Thursday, August 21st – 7:35 pm
“Are you serious?” Avery asked Cristina, grabbing the strap of her purse and pressing it against her side. “In our complex? When? Just now?”
Cristina pulled at the front of her shirt’s collar and waved it up and down against her skin. “Yeah. The police aren’t saying a word, but I started talking to the neighbors. I’m getting that it happened sometime last night. It was a guy—not the killer, the victim. Not sure you know him. I don’t. His name’s Noah—Noah Harris. I was talking to his neighbor. She said his sister found him.”
“I’ve never heard of him.” That didn’t mean she hadn’t met him around the complex. Tension cut a swath down her back, and she clutched the strap of her purse harder. “Do you know what happened? Or how?” She didn’t want the answer, but not knowing was worse.
Avery thought of her stitches, of her attack, and how she’d missed over twenty-four hours of her memory she’d never get back. A memory that could hold a multitude of sins. But did she want to remember? Then again, her imagination could conjure worse horrors than the actual truth.
But she had no truth, no justice.
Who had attacked her could be anyone. They could be the same person who had killed this Noah. It was too much of a coincidence. Crime in the area consisted of petty burglaries, drug deals. Not murder. Or physical assault.
And now two violent acts within a week and miles of each other. There was the other murder in north Scottsdale. A woman too. The papers had said she’d been stabbed.
Coincidence? It might be...
“All I know was there was a lot of blood. Something about his heart or chest and some type of sharp object.”
Oh, God. She’d been right. His death was somehow related to her. Her stomach roiled. She fought back nausea rising to the back of her throat. Blinking back tears, Avery looked down and rummaged inside her purse for nothing in particular. She didn’t want Cristina to see how upset she was as she managed, “Are you sure?”
“Not a hundred percent. You know how rumors go. I overheard two other people mention it.” Cristina sighed. “Hey.” She grabbed Avery’s elbow. “I ‘m sorry this is freaking you out.”
She gave up looking inside her purse and met Cristina’s gaze. “Well, yeah. Of course it is. Anyone would be upset at a neighbor getting murdered.”
“You’re acting like you knew the person.”
Avery laughed, which threatened to grow out of control, so she sucked in a breath and almost choked on it. Get control, damn it. “No. I have no idea who this Noah is.”
“Okay, if you say so.” Cristina shrugged. “I don’t know all the details yet, but I do know the police want us all to stay inside our condos, but at least there’s no helicopter.” She glanced up and made a face. “So I guess that’s something. In the place we stayed before, we’d get several in the neighborhood every week. I always got nervous when I heard those things humming in the sky at night when they ran those beams into our windows and made it feel like they were right in your face and someone was going to break through the glass and tackle you.”
Stephen jogged up from around the corner of one of the buildings. “I tried finding out more, but no such luck. The cops got angry at me for nosing around and getting in the way of doing their job. Avery, they got your building surrounded by yellow tape.”
“The murder was that close?” A bead of sweat trickled down her temple, and Avery impatiently wiped it away. The heat wasn’t helping her state of mind.
“Yeah, his condo number was 156.” Stephen jerked his head to one side to toss his long hair over a shoulder before wrinkling his nose at Avery. “His front door is on the opposite side of the building from you, but you shared his back wall with him. The police will probably want to talk to you eventually. You didn’t hear anything, did you?”
“No.” Why hadn’t she heard anything? My God, she’d been awake most of the night. She should have heard something! Especially when her hearing had been spot on for days now.
Cristina wrapped both arms around her middle. “Great. Since hanging around here isn’t an option—I’m about to expire from the heat, and the police are going to start breaking up the loitering—what are we supposed to do then? I don’t want to stay in my condo. I’m way too hyped up.”
“Have a drink over at The Thing?” Stephen suggested.
Cristina wrinkled her nose.
“It’s better than waiting around to find out more while sweating to death!” Stephen argued.
Avery thought of her frozen dinners in the back of her car. In this heat, it wouldn’t take much for them to spoil, but the idea of ducking under the police tape and going inside her condo alone with only her thoughts didn’t appeal in the least. She was as unnerved as Cristina.
A car rolled up beside them and into a parking slot that had been recently vacated.
When she recognized Luys behind the wheel, thoughts of the murder disintegrated, and her pulse broke into a gallop as if she’d been injected with adrenaline. Ugh. Such a strong reaction at just recognizing the man wasn’t good. Not good at all.
Luys rounded the hood of his car and strode toward them, his gait smooth, his long legs quickly demolishing the distance from his car and their group. The setting sun turned his dark hair to burnished gold in places. “Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah, we are, but someone else isn’t so okay,” Stephen was quick to comment. “They’ve got Avery’s building cordoned off right now.”
Luys frowned. “Why? What happened?”
Stephen explained about the murder, not adding anything that Cristina hadn’t told her.
Luys’ brow deepened. “Are you sure it wasn’t something other than murder? What about suicide?”
“I’ve never heard of anyone being able to stab themselves in the chest to end it.”
Luys cocked his head to one side. “No gun? Are you sure? That’s pretty unusual.”
“Well, it sounds like some type of sharp object from the rumors we’ve heard so far,” Cristina argued, wrinkling her nose. “Plus, I would think someone would have heard a gunshot and reported it.”
“Not necessarily,” Avery argued.
“Ahh, yes. Apathy seems to be the new normal.” Cristina’s lip curled. “Better to just lock your door and ignore it and pretend you hear fireworks.”
Avery searched Luys’ face. “Did you know Noah?”
“No, not at all. I know very few people by name in the complex.”
“A cop is heading this way, and he doesn’t look like he wants to chat.” Cristina elbowed Avery in the arm. “How about we take this to The Thing after all?”
Luys backed up a step. “I don’t know. It’s been a long day.”
“Oh, come on. It’s down the street. What else do you have going on tonight?” Stephen asked.
“A drink might do us all some good,” Cristina added. “Hell, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need something to get some sleep tonight.”
Luys met Avery’s gaze. Some type of emotion, serious and dark and intense, flickered in his eyes. Finally, he shrugged and relented. “You’re right.”
Avery let out a silent breath, not realizing how much she’d wanted him to come until he’d agreed. He was becoming far too important in far too short of a time. They’d only had dinner together and an innocent kiss.
But he’d also helped her, brought her to the hospital, stayed, and waited when no one else had. Someone with that kind of compassion didn’t cut another person and leave them to fend for themselves.
All four of them moved in the opposite direction of the officer coming their way and crossed the parking lot to the street leading to The Thing. Glancing over her shoulder, Avery realized the officer was moving toward a squad car and not them. They weren’t the target of his interest, after all.
Luys and Avery dropped behind the other couple as they walked across the parking lot toward the sidewalk that led to the restaurant. Other residents dispersed in their cars or behind closed doors. “I swear,” Avery murmured while rubbing a damp hand against her hip, “I’ve never seen so many people venture outside their homes and talk to each other like tonight.”
“Talking. Sad that a crisis brings people together. All too often, people hide inside their homes and avoid the rest of the world.”
“Including yourself?” Avery teased.
He smiled, revealing the slight dimple on his left cheek. It made him look more approachable. “I’m sure I’m as guilty as everyone else. It’s less complicated to avoid people. Getting involved with anyone—friendships, lovers, family—complicates your life, increases your chance of some entanglement, and risks the pain of a damaged heart when that person leaves, which always inadvertently happens with a breakup or death. It’s easier to become an island and live without disappointment. But on the other side, being self-sufficient, having walls all around you, and not letting anyone else in your life makes you focus on your disappointments and how truly alone you are.”
Avery nodded, finding his words deep and too intimate. They also held too much truth. She wanted to keep the conversation superficial, but then she realized a murder tended to keep things sober.
“You know,” Avery said as the silence between them lengthened and started to feel awkward. She didn’t want to delve into more intimate topics. “You never told me what you do.”
“Something very boring.”
“Okay, that just made it more interesting by you brushing it aside. So what could be so very boring?”
“I work for a medical research facility. I head one of their departments.”
“Does that mean you’re a doctor? That’s far from routine.” Her step faltered. A doctor. Someone who knew how to cut a person open and stitch them back up. A wave of fear slithered across her flesh and pebbled her skin.
“Yes, but not in the way you would think. I’m not a medical doctor. I don’t have patients.”
Still, she didn’t relax. She forced herself to nod, to keep her expression neutral. She would be stupid to fully trust Luys, and to her, trust came after having some type of history.
They stepped into the restaurant and followed Cristina and Stephen, who bypassed the diners and veered right past the bar to the outside terrace. Along the edge of the roof’s veranda, a sprinkler system misted and cooled the area, while bright pink bougainvillea flowers wound up several trellises and edged across the balcony, low enough to allow for outside conversation.
Avery sat beside Luys and across from the other couple. She crossed a leg, her foot accidentally brushing against his calf, and then shifted away. Carefully, she folded her hands in her lap, conscious of him as a man, and maybe a dangerous one at that. After a few minutes, the waitress came and returned with their drinks. Talk was limited as the music from a guitarist inside the bar filtered through several speakers.
Luys lifted his beer to his lips. He’d been nursing his drink compared to Stephen and Cristina. So far, his one to their three. Avery sipped her one glass of wine. She needed her wits.
She stared at his hand around his mug of beer. Large, strong. Capable of butchering someone like herself? Or snuffing the life out of someone else?
Jaw tightening, Avery brushed the thought aside. At least for the moment. The night was unpleasant enough. Then she glanced across the table at Stephen, who placed a possessive hand on the back of Cristina’s chair. She didn’t understand their relationship. From what she’d seen so far, he liked to control her friend, making a point of never letting Cristina alone for any length of time. She wondered if he chose her friends, decided who she talked to, where she worked.
Could Stephen be more than an abuser? Could he be Noah Harris’ killer? But what type of motive would he have? Avery couldn’t think of one. A wife-beater was far different than a serial killer. She was letting paranoia control her thoughts and being ridiculous. Cristina was a strong woman, opinionated, and had her own mind, didn’t she? She worked as an accountant, while Stephen had some type of sales job. Still... she eyed how he played absently with the strands of Cristina’s hair with his fingers.
Maybe Avery was jealous of their relationship? Could that be why she didn’t like him? She was alone while they had a marriage that seemed to work.
“So...” Stephen began, his laugh like chalk against Avery’s senses. “We’re all wondering, even though no one is saying a word, who do you think the killer is?”
Cristina looked up from her phone. She’d been staring at it, off and on since they’d sat down.
Luys covered the top of his beer with one hand. “I’m not sure right now is the best time—”
“I think the victim knew the killer,” Cristina interrupted. “I’m not sure if the killer lives in the complex, but I’m pretty sure it was personal.”
“You can’t know that,” Avery argued.
“Actually, I do.” She tapped a finger on the screen of her phone. “I just got a text. According to Houston, the victim was stabbed to death.”
“Who’s Houston?” Avery asked.
“He’s a neighbor that’s completely infatuated with Cristina,” Stephen replied.
With her gaze still on her phone, Cristina mused aloud as she shook her head, “No, he doesn’t, and usually, stabbings are personal.”
“So, you’re an expert now?” Stephen joked.
Cristina glanced over at her husband and rolled her eyes. “Of course not.” She looked back down at her phone. “The police aren’t commenting on any of the details of the crime right now. But...” Cristina paused and frowned at her screen.
“But what?” Avery leaned forward, hating herself for being so morbidly interested.
Cristina wrinkled her nose. “A witness—”
“There was a witness?” Luys interrupted.
“No, not in that way. The sister saw the victim after the slaying.” Cristina used a thumb to scroll through a message. “Houston texted the killing was gruesome, unusual, and brutal. The chest was cut open...” She scowled. “This is freaking sick. He’s saying a body part was missing. Eww!” She looked up and glanced at Avery and then Luys. “The sister thinks it’s the heart.”
Avery glanced over at Luys, his face blank of emotion, and downed the rest of her wine. To hell with her wits, but the alcohol didn’t ease the constant twisting of her stomach. Then her grip on her glass tightened, and before she broke it and did something stupid like cutting herself, she set it on the table with a shaky hand.
The evening seemed to get hotter, even suffocating. She fisted a hand against her chest, feeling the erratic beat of her heart. Why hadn’t her attacker killed her? Why hadn’t the person taken her heart like the neighbor?
Stephen and Cristina weren’t aware of her assault. Luys knew, though, but he didn’t have the entire truth, and what he knew, he wouldn’t mention that to the others, would he? He must have sensed her glance because he turned, met her gaze, and reached over to squeeze her hand briefly in reassurance, almost as if reading her thoughts.
She needed to call the police department first thing in the morning and get answers. Or maybe show up at the precinct so the operator couldn't forward her to some answering machine.
Cristina swiped her phone with a finger, then set her phone face down on her thigh and covered her yawn with a palm. “Well, this has been an interesting night. Not! I think I’ve had enough. The alcohol is finally kicking in. I think I’ll be able to get some sleep. At least I’m hoping.’
“I’m hoping for something more than sleep.” Stephen sent his wife a wicked smile.
Cristina laughed. “I bet you do. Let’s go home.” She eyed Luys and herself across the table. “Are you about ready to go?”
Avery scraped her chair back from the table. “Let me go to the restroom first.”
But when she came back, she found only Luys sitting at the table.