After her conversation with Luke, Harper tried to work on the Scott case. But her mind kept trying to piece everything together: The break-in. The documents. The sense she’d had for months now that she was being watched. There was more to this than she’d initially thought.
She just couldn’t figure out what it all meant.
Opening her long, narrow reporter’s notebook to a clean page, she wrote down every occasion she could think of when her instincts had told her someone had been in her house, and she’d suppressed that voice, convinced she was paranoid.
A few days ago, she thought she smelled cigarette smoke, and had the distinct impression that someone had been inside her apartment.
Three weeks before that, she’d been certain she left a glass on the kitchen table, but when she came home it was in the dish drainer. At the time, she thought she’d forgotten putting it there.
That day in April when she’d searched for a picture of her with her mother, before deciding it must have fallen under something. She was sure it had been in a dresser drawer.
One after another, she traced a series of small, seemingly unconnected incidents when she’d thought she’d been scatterbrained or distracted, all the way back to last year. All the way back to the first break-in. When someone had trashed her apartment and painted the word “RUN” on her wall in red paint.
When she finished, it was so obvious, she couldn’t believe she’d missed it until now.
He’d been there all along.
There was no other answer.
Someone had keys. He knew her alarm code. And now he must know everything about her.
The place she’d thought was her sanctuary was never safe. Who knew what he’d done there while she was at work?
The realization made her stomach roil. She stood up so fast her chair skidded back.
DJ looked up at her curiously.
“I’ve got to go,” Harper said, grabbing her bag and scanner.
“See you…” he began, but she was already halfway across the room “… later,” he finished, as she disappeared from view.
Harper ran down the stairs and burst out of the door into a full thunderstorm. Winds blew the rain sideways. Lightning crackled overhead.
Harper didn’t feel the rain. She was too angry.
When she reached the Camaro, she stopped and stood next to the car, letting the storm rage around her. Rain ran down her face, soaking her clothes.
People hurrying by, sheltered under umbrellas, stared at her curiously. But she didn’t care.
She stood staring at the red sports car. Did he have keys to this, too? He’d put those documents on the seat of the car without leaving a scratch on the scarlet paint.
How could he do that without a key?
She knew the answer already.
He couldn’t.
She opened the car door gingerly, and scanned the front and back seats—but there was nothing new. Just the usual clutter of used coffee cups and discarded notebooks.
No sign that anyone had been in the vehicle while she was working.
But she could no longer assume anything in her life was safe. Or private.
He’d touched everything. He’d gone through her life and explored it all.
She climbed into the car, dripping water on the seats, and shut the door, sitting for a moment in silence.
Had he sat where she was right now, hands stroking the leather-wrapped steering wheel? Touching the dials and buttons? Rummaging through the glove compartment?
Gingerly, she turned the key to start the engine, and began to drive home.
By the time she pulled up in front of her building, she was so angry and frightened she could hardly breathe.
What was she going to do?
Thunder crashed with such force it shook the earth, waking her from her reverie. The winds were getting stronger. Tree branches rose and plunged, sending Spanish moss swinging wildly.
She climbed out and ran across the street with her head down. The water in the gutters was already ankle-deep as she splashed through it and up onto the sidewalk.
She was halfway up the front steps before she saw Luke.
He stood by her front door, his expression grave.
She hated how her heart leapt, seeing him there.
“Hey,” she said. “You didn’t have to come over.”
He moved back to make space for her on the sheltered top step.
“Sorry to show up like this,” he said. “I thought you’d be here. Mondays are your days off. I wanted to talk this through some more. I don’t like what’s going on.”
“It might be worse than I thought.” She cast a look down the darkening street, through the lashing rain. It appeared empty but she felt observed, and there was no way to know if it was all in her mind.
“You better come in.”
He stood behind her, waiting as she unlocked the three locks, one after another, and read the code from her wrist and punched it in, quieting the alarm system.
She sensed him observing the steps she’d taken to make herself safe. Noting the baseball bat by the door. Missing nothing.
When she switched on the living room light, his expression was troubled.
The air-conditioning cooled the water on her clothes and skin, and Harper found she was shivering uncontrollably.
“I’m soaked—I need to change,” she said. “Do you want a towel?”
Swiping the water from his face, he gave her a rueful look.
“Probably a good idea.”
“Two minutes,” she said, and ran down the hallway. As she did, she searched for signs that someone had been here while she’d been out. But, this time at least, everything felt normal.
Zuzu was curled up on one of the sofas. Harper had begun to realize the cat was never there on the days she now suspected an intrusion had occurred. She must run out through the cat door and stay out until she was sure Harper was back and everything was safe again.
Grabbing a towel in the bathroom, she hurried back into the hallway and tossed it to Luke, who still stood where she’d left him. He caught it easily.
“Thanks.”
In her bedroom, Harper ripped off her top and found another towel to dry herself off. After changing out of her wet things, she raked a brush through her hair.
In the mirror, her color was high. Her hazel eyes looked confused. The dusting of freckles she’d never been able to fully cover stood out against her skin.
She looked younger than twenty-eight. She looked scared.
Taking a deep, slow breath, she walked back into the living room.
Luke was sitting on the sofa next to Zuzu, who, in a rare gesture of conciliation, allowed him to stroke her fur.
Harper watched the two of them for a moment before breaking the silence.
“You want some coffee?” she asked. “I could use the caffeine.”
“Yeah. That’d be great.”
After patting Zuzu one last time, he stood and followed her to the kitchen.
“The place looks good,” he said. “I like the new sofas.”
“Thanks.” Harper turned on the kitchen light, and the spotless room, with its tall white cabinets and black-and-white-tiled floor, burst into view.
Luke leaned back against the counter as she picked up the canister of coffee.
She had to reach behind him for the coffeemaker. It seemed too close—she could feel the warmth of his body against her skin.
He shifted out of the way.
The room seemed so small with him in it.
“Well,” he said, watching her scoop the coffee into the machine. “Why is it worse than we thought?”
Thunder rattled the windows as Harper told him what she suspected.
When she’d finished, she leaned back against the fridge and faced him.
“I still don’t know if any of this is real or my imagination. But if he took that picture of my mom…” She shook her head. “Man. That pisses me off.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said, soberly. “Harper, is there anyone you can think of who might be behind this?”
She shook her head. “Nobody.”
“Have you dated anyone who seemed unusually attached in the last year? Someone who would know how to get in here? A cop?”
His voice was even. Still, heat rose to her face.
It was such a loaded question.
“No.”
“It could be anyone,” he prodded. “Someone you only had one date with. Some random guy from a dating website. Maybe he didn’t seem threatening at the time but…”
“There hasn’t been anyone.” The words burst out louder than she’d intended. She lowered her voice. “I haven’t dated anyone. Not since you.”
Silence fell between them, filled with the sound of summer rain falling hard, and the burble of the coffeemaker.
She couldn’t look at him. Afraid of what she’d see in his eyes.
“I forgot the milk.” Hurriedly, she turned around to open the refrigerator.
With her back to him, she paused, letting the chilled air cool her skin.
When she spoke again, she thought she sounded fine.
“Do you want sugar? I know you usually don’t but…”
“No, thanks.” His tone was so bland, the previous conversation might not have happened at all.
She checked the milk to make sure it hadn’t turned, and then made them each a cup.
Positioning herself with her back pressed against the countertop as far as she could get across the small room from him, she nudged the conversation back to the break-in.
“What do you think? Could this be connected to the first break-in?”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But the MO is different. That time, the guy broke a window, right?”
“Yeah.”
“This guy has a key and your security code. And access to your car—possibly also with a key. On the surface it seems like two very different styles. One’s brute force, the other is finesse. I mean, how the hell could he get your keys?”
“Here’s what I’ve been thinking.” Harper set her coffee down. “What if the first break-in was when he got the keys?”
Luke’s brow creased.
“Did your keys go missing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The whole place was trashed. Whoever it was dumped the fridge on the floor. Knifed every piece of furniture. Threw my clothes around, painted on the walls. It never occurred to me to check the keys.”
Turning to the cupboard behind her, she pulled out a ceramic jar marked TEA.
“I keep my spare keys in here,” she explained. “I haven’t even looked in here since the burglary. I mean, how often do you check your spare keys?”
Without waiting for an answer, she dumped the keys out onto the counter with a clatter. The two of them bent over the tangle of silver and brass. Her spare set of car keys was there, right where it should be, along with spare house keys, the keys to Bonnie’s place, and a couple of random leftover keys, including one for a bike lock she’d long ago thrown away.
She looked up at Luke. He was standing close. She could smell his familiar scent—cinnamon and sandalwood.
“It’s all here,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean anything, does it?”
Luke shook his head. “He could have had copies made and brought your originals back any time.”
Harper reached for the house keys.
“Don’t touch anything,” he ordered.
She jerked her hand back as if it had been scalded.
He pulled a pen from his pocket and used it to pick the keys up by the ring.
“Do you have a plastic bag?” he asked, glancing at her.
Harper got one out of the drawer and handed it to him.
“I’ll get these checked for fingerprints,” he told her, dropping the keys inside. “Just in case.”
Harper hated how well the scenario fit.
The entire break-in—all of the destruction—could have been a distraction to ensure she never thought to check her key jar. If that was the case, it worked. She’d fled her home to stay with Bonnie—leaving the cleanup to Billy and his crew.
A sudden thought made her breath catch.
“What about Bonnie?”
Luke gave her a puzzled look.
“Those are her keys,” she explained, pointing at the set still sitting on the counter. “He could get in her house.”
He leaned over to study them.
“They’re not marked. There’s no way for him to know whose they are. They could be mine for all he would know.” He glanced at her. “I think the only keys he wanted were yours.”
Those last words hung there.
Outside, the storm was quieting, at last.
“Whoever this guy is, he’s good, Luke.” Harper reached for her coffee to give her hands something to do.
“Yeah, he’s good. But we’re better.” He rubbed a hand across the edge of his jaw, staring at the keys as if they held answers only he could see.
“Let’s assume he has your car keys, too.”
She was already there.
“I’ll have the car locks changed, tomorrow,” she said. “My mechanic will fit me in.”
“Good.” He paused to think. “Get him to take a look at everything. Check for anything the guy might have left.”
It took her a second to figure out what he was saying.
She took a step back. “Oh, hell, Luke. You think he put a tracker on my car.”
“I don’t think anything,” he said. “I want to be sure.”
“Who is this guy?” Anger made her voice rise. “What does he want?”
“I intend to find out.”
He held up the plastic bag of keys. “We’ll start with these and the car.” He hesitated before adding, “You know, I’m starting to think you ought to move out for a while…”
“Not happening,” she cut him off.
A faint smile crossed his face.
“I figured that.”
He put the keys in his pocket.
“Well, if anything happens—anything at all—don’t take any chances. Call me.”
“If anything happens,” she told him, “I’ll kick this guy’s ass myself.”
He gave her a hard look.
“Call me.”
Harper didn’t know what to make of this sudden protectiveness. Did it mean anything at all? Or was he just being a cop?
“I better go.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to be somewhere.”
“Oh, sure.”
Turning quickly, she led him to the front door.
It was so weird the way he’d turned up, behaving like nothing ever happened. The hero again, coming to save her.
It left her disoriented.
Outside, the rain had almost stopped. The sun was already coaxing steam from the soaked sidewalks. In a few minutes, the city would be a sauna.
Harper leaned against the doorframe. “Thanks for coming over.”
On the top step, Luke turned back, the light glinting off his hair.
“Take care, Harper.”
The moment felt haunted by different times. Times when they’d kissed on this very doorstep. When he’d talked about going but hadn’t left. When they’d locked themselves inside and forgotten about murder for a while.
She wondered what he’d do if she reached for him, now. Pulled him close. Told him she was sorry.
But she kept her hand on the door.
“I will,” she said.
Then she shut the door before he walked away.