“I left my computer,” she said, pulling back to look at him. “All my case files are on it, all my work.”
He smoothed the hair back from her face. “We’ll worry about that later. This isn’t your fault.”
“He’s right,” the officer with the paunch said, coming up the steps. “Place is clear, but it’s a mess.”
“Can I…” Alexa gestured to the stairs. “Can I go down?”
The female officer nodded. “We’ll need you to look for things that have been stolen for the police report.”
She followed Nick and Alexa down the stairs, the dark-haired officer behind her.
Alexa hesitated on the threshold of the door. The apartment had been her sanctuary since she’d gotten the job at the AG’s office. It was small and not very impressive, the light only good first thing in the morning when it was strong enough to make its way in through the windows that were only half above ground, but the reasonable rent had allowed her to work on paying off her student loans and to stash a little in savings every month. It had been warm and safe, a place to hide away from the world.
“It’s okay,” Nick said, taking her hand.
She stepped over the threshold and inhaled sharply.The sofa was ruined, the angry slashes in its frame and cushion serving no purpose other than to destroy. Both of her bookshelves had been pulled to the ground, her beloved books spilled onto the floor, some of them open so that their spines were cracked, the pages bent and ripped.
Her plants had been overturned, the dirt spilling onto the hardwood, and a glance into the kitchen from the living room told her things were no better in there. Her dishes — many of them vintage or antique and painstakingly collected from thrift stores and flea markets — pulled out of the cabinet and thrown to the floor, the hardwood a sea of broken glass and porcelain.
Her pictures had been wiped from the tables, tossed onto the floor like trash, and her eyes went to the empty places where they’d once stood — the one of her parents on their wedding day on the side table next to the couch, the ones of her as a child on the console table.
But there was one picture that was still in its place — or the frame anyway.
The silver frame holding the picture of Samantha still sat on the side table, exactly where Alexa had left it, almost as if someone had left it there on purpose amid the destructive frenzy they’d wrought on the rest of the apartment.
The frame was there, but the picture of Samantha was gone.
11
The waitress set down the pot of hot water for Alexa’s tea. “Be right back with a refill on that coffee,” she said to Nick.
Nick nodded and looked around The Friendly Toast, remembering the morning Alexa had first brought him to the psychedelically-hued restaurant. The meeting had been pure coincidence — Nick out for a run, Alexa in the path of a runaway dog in Copley Square.
He’d watched the impending collision from afar, rushing over to help when she’d fallen to the pavement. He’d been secretly looking into the hit-and-run that had almost killed her ever since she’d visited the offices of MIS, but the morning in Copley Square had been the thing that had really done him in.
Her cheeks had been flushed, a wince pinching her features as he’d helped her to her feet. She’d quickly tucked away her pain, but he’d seen it, knew it was probably because of her leg, an injury she obviously didn’t want him to know about.
He’d insisted on buying her coffee, but she’d been the one to suggest The Friendly Toast, and they’d spent over an hour exchanging questions over breakfast, Alexa trying to find out more about MIS for the AG’s office while Nick had been entirely focused on learning about her.
“There you go,” the waitress said, filling Nick’s coffee cup. “Food’ll be up soon.”
Outside the windows fronting the street, the city was cast in soft gold light as the sun began to set behind the city’s buildings. It was dinner time, but they’d both ordered breakfast, as if that would somehow allow them to start the day over and pretend the last few hours hadn’t happened.
“Thanks,” Nick said. Alexa was pouring hot water into her mug. He waited for the waitress to be out of earshot. “You okay?”
She drew in a breath and nodded. “Shaken up, but I’ll be okay.”
He didn’t entirely believe her. Alexa was strong — stronger than anyone he knew — but she wasn’t invincible, however much she wanted everyone to think she was. She’d been through enough shit for three lifetimes already, but it was old shit, stuff she’d gotten used to.
The revelation that her case may have been closed ten years ago because Frederick Walker had paid off the investigators in charge — and maybe the people in charge above them — had been a hit to her understanding of a critical event in her life. Then there had been the man who tried to kill her in her apartment.
Now this.
It was enough to break most people.
He reached across the table for her hand. “It’s okay not to be okay, you know.”
She took the tea bag out of the mug and took a drink of her tea. He caught the shake of her hand but didn’t say anything.