turn.
“Where can I park?”
She swallowed another surge of nerves. “Guest spaces are at the end of the back row. We’ll have to give your name and plate number to the doorman.” And how many days he planned to stay.
“No problem.” He parked in the designated spot and cut the engine.
It felt like a problem to her. She could already hear the teasing remarks from Mr. Capello when he heard the boyfriend excuse. Her doorman was warm and helpful, and forever encouraging her to live a little.
It’s temporary. She repeated the words in her mind as she reached for the car door handle.
“Hang on a second,” Mitch said, laying a hand gently on her arm. “The guy came at me, all right? At best, the man’s negligence nearly killed his little girl. Kitchen fire got out of control. He, the dad...um.” He took a deep breath. “We heard her. Still not sure how. Managed to get her out. Saved that whole row of houses, by the way,” he added. “Not that he gave a damn about that.” Mitch closed his eyes a moment. “She was so thin. No weight to her at all. The paramedics took her out of my arms and started working on her.” Opening his eyes, he stared at his hands as if reliving it. “When I asked the father why his kid had been locked in a closet, he came at me, fists flying. Trying to shut me up, I guess.”
She was almost sorry she’d asked. “The father threw the first punch?”
Mitch lifted his gaze to hers, his jaw tight with the recollection. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.” Character made all the difference. With her lousy track record with first impressions and reading people, she preferred to have things spelled out clearly. She preferred the evidence of actions over all the right words.
“He threw the first punch,” Mitch confirmed. “My union rep says witness videos support my account that I defended myself until they hauled him off me. He was older—it wouldn’t have been right to flatten him. It was a shock to me and everyone on my shift when he filed the complaint.”
“Thanks,” she said, satisfied. In the awkward silence, she patted his hand. Grabbing her purse, she climbed out of the low-slung car before he could come around and open her door.
She picked up her mail and somehow survived the wink and waggling eyebrows of the doorman while they filled out the information for Mitch’s car.
In the elevator, Mitch laughed over the encounter and Julia tried to join him, though she wasn’t feeling it. Another shiver of fear or awareness or some troubling combination of the two swept over her as she opened her apartment door and invited Mitch inside. Without a word, he closed the door and secured both dead bolt locks, while she punched in her code on the security system panel.
In this neighborhood, she couldn’t afford a big place, and living alone, working long hours, anything more than this tidy efficiency would’ve been a waste of money. Unfortunately, just as she’d thought, Mitch’s presence filled the small space to bursting and he’d barely stepped inside. He couldn’t possibly stay here with her—they’d run out of oxygen by morning.
“Go ahead and look around.” She forced out the words. No one was here, waiting to spring an attack. “We’d only trip over each other if I gave you a guided tour.”
The kitchen to the right and the living area in front of them were self-explanatory anyway. In three strides, he peered around the canvas privacy screen she used to designate her bedroom. Printed with Monet’s water lily pond, she suddenly felt overexposed, as if he could see straight through to those last secret soft spots she kept hidden from the rest of the world.
Ignoring what would be a swift orientation, out of habit she dropped her purse and keys on the chair, along with the mail. When she realized that the only space left for them to sit together was the love seat, she changed her mind and moved things to the table snugged under the kitchen pass-through. She’d have to clear that by morning to make room for him to eat breakfast.
The last time she’d had a roommate was during her undergrad years. She’d skimped and scraped through law school without having to share her space. Did he expect her to cook for them? Should she come up with a schedule so they weren’t tripping over each other?
A small, square note card envelope dropped to the floor, distracting her. White, no postmark, only her first name typed in all caps as an address, it stood out against the nearly black hardwood floors. “It’s nothing bad,” she murmured to herself. Could be any number of happy things, she thought, willing it to be true as she crouched down to pick up the envelope.
“All clear,” Mitch said. “Nice place. Saw your windows are wired into the system, too. Smart.”
“Thanks.” Julia stood up and faced him, smiling as she hid the envelope behind her back. If he knew what she’d found, he’d stay. If he stayed, she’d never get any rest. Twenty-four/seven or not, she needed him to go, to let her have some peace for what was left of the night.
“What’s that?” He raised his chin as if he could see right through her midsection to the envelope fluttering in her shaky hand.
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“And I’m sure that particular ‘nothing’ has scared you.” He held out his hand, flicked his fingers to encourage her to hand it over. “You’re white as a sheet.”
Or white as an envelope, she thought with a flash of gallows humor. “You want to open it, go ahead.” She held out the envelope but didn’t let go when his fingers closed over it. “It’s addressed to me.” She showed him. “Just my name.”
With a shrug, he tucked his hands into his coat pockets. “Any idea who sent it?”
She clamped her lips shut when her teeth wanted to chatter. “Probably a neighbor.”
“So open it already and find out.”
“Fine.” She slid her thumb under the flap and pulled out the enclosure. The paper shook like an autumn leaf in a gale as she read the short list of names followed by another terse message: “Stay on the case, Julia. Cooperate with me or I’ll drop these bodies on your doorstep.”
Her knees buckled and she pitched forward. Mitch caught her, guiding her to the chair. “Here.” She shoved the horrid note into his chest. “Take it.”
She couldn’t bear to hold it anymore, couldn’t bear the implications. She’d only entertained the thought of taking herself off the case for a few brief seconds this afternoon. Why was he doing this? Threatening her career, ruining her credit and credibility was bad enough. Threatening her best friend, her mother and her brother upped the ante.
“It’s a bluff,” she murmured. It had to be a bluff. “He’s making a point that he knows where I live.” As if she might be too stupid to put that together from the pictures and messages he’d sent her earlier.
A thick fog of dread blurred everything around her. She waited for anger to burn through it, waited in vain as her heart raced and tremors racked her body.
Mitch dropped his coat over her shoulders, gave them a brisk rub. Enveloped in his warmth and the spicy scent of his cologne, it was hard to remember she didn’t like being touched. Hearing him moving through her kitchen, she couldn’t work up the least irritation with him or her
