Chapter 6
She came awake — fast, no transition, hand on the phone before her brain caught up to what woke her. Heart pounding, she wiped the sleep from her eyes and blinked at the pulsing screen.
PERIMETER ALARM — SIDE DOOR — ALLEY SENSOR.
Okay. Okay. She silenced the notification and stared at the wall beyond the foot of her bed. She needed a plan of attack. But first, she needed a clear threat assessment. She’d planned for this, too many times to count. No sense in blowing it now.
A small-town burglar wouldn’t bother with Sugar & Salt at three in the morning. The cash drawer would be empty, and the streetlamp on Marina Street gave the alley enough light that any kid with a brick would pick somewhere else. If it was a burglar, they were the stupid kind.
But it was the least likely possibility.
More likely, whoever had ordered Roger Schlenkman's death at the trial in New York had finally found her.
She forced herself to consider the idea dispassionately. It was slightly more probable than a random burglar, but there was a final, much more reasonable answer. Someone Sweet and Sawyer Investigations had crossed wanted payback. Ugly, for sure, but not catastrophic.
But that was all yet to be determined. She rolled out of bed. She needed clothes, and a weapon, in that order.
Her phone buzzed again.
Gabe: I got the ping. ETA 9 minutes. Do not go down. Do you hear me? Stay. Put.
She debated ignoring the text, but facing down an angry former Special Agent would be way worse than handling whoever had just broken into the bakery.
Moving silently, she pulled on jeans over her sleep shorts. Father, keep his hands steady on the wheel.
She slid her phone into her pocket and headed through the dark apartment to the kitchen. The streetlight outside gave plenty of light to work with. She slid the boning knife from the block next to the stove, gripping it the way she’d been taught, Filipino style, not reverse.
Ears straining to hear anything from the bakery below, she curled into the chair next to the front window and waited for Gabe.
The alley below was empty. The streetlamp’s halo caught the wet pavement. The kitchen door of Sugar & Salt was down at the end of her sightline. No way to tell whether it was open or closed.
A second text came in.
Gabe: 4 minutes. Eyes on the alley?
Cara: Yes. Empty.
Gabe: Stay where you are.
Cara: I’m staying.
Finally, headlights washed across the far end of the alley.
Gabe’s truck.
She let out the breath she had not been holding so much as carrying and lifted a prayer for his safety. Because Gabe would insist on going in alone.
He cut the engine before the truck reached the kitchen door, exited the vehicle and slipped around the corner on foot, handgun down at his thigh.
She unlocked her apartment door and tiptoed down the back stairs to meet him outside the entrance to the bakery kitchen.
He opened his mouth to warn her off, but then his eyes went to the knife. He sighed. “Get behind me,” he whispered.
The kitchen door of Sugar & Salt was closed. Gabe moved it open with the toe of his boot.
Through the narrow slit Cara could see that the deadbolt was not engaged.
She did not say anything. Gabe had seen it before she had.
The kitchen was dark, but it smelled entirely normal — yeast and sugar and cinnamon. No strange body odors or anything else to indicate a strange presence.
Cara, who had spent eight years learning to read a room by what was missing from it as much as by what was in it, noted the absence. No cologne. No nicotine. No wet-coat-from-outside damp. Whoever was in here had been here long enough that the air had absorbed them.
That, by itself, was not a small thing.
Gabe stepped in low. Weapon up, the small barrel light tracking the room ahead of him in a slow tactical arc. Cara stayed half a pace behind his shoulder, the boning knife at her side, eyes on the corners his beam wasn't reaching yet.
The beam crossed the prep counter — and stopped.
A woman sat cross-legged on the polished marble, eating a lemon shortbread.
Cara's stomach did the elevator drop.
The woman didn’t flinch when the beam landed on her face. "Don't shoot me," she said, as if she were ordering tea, not facing down two armed people.
Gabe held the beam, and his weapon, steady. Cara, reading the angle of his shoulders, edged left along the wall to the switch by the prep sink and flipped the under-counter light.
The soft lights rose, warm wattage, recessed under the maple ledge.
Cara recognized this woman. The town’s yoga instructor. Sally? Suzette? No. Skye.
The woman chewed, watching them silently, her feet clad only in thick, white socks.
Socks. It made the break in both less impressive and more, somehow. The detail registered in Cara's brain in the half-second before the rest of the picture — that was either incompetent or its opposite.
She hadn’t flinched when the flashlight beam hit her. Most people would flinch. Or duck. Or scream.
Cara recalibrated.
A USB drive sat on the pastry counter, set carefully in the middle of the marble slab.
“I’m not here to steal stuff. I need to warn you,” the woman said. Her eyes went to Cara, then to Gabe, then back. “Some men are going to show up in the morning. They’re not nice. They’re going to ask you questions about a man who’s been helping me.”
“Marshal Ray Harney,” Gabe finished for her.
The woman went still.
The hand holding the half-eaten shortbread didn’t droop or tremble. It just…froze.
She looked away, blinking hard. “So it was him, below the cliff.”
Cara knew that look. Loss. Sharp and hurtful.
The intruder drew in a shuddering breath. “I knew, but I didn’t know, if you know what I mean.”
She breathed once. The smallest replacement of air. In. Out. “He saved me. A long time ago.”
Cara watched her not cry. Watched her not turn her head. Watched her, in fact, do nothing visible at all.
The woman set the shortbread down on a clean spot on the counter. Agent eyed it disinterestedly.
Gabe lowered his weapon a little. “You were there, when he went over?”
“No.” The woman shook her head hard. “After. When the men came for me. I-I saw him. Down there. But it wasn’t me. I’d never hurt Ray. He kept me safe.”
Gabe shot Cara a look that said he wasn’t yet sure what to make of this, and until he was, she’d be staying behind him. Cara nodded slightly.
The woman uncrossed her legs and slid off the counter. Gabe pushed Cara behind him. “Whoa there. Hands up,” he ordered.
She complied, instantly. “Sorry.” She backed into the counter. “I’m Skye. You probably know that already from the studio, but anyway, the name is Skye Reeves.”
Cara smiled gently. She couldn’t help it, Skye seemed so odd. And so torn up about the man’s death. Most people wouldn’t have picked up on that, but Cara was hardly most people. “Cara Sweet.” She introduced herself. “And this is Gabe Sawyer.”
“The chief. I know.”
“Former chief,” he corrected.
The woman cocked her head, ignoring Gabe for Cara. “Cara Sweet. That’s mostly true.”
Cara’s hand on the boning knife tightened for half a beat.
“Don’t worry. I don’t know your real name,” Skye said. “I’m not a busybody. I just recognize the signs. Mostly everyone in town’s got the same story.”
“So Skye Reeves isn’t your real name, either,” Gabe said.
Skye shrugged. “It’s real now.” She pointed at the USB drive. “There’s info on here that will corroborate what I need to tell you.”
Cara looked at Gabe.
Gabe looked back. They had three or four full conversations in the silence. None of them needing actual words.
“Wake the team,” he said.
Cara nodded.
“Could I have some tea?” Skye asked.
Cara, who had been reaching for her phone, looked at her.
“Herbal,” Skye added. “Chamomile if you’ve got it. It’s been…a night.”
She caught Cara’s expression and added, the smallest dry note in her voice, “It’s a habit. Food, water, shelter, in that order. We’re going to be at this a while. It pays to be prepared.”
Words Cara lived by as well. She pulled out her phone.