When Mark and I came out of the church service we’d picked to attend the next morning, Mandy had texted me. Again.
If you let me throw the nylon leashes out, I’ll buy you these pretty leather leashes with the matching collars to replace them.
She sent me a link. The woman was obsessed. I only ever used the nylon leashes to tie the dogs to the stoop railing when I bathed them outside, so maybe I should let them go. The old leather leashes could be the bath leashes, and the ones Mandy had picked out were much nicer. But I’d let her stew a little longer first.
Ahanti had texted me as well.
Police done with my apartment. I called Eddie, and he’s free this afternoon to check my place. Can you come?
In the second it took Mark to unlock the car with the clicker, I considered telling her no. Eddie should know more about what to check than I would. Besides, this trip was supposed to be about Mark, and so far, I hadn’t even spent much time with him.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like I’d been expected to. Most of the events they’d had planned were for Mark to get a better idea of the scope of their research, the work environment, and what they were offering him. Other than the first day, and a dinner we were supposed to attend together with his potential future boss and his wife, my presence hadn’t been necessary.
But still. It felt like I was spending most of my time hunting down another criminal and not nearly enough time with Mark seeing the sights. I hadn’t even had time to confront my dad about blackmailing—or bribing, depending on how you looked at it—Mark into staying here.
The passenger-side window lowered. “Are you getting in?” Mark asked.
Enough heat to rival the Virginia sun arched up my neck and into my cheeks. Ahanti always teased me about my tendency to space out when I was thinking. I climbed in.
The leather seats scorched my legs even. “Ahanti’s having a security check of her apartment done today. She wants me to come by.”
“Should I drop you off?”
He didn’t sound angry. He didn’t even sound annoyed. I couldn’t lean over far enough to kiss his cheek, so I snagged a hold of his nearest hand and planted a kiss on the back of that.
He flipped his hand over so ours rested palm to palm and squeezed. “We’ll have to talk eventually about whether I take his job or not.”
At first it felt like a topic jump. But it wasn’t really. He was still thinking I wouldn’t be happy long-term in Fair Haven because of how cases drew me in like they were the bright light and I was the mosquito.
“Do they want your decision before we leave?”
Mark shook his head. “They said they’re slowly expanding the department, so we can take a few weeks to decide after we go home.”
Mark pulled into a parking space in front of Ahanti’s building. “Did you want me to stay? If not, your mom asked if I wanted to get coffee just the two of us this afternoon.”
The panic sensors in my brain flashed all sorts of warning colors at the thought of Mark and my mom having coffee. For all I knew, she was in on whatever my dad’s plan was. I was much more afraid of her ability to sway Mark than of my dad’s.
But telling him no and making him stand around while Eddie checked Ahanti’s alarm system would be selfish. “Go ahead. I’ll text you when we’re done.”
Eddie had arrived a few minutes before me. By the time Ahanti buzzed me in and I climbed the stairs, he already had her keypad panel pulled apart.
This morning, Ahanti’s face had the long appearance of someone who hadn’t slept, and before I left for church, I’d noticed she wore the same clothes as yesterday. She also hadn’t wanted to talk and had declined my offer of breakfast out at IHOP, even though her favorite indulgent breakfast was their cupcake pancakes.
I hadn’t thought she could possibly look worse, but she did. She still wore yesterday’s outfit, and she had the fidgety quality of someone who’d had twice the amount of caffeine that was healthy.
She tilted her head to the side in a follow me gesture, and then practically pulled me into the bathroom. She turned on the tap like we were in some sort of spy movie. “I asked Eddie to check the panel for a bug too. I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night. If this guy got in here once, he could have been in here before. He might know what I’m saying because he’s listening in.” Her bottom lip sagged, and she glanced up at her light fixtures, then quickly away. “What if he has cameras, too?”
My own stomach corkscrewed, and I pulled her into a hug to hide any reaction.
She could be right. I should have thought of it sooner. We’d thought up a lot of ways her stalker could have knowledge of private communications. We’d talked about keystroke trackers and tapped phones. She couldn’t remember where she was when she made the overheard call or wrote the compromised email, so we’d considered her stalker was in Skin Canvas and overheard the call. Perhaps they sneaked a look at her computer while she had the email open and half written, and left it unattended.
Now that we knew they had access to her apartment, we couldn’t cross off the idea that they’d had access all along.
What that meant they’d seen…the room spun slightly, and I held Ahanti tighter. “We’ll figure this out. I swear it.”
How was I ever going to come good on that promise? The one consolation was that her stalker clearly didn’t want to share her and so they wouldn’t post any still shots from a video around the internet.
For the first time in a long time, I wanted my dad. I wanted him to take over and fix this somehow.
My brain played a trick on me, conjuring my dad into the apartment. It sounded like Eddie was talking to another man out in the main room, but Ahanti hadn’t buzzed anyone else in, and there was no way Eddie would have done it without asking.
Ahanti yanked away from me and lost so much color from her face you would have thought she’d donated blood three times in one day.
She’d heard the second male voice as well.