Page 141 of Valor

“Food.” I grin and hold up the bag as I close the distance between us. “It’s not pineapple pizza, but it’ll do the trick.”

He smiles in return, and the knot in my stomach loosens. “I’ll take anythingbutpineapple pizza. Come on in.” I start toward him, but he stops me. “Actually, why don’t we go into the break room.”

“Why?” Looking past him, I note the pictures on the board.

A hospital bed.

An IV pole.

My tossed apartment.

“It might be hard to see,” he says.

“I want to see it.” I hand him the bag and push forward as he closes the door behind us. After crossing his office, I stop just in front of the board and make myself stare up at the images printed and taped against the glass backdrop.

Beneath each one is a label.

Room where victim was held.

Drugs were administered via IV line.

Apartment ransacked. Items missing include toothbrush, hairbrush…

Stalker? Impersonator?

“You don’t deserve anything you have.”

It’s those last words I focus on.You don’t deserve anything you have.I can hear them saying it now, their voice disguised and robotic.

I force the anxiety merely reading those words causes back down.I’m not there. I’m safe.“I remembered something else when I got here,” I tell him, unable to tear my gaze away from the board.

“What?”

“Flowers,” I tell him. “It was strange, but I thought I smelled flowers one of the times they came into the room.”

“Flowers?” he asks, making a note on the board with a marker he grabbed from his desk. “Like perfume?”

“I don’t know. It could have been just my imagination too. I was pretty out of it.”

“It’s something,” he says. “And we’ll figure out what it means.”

Taking a deep breath, I turn away from the board. “Do you have any leads yet?”

“Not yet. We’re working on it though. I’m cross-referencing every single person who works at that hospital and going through all of their financial records.”

“Financial records?” Then it clicks. “Oh, in case someone took a payment.”

He leans back against his desk and crosses his arms. “Exactly. Right now, we can’t trace the equipment to a person. It was all stolen right after inventory was done, which means they had two weeks to return it before it was noticed. Given that they didn’t make any direct attempts at taking your life—something isn’t quite fitting.”

“Bradyn has one of these boards in his office,” I say, turning back toward it. “Same with Elliot—all of them honestly.”

“It’s handy to lay out all the pieces.”

I turn and start pulling out his food. “I bet.”

“Lani.”

“Huh?” I set his food on top of his desk, then pull out the silverware my mom packed too.

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