Page 70 of Liar's Point

“I’m not. I took it with my phone.” He handed her a plate with a slice of pizza on it. “Here.”

“What’s this for?”

“You look hungry.”

He walked over to the couch and sat down in front of the basketball game. The Rockets were up two on the Lakers in Los Angeles.

Nicole shrugged off her windbreaker and draped it over the sofa. Then she set her plate on the coffee table and took the seat right beside him. It was either that or drag a bar stool over from the kitchen.

“So, what’s the update?” He folded his pizza in half and took a bite.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you—” She touched his arm. “I talked to Chris Wakefield tonight, and I was right about him.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she told him this.

“The runner in black.”

“Yeah.” She plucked a bite of sausage from her slice and popped it into her mouth. “He came by the station.”

“When?”

“Tonight around nine? Turns out, he wasn’t running on the beach at Lighthouse Point Saturday evening at six. That was his cover story for his wife. He was busy getting his Valentine from some other woman.”

Emmet shook his head. “Sounds like you called it.”

“I know.” She sighed, and the light in her eyes dimmed. “But that wasn’t what I came by to tell you.”

He waited, watching as she made a pile of black olives on the side of her plate.

“So, I tracked down the superintendent of the building,” she said. “This guy put me in touch with the property manager who told me that unit 149 is a sublet. An unauthorized sublet.”

“The landlord wasn’t aware of it?”

“Yeah, he’s never heard of Samuel Pacheco.” She took a bite of pizza, then licked sauce off the corner of her mouth. “But he gave me the name that’s on the lease, so in the morning I can reach out to her and see if she knows where her tenant went after he vacated. I’m hoping she got a security deposit from him, so maybe he gave her a forwarding address to send a check.”

“Nice work,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Emmet finished off his slice in two more bites, then offered her his glass of water.

“I’m good,” she said, focusing on the pizza she’d said she didn’t want. She had worked even later than he had today, and he felt a twinge of guilt—along with something else he didn’t want to put a label on.

“You know, I was thinking about what you said.” He set his empty plate on the table and looked her in the eye. “Sorry I got pissed earlier. You’re right—if it had been Owen I wouldn’t have reacted the same.”

She nodded. “I know that.”

“The thing is, you weigh—what?—a buck ten?”

“Um, no.”

“Well, whatever. I didn’t want you confronting some potentially violent asshole who’s probably been sitting around all night drinking.”

She set her plate on the table and slid a look at him. “You know, I did, in fact, attend the same police academy as you. And I did, in fact, learn how to handle potentially violent assholes like everyone else did.”

“Hey, I’m apologizing.”

“I accept.” She thrust her chin out, though, and he knew she was still ticked off.

He got up to get another slice of pizza. “Want more?”

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