7. Lilah
CHAPTER SEVEN
lilah
I retreat to the couch, putting the coffee table between me and the envelope. It isn't much, but it feels better than standing over it. A second later, the front door opens and Ghost steps back inside, slipping his phone into his pocket.
"Rogue's already started digging," he says. His eyes drop to the envelope. "I'm going to take this with me."
My chest tightens at his words. "Take it?"
"I've got a couple of contacts in the department who owe me a favor. They can dust it for prints, maybe pull some DNA if we're lucky." He looks between the two of us. "I'll be in touch as soon as Rogue finds anything."
Tempest nods. "Appreciate it, Prez."
Ghost turns to me. "If you need anything before then, you go through Tempest. He'll get hold of me."
I nod. "Okay."
He holds my gaze. "We'll get to the bottom of this." He gives me a reassuring smile before opening the door. "Try and get some rest." The door closes behind him and the apartment falls quiet.
I stare at the empty spot on the coffee table where the envelope had been. When I finally look away, Tempest's watching me; he doesn't say anything, just waits.
"You don't have to stay," I say.
He just looks at me with a raised brow. "I know."
I sigh. "I'm serious."
He stares at me. "So am I."
I study him for a second. He's still sitting in the kitchen chair, coffee mug between his hands, looking completely at home despite the fact we've known each other all of five minutes outside of passing in the hallway.
"You're impossible."
He shrugs, a smile playing on his lips. "I’ve been called worse." The corner of my mouth twitches before I can stop it. "Go get some sleep, Lilah."
"I'm fine,” I tell him but one look from him tells me he doesn't believe me. "I'm not taking the bed."
He glares at me, his jaw tight. "You are."
I shake my head. "It's my apartment."
"Exactly,” he says and I frown. "You get the bed and I take the couch."
I lean forward on the sofa. "I can't ask you to do that."
"You didn't," he says simply. “I was raised right.”
I sigh. "I still feel bad."
He shrugs. "You'll survive."
I let out a breath somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "Are you always this stubborn?"
His grin is the widest I’ve seen it, and it makes him look softer than usual. "When I need to be."
I shake my head. "I don't like this."
"I know." He says it so simply that there's nothing left to argue with.
I give up. "Fine." I roll my eyes and head toward the bedroom, and his quiet chuckle follows me down the hallway.
I don't expect to sleep, so I leave the bedside lamp off and lie there listening to the apartment. Outside my bedroom door, the floor creaks: Tempest. The thought settles something inside me.
When I open my eyes again, it's morning. For one disoriented second, I don't know where I am, which is the usual, but then I hear movement in the kitchen, smell coffee, then I remember and something in my chest loosens instead of tightening.
The clock on the nightstand reads 7:42. I blink at it, and then I blink again. I slept through the night, with no nightmares, no waking up to check the locks, and no lying awake listening for sounds that weren't there. I can't remember the last time that happened.
I sit on the edge of the bed for a second before forcing myself to move. I wash my face, run a hand through my hair, and open the bedroom door.
Tempest's at the counter with his back to me. Two mugs are already sitting beside the coffee maker. He glances over his shoulder when he hears the door, gives me a small nod, then goes back to pouring the coffee.
"Morning," he says.
"Morning."
That's it, no questions about how I slept and no awkwardness. Just coffee.
A knock at the door sounds as I take a seat at the table, and I go still, but Tempest's already moving, he checks the peephole before I've straightened up, and whatever he sees makes his shoulders drop slightly.
"It's Sniper," he says, then opens the door.
The man in the doorway is somewhere in his mid-thirties, toolbox in one hand and a bag slung over his shoulder. He smiles when our eyes meet. "Morning, Lilah." He lifts the toolbox slightly. "Still alright with me making a mess of your apartment for a couple of hours?"
I nod. "Yeah."
"Good." He smiles. "I'll swap out the front door lock, reinforce the fire escape window, and get a camera up in the hallway. Then I'll get out of your hair."
He heads toward the fire escape window and sets his toolbox down.
"Sniper handles security," Tempest says.
"I handle miracles," Sniper corrects.
Tempest snorts. "You changed a lock."
"I changed lots of locks."
Sniper gets to work without wasting any more time. He measures, drills, replaces screws, asks me a handful of questions about the apartment, then gets right back to it. He doesn't ask about Evan, and he doesn't look at me like I'm something fragile that might break if he says the wrong thing.
Tempest tops up my coffee without asking if I want more, he just sets the full mug beside me.
"Thanks," I say, giving him a soft smile.
Something softens in his expression. "Mm," he replies.
Sniper comes back from the fire escape window holding the old latch, giving it a look. "Well... there's your problem." He drops it into his toolbox. "I'd trust a paper clip more than that thing." He reaches for the new lock.
"How did he get into the building?" I ask. "The keypad on the front door?"
Sniper glances at Tempest before looking back at me. "Most likely?" He shrugs. "Somebody let him in without realizing it; people hold doors open all the time."
"And if they didn't?"
"Then he got the code somehow." He reaches for his screwdriver. "Either way, we'll change it."
"Can you find out?" I ask, really hoping they can.
"I'm going to try." He nods toward the hallway. "The building stores a log every time someone uses the keypad. I'll pull it when I'm done here. If somebody's been using the code at odd hours, it'll show up."
"And the camera?"
"That goes up outside your door before I leave." He points toward the hallway. "If anyone comes up here, it'll record them. Tempest and I will both get an alert."
"What if he already knows the new code?"
Sniper meets my eyes. "Then he'll have to find another way in."
"And if he does?"
He doesn't hesitate. "Then he'll find us waiting."
I look at the new fire escape latch in his hand. "Okay," I say.
Sniper gets back to work, the sound of the drill filling the apartment for a few seconds before it falls quiet again.
Every now and then he asks Tempest to hand him a tool or take a look at something.
They talk in low voices while they work, mostly about the camera placement and the lighting in the hallway, making small adjustments before Sniper tightens another screw.
It's easy between them, it’s comfortable. Like they've done this a hundred times before. I sit on the couch with my coffee and watch them without either of them paying me much attention. They don't expect me to help; they just get on with it.
Louise calls me at half nine. I let it ring twice before I answer because I haven't figured out what I'm going to say.
"Morning," she says. "Just checking to see if you're coming in."
"I'm not," I say. "I'm sorry, I should have called, I didn’t think. Something came up."
There's a moment of silence and my heart starts to race. Crap, I messed up, I completely forgot about work and calling out.
"Take tomorrow too," she says.
"I don't need—"
"Cara and I have it, so take tomorrow." She’s quiet for a moment. "Do you need me?"
I press my lips together and try not to cry. I don’t know how I lucked out to find her and Cara; both ladies are beyond amazing and so very caring. They’re a godsend, and I don’t know what I’d do without them, even though I’ve kept them at arm's length.
"No," I say. "I'm okay."
"Mmm." She doesn't believe me and we both know it. "Call me if that changes."
"I will."
She hangs up, and I sit for a second with the phone in my hand. Do you need me? Those four words almost undid me completely. I put the phone down and go back to my coffee before I do something embarrassing and start bawling my eyes out.
I’m making everyone lunch when Tempest’s cell rings; he looks at the screen and answers it on speaker without moving away from the table. I'm close enough that I can hear every word that’s being said.
"Rogue," he answers.
"Got something." Rogue's voice is deep and gravelly.
"Evan Calloway is real and he has a record.
There's a prior assault investigation in Drayton Creek, Connecticut, dropped charges, the complainant withdrew. Three years ago, he became a person of interest in a double incident and is wanted on a homicide." I can hear him typing, it’s as though he’s reading from a computer.
"He dropped off the face of the earth completely after that.
No tax filings, no registered address, no vehicles in his name. "
"False identities," Tempest says as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.
"At least one confirmed. I found a Matthew Cole with a Connecticut background that tracks back to nothing before four years ago. The financials match Calloway's spending patterns." More typing. "Here's the significant part, there's ATM activity on a Matthew Cole account six weeks ago in Boston."
The room goes quiet. Six weeks, he's been here for six weeks.
"You said six weeks?" Tempest says.
"Six weeks ago. Which means the SUV, the flowers, the envelope, that's all the tail end. He's been here long enough to learn her routine completely before he made his first move."
I'm looking at my hands. For six weeks, I've been walking to work and eating lunch in the park and telling myself I was overreacting.
I've been doing the grocery run and the morning checks and all the things that feel like control but aren't, and the whole time he's been here.
He's been learning my routes and my timings and which window I check the street from.
"Do we have a location?" Tempest asks.