Chapter Thirty
Sleep wasn’t her friend.
It seemed the insomnia fairy was parked over Alex’s bed and couldn’t be shooed off, even with a can of Raid.
It didn’t help that Alex spent her days checking the CEO boxes and her nights cross-referencing the names in the CIM files with the Stone Enterprises database. Considering all but three of the CIMs weren’t companies they owned, most of her research was coming up empty.
She and Hawk still hadn’t cleared the air. Every time there was time, it was the wrong time. That was keeping her up as well.
Alex drank the last of her cold coffee and stared into the cup. The caffeine wasn’t working. It was barely lunchtime, and she was tempted to lie down on her office sofa and take a nap.
Only that was where Hawk sat reading an article on the oil industry and the companies the Bakshais dealt with.
A knock on her office door shot Alex’s dreams of a nap out of her head.
“Come in,” she called out.
Dee walked in with her purse slung over her arm. Her gaze shifted from Alex to Hawk and back again. “Uhm. I’m going to ... lunch.”
Alex glanced at the clock. It was five past noon. “Thank you.” Not that Dee needed to announce her walking away from her desk. But it seemed the woman felt obligated to reveal her every move of the day.
“I, uhm . . . I mean, can I . . .”
Alex smiled in hopes of helping the woman relax.
“I have to pick up my son from school. The nurse called. I might be a little later coming back from lunch. I mean ... can I come back late from—”
“Dee. It’s fine. Take the rest of the day. Sick children need their moms.”
Dee’s shoulders sunk in relief. “Are you sure?”
Alex stood and grasped her cup to refill it. “Positive. Let the office manager know if you need tomorrow off so we can get a sub.”
“Thank you, Ms. Stone.” Dee glanced at the cup in Alex’s hand. “Do you want me to get you more coffee before I go?”
Alex held the cup to her chest. “I’m capable. Thank you.”
Dee nodded, once again glanced at Hawk, and shuffled out the door.
“Every time I think Dee is growing comfortable in Piper’s shoes, something shifts, and she is once again afraid of her own shadow.”
“Nervous people are hard to be around,” Hawk said. He placed the papers on the table. “How about we get something more substantial in you than coffee.”
“I’m really not—”
“Alex!”
She placed the cup on the table. “Fine. There’s a deli around the corner. We can walk there.” Maybe that would wake her up.
Hawk looked down. “In those shoes?”
“I was born in heels.”
Hawk smiled, and for a moment, she was transported back to Colorado, where their smiles were heartfelt and often.
Alex retrieved her purse and cell phone and started for the door.
Before they got to the elevator, her phone rang.
Mrs. Steiner’s name displayed on the screen.
She smiled and instantly missed seeing the older woman across the hall.
Alex put the phone to her ear. “Hello, Mrs. Steiner.”
“Hello, sweetie. How are you? Are you ever coming home?”
Alex and Hawk waited by the elevator, along with a few others. “Eventually. How are you? Do you need anything?”
One of the faces from Accounting glanced at her and smiled.
“I could use a trip to Walmart. I’m almost out of tissues, and they have the cheapest ones that don’t make my nose want to fall off my face.”
Yeah, Alex missed the lady.
Sending Mrs. Steiner tissue was never the answer. Her need to go to the discount superstore had more to do with getting out than what she was getting when she was out.
“Can you be ready at five thirty today?”
“You don’t have to jump, Alexandrea. I can wait.”
Alex smiled. “It’s not a problem. I’ll take you out for dinner.”
Mrs. Steiner drew out her words. “Well ... if you’re sure.”
“I’m positive.”
“Taco Mike’s?”
“Tacos sound perfect.”
The elevator door opened, and Alex used its arrival to end the call.
It felt like forever since Alex had been in her own space.
She missed it. She loved her family, but having alone time was impossible.
Alex knocked on Mrs. Steiner’s door first, letting the older woman know she was there.
After a few minutes in her apartment and a quick change of clothes to something more Walmart compatible, Alex and Hawk stood in the center of Mrs. Steiner’s apartment, waiting for her to gather her purse, phone ... shoes.
It was Walmart and a taco shack, and Mrs. Steiner was dressing for dinner at the Ritz.
She would probably like high tea at the Ritz.
Alex made a mental note to schedule one in the not-too-distant future.
“I won’t be but a minute,” Mrs. Steiner called from the bedroom.
“Take your time.”
“Can your boyfriend change the burned-out light in the kitchen? I have extra bulbs in the pantry.”
Alex glanced at Hawk and let the “boyfriend” comment go.
“Happy to, Mrs. Steiner,” Hawk called out to her.
“And my smoke detector started making noise last week. Why do those things always happen in the middle of the night?”
She and Hawk both looked up at the ceiling.
Said detector was hanging from a wire.
“I hit it with a broom. I might have broken it.”
Both Alex and Hawk laughed.
“It looks dead to me,” Hawk said quietly.
“At least she didn’t try and change the battery by herself. I took her stepladder away last year to force her to ask me for help.”
“Smart thinking.”
Hawk pulled a chair from the dining table over to assess the smoke detector damage.
“When was the last time you opened a window in here? It’s stuffy.”
Alex opened one in the kitchen, hoping to get rid of the smell.
“I don’t like the cold,” Mrs. Steiner said.
Alex checked the kitchen garbage. It was empty.
With nothing to do but wait, she took the opportunity to look through the stacked-up mail on the coffee table.
Alex shuffled through bills and junk mail before setting them aside.
A package with a large white label had her name on it.
“Every person’s home over the age of seventy-five has an odor you can’t identify,” Hawk said from the top of the chair.
Alex revisited the kitchen, found a pair of scissors in Mrs. Steiner’s junk drawer, and returned to the living room to open her package.
“Yep, it’s dead,” Hawk said.
“We’ll pick her up a new one and install it after we get back. Unless you don’t have time.”
Hawk hadn’t yet complained about his long hours. Aside from a few days after they’d returned from Colorado, Hawk hadn’t passed on his babysitting baton once. Alex gave him the opportunity to do so often.
“One of these days, you’re going to stop saying that.”
“One of these days, you’re going to take me up on it. You can’t be my shadow forever.”
Hawk looked at her from the chair he stood on. “You’re not a job for me, Alexandrea.”
She didn’t want to analyze what she was to him. Or what he was to her.
Not right then.
Alex cut into the package and folded back the cardboard.
The smell hit her first, and then Alex got a good look at what was inside.
And gasped. “Oh, good God.”
Hawk was off the chair and by her side in one leap.
Alex placed a shaking hand over her mouth to keep it from screaming.
Inside was an old stuffed teddy bear. Someone had pulled the button eyes off and replaced them with sewn-in X s. Hanging from one arm of the toy was what looked like a tiny, dead , newborn animal.
As much as Alex wanted to tear her eyes away, she couldn’t.
A note was pinned to the chest.
Sins of the Father.
Sins of the Daughter.
Tick Tock.
Tick Tock.
Dried drops of blood covered the inside of the box.
Hawk placed a hand on her knee.
She sucked in a deep breath and wanted to choke.
“You okay?”
She swallowed. No, she thought and nodded her head yes.
Mrs. Steiner emerged from her bedroom. “I’m ready.”