His lips thin. “I’ll get back to you one that. Right now. This. We have security footage of a man entering your father’s room to deliver the coffee,” he says. “No one at the hotel recognizes him. That’s good news. It lends to a suspect other than you.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“He resembles a man we picked up loitering around your building last night.”
Suddenly my father’s poisoning isn’t a singular event and everything I reasoned about Harper’s attack, I start reasoning in another direction. There was no set-up. I just happened to be there to save Harper’s life. I just happened to be there to save my father’s life. There’s a hit list and Harper’s on the list.
I start running.
***
Harper
Blake never shows up. I pace and wait, but ten minutes turns into twenty and then thirty. I could bug Smith again for help, but I don’t. I search Eric’s cabinets and find hot chocolate, which I make. I actually really love that he has hot chocolate, and I try to imagine him at the grocery store making the decision to buy that hot chocolate.
I boil some water in the microwave and make the sweet beverage. I even find marshmallows. I sit down at the island in the kitchen with the bag of marshmallows, the cup and drop a handful inside. I snatch a pad of paper and pen I find in a drawer and I start writing the numbers and letters from that sequence we’d been given by the man by my house. I write them over and over, and they feel familiar. I eat half the bag of marshmallows trying to find the memory in my mind. There’s a memory. There are also enough marshmallows in my stomach to perhaps make it explode.
I stand up and start to pace, which leads me to the living room. I grab one of the Rubik’s cubes Eric uses and start spinning it. What do those numbers and letters mean? What do we deal with all of the time? Parts. VIN numbers. Banks accounts. Badges. I stop walking. A badge. Could it be a badge number? I don’t have my computer, but I saw one in the office. I hurry inside and locate the MacBook on top of the wooden desk. I power it up and use my access codes to enter the Kingston system. I pull up the employee badge numbers and type in our mystery sequence of letters and numbers. Nothing. I sigh. Blake checked this of course, anyway. I wasn’t going to find anything, but something about this premise of a badge number feels right in my mind.
Frustrated, I decided maybe I’ll just ask Smith to nudge Blake. I’m close to something. I feel like if I had his tech expertise with me right now, I could figure this out. I hope. It’s worth a try and I have to do something to keep my mind off the fact that Eric is with his father. If I let myself get lost in that thought, I’d picture his father dead right now.
I stand up, exit the living room and head to the door. I open it and oddly, Smith isn’t there. A chill runs down my spine. Something feels wrong about this. Something feels very wrong. I shut the door and lean against it. I lock the door, my instincts shouting at me. I dial Eric, but he doesn’t answer. Smith had to go to the bathroom. He took a bathroom break. I grab the coat Mia bought me and put it on. My gut is telling me to run and I don’t know why. If I open this door and he’s not out there, I’m listening to it. I’m leaving. I’ll hide. I’ll go to the Walker offices. I google their address and find the walk will be short. I have a plan. I’m probably being paranoid, but I can’t seem to
fight this need to escape.
I open the door again and this time I’m not alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Harper
“Eric,” I breathe out and any relief I feel is momentary as I take in the hard lines and shadows of his face. “What’s happening?”
Eric’s hands come down on my shoulders. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He backs me into the apartment and shuts the door.
He’s angry, really angry, which makes me angry. “Smith was missing. You weren’t answering your phone.”
“Smith was at the end of the hall talking to me. I didn’t answer because I was already here.”
“And I knew that how?” My fingers grip his jacket. “What is going on?”
“Where were you going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Because you’re not safe here with me?”
I blanch. “What? What are you talking about? What are you talking about?” I repeat.
His lashes lower, torment crossing his handsome features.
“Eric, talk to me.”
He lowers his forehead to mine. “I can’t lose you.”
His voice radiates with so much pain that I don’t know what’s happened, but I know it’s bad. He might have killed his father. I think he did. My hand goes to his face. “Is he dead?”
He pulls back to look at me, searching my gaze, his stare probing to the point that I swear he can see straight to my soul, and I hope, I pray, that he finds himself there. Because he is. He’s a part of me, all of me, in ways I didn’t know were possible. There are so many ways we’re bonded beyond time.