list.”
Dane opened the door to the condo building’s lobby, letting me walk in first.
“If he wasn’t researching a ghost story, but had something big to share, he must have gotten the job.” He’d want to share the big news with the readers of his blog.
We walked onto the elevator, and Dane hit the button for our floor. “It’s possible.”
His voice didn’t indicate he was super enthusiastic about it.
“You never support my theories.” He had the same lackluster reaction to my ideas on the case we researched in North Carolina.
The elevator jolted as we stopped on the correct floor. “They’re always so…”
“Well thought-out,” I supplied as we ambled off. Someone had left a trash bag outside their door in the hallway.
Dane stopped at my door. “Weak.”
“Wow, that’s rude, D-bag.” Yeah, I was definitely keeping that nickname. It fit him so well.
He shrugged as we walked inside my condo. “What’s the saying? The truth hurts?”
“What in the hell?” I stopped halfway inside the condo in shock. Did we have a hurricane while we were gone?
Dane pushed past me. “What? Oh, hell.”
The unit wasn’t large, meaning I saw the destruction right away. The pretty green cushions from the couch were tossed across the floor. What a mess. The drawers under the television were open. The books previously lined up on the bookcases were scattered around like confetti.
“Stay here,” Dane said as he rushed past me and took the steps on the spiral staircase two at a time to the sleeping area.
A lamp from the end table on the right side of the couch lay on its side. A large dent in the shade marred the country-printed fabric. I turned, my heart pounding, to inspect the door. It looked perfectly fine. How did they get into my room?
What logical thing might have caused this?
“It might have been an earthquake!” I yelled at Dane as he searched the top floor.
He returned a few moments later. “They threw some stuff around up there, but I couldn’t tell if they took anything. It’s clear, so you’ll have to check.”
I stepped over a shattered mug on the kitchen floor. “I better not get charged for that.”
Upstairs, someone had dumped my suitcase on the floor, but nothing was strewn around the room like I expected. Nothing seemed stolen or even touched. Just dumped. Who did that?
It seemed like they’d been looking for something. Or were trying to send a message.
“Everything is here,” I said as Dane joined me upstairs. “This doesn’t feel like a robbery.”
“I assume this is the ‘or else’ part of the message,” Dane said, helping to pick up my clothes and shove them back into my suitcase. “Did you see your laptop?”
“No.” I tossed in the last pair of socks. This is why I never used the dressers they gave you for unpacking.
Dane tossed the bed pillow back onto the bed. “So they took something then.”
“No, I didn’t bring a laptop.” The sleeping area was a small loft above the first floor with only a half wall keeping people safe. “I do it all from my phone.”
We stared out at the mess below us. I didn’t want to pick that up. And I didn’t want to stay here either. The whole place seemed tainted now. How much of my stuff did they touch?
“Your phone?” Dane asked, staring at me and not the mess.
I opened my purse and pulled out a small blue book with my pen looped through the spirals. “And this notebook.”
“That’s not helping me think better of your skills right now,” Dane said as I tossed the notebook back in my purse. “Why didn’t I notice this before?”
“You’re bad at your job?” I said as we started back down the stairs. “You even let them break into my place.”
“You probably didn’t lock the door,” Dane said at the base of the staircase. “Be right back.”
He left my place, was gone for less than five minutes, and then returned with confirmation they hadn’t gotten into his room.
I scoffed. “Obviously, someone isn’t happy we went to the plantation rather than leave town.”
“How do you do all your work on a phone?” he asked as he picked up the larger pieces of the mug from the kitchen floor.
We were back to that again? “I can do everything from my phone. It’s a minicomputer.”
Video, email, documents. What more did I need?
“It’s still weird. Grab your stuff. It’s not safe here.”
I grabbed a paper towel to get the smaller bits of the broken mug. “Where are we going?”
“My place. They might not realize we had two rooms.” He ran upstairs and returned with my suitcase. “I threw your bathroom shit in there.”
“I don’t have bathroom shit. That is a perfectly curated skincare routine.”
Dane opened his door as I watched the hallway in case someone came rushing at us. We made it inside safely. His place had the same layout as mine, but the owner had decorated it differently. I liked my place better. That’s why I put myself in that spot originally.
“There’s only one bed,” I said as he closed and locked the door.
Dane ran upstairs with my suitcase. “I’ll take the couch. You can have the bed.”
When he returned to the first floor, my suitcase was missing.
The destruction at my place had to mean we were on the right path. But where and who? Was it the people from the different walking tours we’d been on or the trail we followed at Boone Hall? It seemed like we were super close to an answer but were still wandering around in the dark.
A part of me wanted to freak out about this, but the increased violence had to mean we were close. Which was technically a good thing.
Dane grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, handed it to me, and then opened his own. I plopped down on his couch. It wasn’t as comfortable as the one at my place. Nor were the pillows as good. Fear set in as I sat in unwelcome silence.
All of this was my fault.
“I did this,” I said to Dane. “I put us in danger.”
He was right when he called me reckless.
“Oh, princess.” He grabbed me off the couch and forced me to stand. He wrapped me in a tight hug and tucked my head against his shoulder. “Did you kill William Drake?”
“No.”
But if given enough time, I could probably find a way to blame it on myself somehow.
“Then you didn’t do this,” he said, running his fingers through my hair. “A deranged person did this. Not you. And there’s some good news.”
How the fuck did he find good news in this situation?