Page 154 of Nothing to Fear

“I’m sorry you’ve had to put up with this.”

“Put up with what?” Roxie smiled. “You’re my friend.”

Except she wasn’t. Not when this started. This had been foisted on her. How could Roxie be so patient? With all the money and charisma in the world, Roxie Kyst could write her own ticket.

She had to ask, “Why do you care?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you care about me?”

“I care about you because I am you, we’re all you. People come into our lives for a reason. You’re a good person. I like surrounding myself with good people.”

A commotion attracted their attention back to the street. When she saw Darroch out there, storming right past the cordon, pushing cops out the way—cops!

“What is he doing?” she asked and tried to head for the door.

With an arm around her, Roxie pulled her back. “Oh no, you’re not going out there.”

Darroch came up against a line of cops, forcing him back when the perp was his clear target.

“I can’t leave him out there with—”

Breaking from the others, Tripp and Ballard got hold of Darroch to drag him back.

“There you go, see,” Roxie said with a happy smile. “All’s well.”

They tossed the asshole into the back of a police van and the door was slammed. The press crowded in from the other side, and she lost sight of Darroch and the others in the crowd nearest the door.

For a beat, she just breathed. “Is it over?” she asked, appealing to Roxie after the words escaped. “It’s finished?”

“You’ll have to talk to the cops. They’ll want background.”

They’d find it in their own files, but she’d talk to them. “Then I can go home?”

“You can stay here as long as you want. Don’t rush right out—”

“I need to go home,” she said. “I need to just…”

“Get back to being you,” Roxie said, intuiting it. “I get it.”

Linking her fingers with Roxie’s, she cherished the woman’s understanding. “Will you stay with me? They’re going to ask all kinds of personal questions about—”

“No, they won’t,” Roxie said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Not while I’m there, and I won’t leave you for a second. This here is my house, baby.”

***

FOR HOURS, law enforcement questioned her. Roxie did as promised, sticking by her side the whole time. And her friend brought in a lawyer too, just in case. Imagine that. Having the ability to conjure a lawyer from thin air at a second’s notice.

Darroch probably had questions of his own to answer. What was he thinking of storming out there like that? How could anything good come from a confrontation with a crazy person? She’d object to the asshole seeing Darroch’s face, though she was sure he was responsible for the attack on Darroch too. Meant he’d seen Darroch’s face already. He’d seen all their faces.

With her essentials, she’d got in the car provided by Roxie and promised to call the following day. Roxie wanted her to call that night, but she just wasn’t sure she had it in her. So they’d settled on a text.

As promised, after crossing her threshold and ascending the stairs, she texted Roxie to say she was back home safe. The driver, who’d walked her all the way to her front door and checked out the apartment before she went inside, would tell Roxie that too. But a promise was a promise.

The place was so… foreign. Yes, it was hers, but had she stayed there long enough to really feel safe? Her head was such a mess.

She just stood there, taking it all in. When her phone rang in her hand, she jumped. Would it be Darroch or Roxie or—no. Yvette.

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