That night, for the second time in a week, Harper slept with the baseball bat next to her.
After talking to the alarm company, she’d gone down to tell Riley what she’d learned.
He’d been worried enough to stop flirting with Mia and recommend she get her locks changed.
“You give your keys to anyone?” he asked. “A friend? A guy?”
She shook her head. “Nobody has keys except the landlord and my best friend, and before you even suggest it, there’s no way it’s either of them.”
“Well, change those locks tomorrow,” he told her. “I can add you to the patrol rotation for the night shift—they’ll swing by to keep an eye on things.”
“That’s so scary, Harper.” Mia looked at her, wide-eyed. “Who could it be?”
“I had a break-in last year,” she said, glancing at Riley.
“I remember that.” His brow furrowed. “They never caught the guy?”
She shook her head.
“Well, at least the alarm worked,” he said, and she could hear how hard he was trying to spin this positively. “But if I were you, I’d want a CCTV camera on my front porch.”
When Riley had gone and Mia was up in her own apartment, Harper paced the floor.
She kept thinking of the smell of cigarette smoke the other day—the overwhelming sense that someone had been in her apartment.
She’d changed the alarm code after that. That was two days ago.
She hadn’t told Riley about it because she didn’t have any proof—there’d been no sign of a break-in.
Because he had keys.
Except that it didn’t make sense. She had a limited number of sets of keys.
One set to Billy in case of emergencies, a set to Bonnie in case she needed her to be able to get in. That was it.
She kept a spare set in the kitchen, and she’d seen those keys this morning, right where they always were, next to the coffee cups.
Still. In order to punch in the wrong code, someone first had to unlock her door and walk into her apartment.
And that someone might have had the right code once, before she changed it.
The thought made her skin crawl.
She called the locksmith’s emergency number before going to bed.
When she got up the next morning, the red-and-white Rocky Locks van was waiting outside the door.
It was Sunday. But Rocky, the owner, was an ex-con with a heart of gold, and he’d known Harper for years.
He had the look of an old rocker. His short, graying hair had been tufted into spikes; tattoos covered his arms from his wrist to his neckline. Tall and buffed, he’d have been an intimidating figure to pass on a dark street at night, but he grinned when she opened the door.
“What the hell, Harper,” he said. “You haven’t had another break-in, have you?”
He had a thick Georgia accent and a hoarse voice—as if he’d been choked at some point and never fully recovered. Which could well have been the case, under the circumstances.
When Harper told him what had happened the night before, he didn’t waste any time.
Kneeling, he examined the door closely, thick muscles bulging as he lowered himself all the way to the ground and peered underneath it.
When he’d finished, he climbed back to his feet and dusted off the knees of his faded jeans.
“If he got in, someone gave him a key. Ain’t nobody tampered with these locks, or I’d know.”
This confirmed what she’d begun to suspect herself.
“I haven’t given anyone the key,” she told him. “If he has the key, he stole it.”
“Happens all the time.” At ten in the morning, it was already hot, and he wiped the back of his hand across his damp forehead. “You say you think he got in here before and took nothin’?”
She nodded. “I’ve got no proof, but I know he did. I know when someone’s been in my house.”
“Instincts,” he said. “Better than a college degree, you ask me.”
He began pulling tools out of a large, plastic case, and laying them down neatly on the porch at his feet.
“Then you changed the alarm code, and a few days later, he punches in the old code and shazam.” He waved a hammer. “He finds out you’re on to him.”
Harper leaned back against the metal rail on the front step.
“That’s my theory.”
“So he had your key, and he had your alarm code. And you didn’t give those to nobody.” Rocky squinted up at her, the sunlight gleaming on the flat bridge of his nose. “Whoever broke in? That ain’t no burglar.”
“How do you figure?”
“First off, what the hell kind of burglar breaks in and takes nothing? I go to all the trouble of getting in your house? I’m takin’ somethin’. You got a computer, aintcha? And a TV? Got some electronics, probably a bit of jewelry. That’s cash money right there. How come he didn’t take nothing?” His expression was dubious. “Someone breaks into a house and takes nothing? That’s an ex-husband.”
Harper made a face. “You know I’ve never been married, Rocky.”
“Only because you keep sayin’ no to me.”
He grinned but she wasn’t finding any of this funny. Seeing her dark expression, his own smile faded.
“It could be an ex-boyfriend, an ex-lover,” he said, turning serious again. “Or it could be someone who wants something from you.” Picking up an electric screwdriver, he switched it on, nodding with satisfaction as it whirred smoothly, the narrow blade a blur. “Maybe it’s someone who has a thing for you and wants to watch you up close and personal. Either way, this is the worst kind.”
Leaning forward, he began removing the screws holding the locks in place.
“Because ain’t nothin’ you can do about no stalker.”
After Rocky left, having installed new high-security locks on the front and back doors, Harper moved around the apartment with caution.
She did everything just as normal—she fed the cat, listened to the scanner, and made herself lunch. The whole time she was trying to figure out who could have gotten a set of her keys.
Whoever it was would have had free access to her home, her laptop, her belongings—her whole life.
Something told her they’d been in her apartment more than once. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her she’d felt uncomfortably aware that something wasn’t right for a long time. She’d written it off as a natural reaction to the break-in last year.
And then there was that break-in to consider. What if it was the same person?
The person who’d told her to run.
Maybe she should have listened.
As she thought it through, she kept peering out the kitchen window, looking at the place in the shadows where she’d thought she’d seen a man standing yesterday, watching her building.
There was no one there.
Finally, she made herself stop. This wasn’t healthy. She needed to do something proactive.
After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she sat down at the kitchen table and called Bonnie.
“Harpelicious!” Bonnie sounded giddy. “You and that gorgeous hunk of man cop ran out of here so fast last night, please tell me he only just left your apartment.”
“I wish,” Harper said.
When she told her what had happened, Bonnie grew serious.
“Oh hell, what is going on, Harper? This is crazy. Do you want to come stay with me for a few days?”
It was tempting. But Harper couldn’t run away from this. She needed to be systematic about it. She had to understand how it had happened. And who was doing this.
And she needed to protect her home.
“Thanks. But I’m all right,” she said. “I was wondering—do you still have my keys?”
“Of course I do,” Bonnie said. “If I’d lost them I’d have told you.”
“I believe you, but, do me a favor—could you check and make sure? I hate to ask. But somehow this bastard got my keys and only you and Billy have copies.”
Bonnie didn’t take offense. “Hang on. I’ll go check right now.”
Harper heard the click of Bonnie’s boots as she walked down the wooden stairs to her ground floor, crossing her small living room. Then the jangle of metal as she searched through the bowl where she kept her spare keys.
“They’re right here,” she said, after a second. “Right where I left them.”
That settled that. Harper knew the keys wouldn’t have come from Billy—he kept all his keys in a makeshift safe in his house, which was guarded by a pack of rottweilers. The man took security seriously.
Maybe Rocky was wrong. Maybe this guy had gotten in some other way.
“Thanks Bonnie,” she said. “I need to get you a new set. I had them changed today.”
“Harper.” Bonnie’s tone grew serious. “Are you safe there? I don’t like the sound of any of this. Someone was in your house.”
“I don’t like it either,” Harper said. “And I intend to put a stop to it.”
Harper barely left the house the rest of Sunday. If someone was going to try to break in, for a change they’d find her home.
She spent the day drinking coffee, going through her notes on the Scott case, looking for anything she might have missed. After going through everything painstakingly, Wilson Shepherd still seemed the most likely suspect. But she understood Luke’s frustration—there was nothing in there that looked like proof.
After a restless night, by Monday she needed a break from the case.
She wasn’t expected at work—Sundays and Mondays were her nights off. She didn’t wake up until noon—her nocturnal schedule was permanently fixed by this stage. She spent the day cleaning the apartment, listening to her scanner and trying not to think about Naomi Scott.
At four o’clock she started thinking about dinner, but her refrigerator was empty of everything except dried-out cheese and a bottle of wine.
After double-checking the back-door locks, she headed out for supplies.
Before she left, though, she changed the alarm code again. Rocky had suggested she should change it every few days from now on.
“You don’t know how this guy is getting this stuff,” he’d said. “Or who he is. You keep switching it up, keep him off balance. Make it harder for him.”
Certain she wouldn’t remember another new code, she scrawled the four numbers she’d chosen at random on the inside of her wrist before grabbing her scanner and walking outside into the full heat of the midday summer sun.
The street was quiet at this hour—most people were at work. A warm breeze blew the oak trees’ branches, sending the Spanish moss swaying in a slow, sultry dance.
Her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Watson, was walking her rotund pug and talking a blue streak to the animal as if he understood every word.
“Another damn hot day. Seems like the Lord has it in for us this summer. Now, don’t you go peeing in those flowers, Cooper. Those daisies are far too pretty to piss in. Oh, look, Cooper—there’s young Harper.”
She lifted a hand and waved.
“Hi Ms. Watson,” Harper said, walking down the front steps toward the Camaro. “Is Cooper still preferring the prettiest places to pee?”
The older woman, who wore pale blue pedal pushers with a pair of startling pink plastic sandals, tilted her gray head down at the dog, which was now rolling in a patch of pink petunias, and making a disturbing snorting noise.
“Oh, that fat little bastard,” she said, lovingly. “He’s never gonna change.”
The dog was still rolling in the flowers as Harper crossed the street to her car.
She opened the door and stood back as a molten flood of heat poured out.
When it was cool enough not to burn her skin, she slid inside and put the key in the ignition.
That was when she saw the folder sitting on the passenger seat.
It was an ordinary, unmarked manila folder, thick with papers. There was nothing unusual about it all. Except she hadn’t left anything in the car.
Her brow furrowing, Harper reached to pick it up. The paper was hot from the sun.
Cautiously, she opened it.
Inside, she found what looked like an official document, stamped and dated six months earlier.
The first lines read:
“Superior Court of Chatham County, State of Georgia
Naomi Willow Scott (Plaintiff) v. Peyton Titus Anderson
Civil action. Verified emergency injunction for Restraining Order…”
Harper’s jaw dropped.
Heedless of the sweat running down her back, she scanned the rest of the documents in the folder rapidly. Along with the injunction filed by Naomi, there were two documents that appeared to be injunctions filed by different women against Anderson at different times.
Her mouth half open in disbelief, Harper skim-read the documents, turning page after page, words flying up at her: “Abuse.” “Intimidation.” “Harassment.” “Intrusion.” “Invasion.” “Trespassing.” “Fear.”
When she’d seen enough, she leaned back in the car seat and stared at the street ahead without seeing it.
If these papers were everything they seemed, Peyton Anderson had a history of stalking women. The police knew about it, because the women had filed charges.
One of them had ended up dead.
The file was a gold mine. Who the hell put it in her car?
Harper started the engine to turn on the air-conditioning but didn’t put the car in gear. Instead, she pulled out her phone and found Baxter’s cell phone number.
It was the editor’s day off, too, and her phone rang five times before she answered.
“This better be good, McClain.”
Harper smiled.
“Someone just left a front-page story in my car.”