Chapter 4 Arrow
ARROW
“Come on,” I say, closing the lid to my laptop. Annie’s signed my standard client service agreement, so it’s time to get to work.
“Come on?” She stands and slings the backpack over her tanned shoulder, after putting the folder of letters back inside. “Where are we going?”
I slip my phone into my pocket and grab the keys to my truck.
“Campus.” I already have a plan in mind.
I need to get the lay of the land first—where she lives and works.
Maybe then I can figure out how this person is getting the letters to her.
If I can figure out how, I’m one step closer to figuring out who.
In the meantime, there’s more digging I plan to do to get as close as I can to the why.
“I want to see everything. Your studio, your dorm room. All of it.”
“Umm…” She looks uncomfortable, like she’s having second thoughts, but then nods. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Should we ride together? We can take my car. I have a fully paid student parking pass.”
I stifle a groan. The last thing I want is to be chauffeured around, but if she drives, I’ll have a better opportunity to pay attention to the surroundings without focusing on the road.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s probably a good idea.”
She giggles, and I realize I echoed almost exactly what she just said. I crack a grin. She’s cute. No, she’s gorgeous. And sweet. There’s no way I’m going to let some shady bastard scare her—or worse.
After I lock up the office, I get serious. I turn to follow her to the car but nearly stop when the bright sunshine hits her perfect smile. She looks relaxed and light. The tension and awkwardness from inside evaporate like a drop of water in the Florida heat.
Something inside me stirs hard, and I have to look away to stop from thinking of her as more than just a client. More than a woman who has a credible threat to her safety. She’s hired me, and I clench my hands into fists, reminding myself to keep a professional distance.
She almost bounces on her flip-flops as she leads me to a silver Honda sedan. “You don’t look like the kind of guy who’d ever let a woman drive him around.”
“I’m normally not,” I grunt. And yet here I am, stalking up to the passenger side of a modest, but well-kept four-door sedan.
While she’s given me no reason to distrust her, I’m relieved that the car she drives fits with the story she’s told. So many of my clients have the kind of disposable income most of us only dream of. I’ve tailed wives, daughters, and lovers in cars that cost more than my condo.
Annie Hancock isn’t a flashy, spoiled lawyer’s daughter.
Which makes the last letter she received all the more curious. Who could want her to pay? Pay for what? With what? I’m going to have to take pics of those letters now that I’ve taken her case, so we have a record if she does, in fact, have to turn them over to the police.
She unlocks the doors and climbs behind the wheel.
As I get inside, I notice bags lining the footwell in the back seat. “Anything valuable in there?” I slide into the passenger seat and fasten the seat belt.
Annie frowns, a little crinkle forming between her brows. A fucking adorable crinkle. I shove the thought away and watch as she lowers a pair of sunglasses over her eyes and starts the car.
“No. Why?” she asks. “Just thrift store finds. I upcycle and recycle materials as much as I can.”
“Trunk might be safer. Doesn’t take much to tempt a smash-and-grab with the bags left in plain sight.” I realize I’m staring at her when I see the frown that tugs at her full lips replaced by a playful smile.
“The trunk might be safer, but…”
“Annie,” I say, trying to adjust my legs to fit in the small car. “If there’s a body back there, I’m not sure I want to know.”
She laughs but then quickly sobers. She adjusts the rearview mirror and backs out of the spot. “I probably shouldn’t laugh,” she says. “I wish all of this were just a joke.”
“You don’t know what this is,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “And you don’t have to. That’s my job now. I’m going to get answers.”
On the short drive to the Florida Arts campus, I drill her about her routine. She answers every question until I bring up the uncomfortable stuff.
“So, I know you said earlier there were no exes,” I say, trying to word this in a way that won’t freak her out. “Nobody out there who thinks you stole her husband?”
Annie flicks a quick look at me, her long braid dusting her shoulders. I can’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, but she shakes her head and draws that full lower lip between her teeth.
“No,” she says. “There’s nothing like that.” She hesitates a minute, so I wait.
I’ve learned that the full truth very rarely comes out on the first try.
I get the feeling that Annie’s smart, so I don’t try to trap her with the tricks that would work on my usual clients, repeating the question in different ways or “accidentally” misremembering what they said, forcing the person to clarify what they meant the first time.
I can’t tell you how many times a new truth comes out when someone thinks that you won’t remember what they originally said.
What she says next, though, surprises me.
“I… This may sound weird, but…I can really only think of one person who might have a grudge against me. But I can’t…” She shrugs. “I mean, you probably see the worst in people. I’m sure nothing surprises you.”
I nod but stay quiet. I knew there was more coming. There always is.
She starts to talk just as we pull onto campus. I split my attention between what she’s saying and noticing every single thing I’m seeing around me. Even worse is what I’m not seeing.
First, there’s no security barring the public from entering campus.
Any vehicle can drive past the massive stucco-and-metal sculpture that is about the only thing separating the palm-tree-lined streets of the neighborhood from the campus property.
No security station. No signs proclaiming this is private property. Nada.
Fuck.
Annie turns into a parking structure right off Arts Lane.
This, too, is open to the public. There are no automated arms, no key fobs.
Literally nothing to stop any dickhead from following her in.
She drives into the structure, parks in an unnumbered spot, which means no assigned parking, and pulls a hangtag from a pocket in the driver’s side door.
“Thank God,” I say quietly.
“What?” she asks, hanging the plastic bar code from her mirror.
“At least you don’t drive around with that thing hanging in your car. Anybody anywhere you park can see that you’re a student. Those fucking hangtags should be illegal. They are the least secure form of parking enforcement out there. Especially for students.”
She looks serious. “Not secure but cheap, I bet. I’m all for whatever it takes to keep my costs down, but when you look at it that way…
” She frowns and turns a little in her seat to face me.
“How do you do it?” she asks. “How do you see the worst in everything and not feel angry all the time? I don’t know.
Maybe you are angry.” She huffs a sigh and leans back in her seat.
As the engine goes quiet, the car falls silent. Her question hangs heavy between us.
“I do get angry, but not the way you might think,” I say, wanting for some reason I can’t fully understand to give her the truth. “I don’t walk through the world seeing every possible hazard, every worst-case scenario, or else it would be hard to get out of bed in the morning.”
She’s watching me talk, sucking her lower lip between her teeth.
“But there are times when my experience with, well, with the worst that people can do qualifies me to make sure those people do as little harm to others as possible. That’s what keeps me going.”
She searches my face. “So, you do this to help people? Why not become a police officer or something? Did you ever want to do that?”
I laugh at that. “There’s no way anybody’s letting me enforce the laws. I don’t have a squeaky-clean past, and I’ve spent a lot of time hanging with sinners not saints. I think I’m right where I need to be. Catching cheats, liars, and stopping crimes when I can, before they happen.”
“I never thought about it that way.” She leans toward me and reaches into the back seat to grab her backpack. She can’t quite reach it, and her face is just inches from my shoulder. She blushes, a crimson cloud blooming across her chest. “I’ll grab that when we get out.”
We unbuckle our belts and step out into the heat of the parking garage. While she gets her backpack, I look around, checking for exits, security cameras, security phones. I don’t like what I’m seeing. Rather, what I’m not seeing.
“You were saying earlier, Annie,” I remind her as she locks her car. “About somebody who might have a grudge.”
I want her talking, but at the same time, I’m in threat-assessment mode. I can already tell that whoever is leaving these notes for Annie doesn’t have to try very hard to gain access to the campus itself. I can only hope that the rest of campus is more secure.
It’s hard to believe a private college campus has nothing in the way of functional security.
“Oh yeah.” She adjusts the backpack over her shoulders and points left. She follows a sidewalk that is artfully decorated with words stamped into the concrete. I squint through the dark filter of my sunglasses to make out the details.
“Jesus Christ,” I grumble, stopping and glaring down at the sidewalk.
Some of the letters are worn a bit by foot traffic, but most of the words etched into the path are dark and stand out in sharp relief to the light concrete.
“Dream. Rest. Balance,” I read. I shake my head and scoff.
“Let me guess. All these little pretty phrases lead to the dorms.”
I feel Annie stiffen beside me, and I immediately regret my choice of words.