Page 56 of Crossing Paths
“Pretty much.” The moment of levity, even as short as it was, relaxed her enough to continue. “I remembered Dash showing me how to move in closer if someone grabs me rather than pulling back—”
A pained sound from Molly interrupted her retelling.
Norah eyed her sister uncertainly. “Should I go on or…”
“Just let me finish mentally dismembering someone,” Molly muttered.
Norah met Cara’s raised-eyebrow look with one of her own.
After a final deep, audible breath, Molly dropped her hands and stood straight, shaking her hair back over her shoulders. “Okay, I’m good now. Please continue.”
“Uh…okay.” Despite her sister’s reassurance, Norah gave Molly a careful look before picking up her story where she’d left off. “So I elbowed the guy and then stomped his foot, which didn’t do much since I was barefoot and he wasn’t—”
This time, Cara was the one who interrupted. “I thought we agreed after I was kidnapped in my socks that we’d wear shoes all the time except in bed?”
“I didn’t want to wear shoes in Dash’s apartment. It was really clean, and that would’ve been rude.” Ithadbeen clean. Norah didn’t want to think about the state of it now.
“Why didn’t you put them on when you left?” Cara asked.
She seemed a bit stuck on the shoe thing, but Norah understood. If she’d been forced to run sock-footed from her kidnappers in a semiarid high-plains landscape with rocks and cacti and other sharp things, Norah would probably have a shoe-wearing obsession too.
“It was dark.” She didn’t want to go into any more detail about the heavy smoke that stung her eyes and made seeing even the doorway impossible, much less her flats. “I didn’t want to stay in a burning apartment hunting for them.”
“Good point,” Molly said, seeming to be fully recovered from her earlier mental murder spree. “I think escaping the burning building had priority in this situation.”
“Fine.” Cara gave a grudging nod. “But next time, just wipe your feet really well before you go into someone’s house rather than taking off your shoes.”
Norah hesitated, not sure she could make that promise, and Molly waved her arms in an exaggeratedmove onmotion.
“Okay, so I pulled the person’s head down and kneed them in the face.” Viscerally remembering how that had felt, Norah gave a little shudder. “They let go, so I ran down to the gym and met Dash at the outside door.” She didn’t want to say anything about how he’d held her or how she’d felt safer than she’d ever experienced before, so she quickly skipped ahead. “We went outside, and the police and fire department arrived soon after. I didn’t recognize the cops, but they seemed halfway decent. Better than Detective Mill at least. I think they would’ve arrested whoever it was if they’d caught them throwing bottle bombs.”
“How low our law-enforcement standards have fallen,” Molly said mournfully before refocusing on the events Norah had just laid out. “So you didn’t get a glimpse of who was responsible?”
“No.” Norah felt a pang of guilt for that. “Not even the stairway person. It was so dark that I was barely able to tell thepolice an approximate height and build—oh, and the texture and length of his hair when I grabbed it.”
“Plus he’ll have a broken nose or fat lip,” Molly added, and Norah felt that same spurt of pride for successfully taking on an opponent. “Or a black eye, depending on where your knee landed.”
“It has to have been Zach and his buddies, right?” Cara asked. She’d pulled her laptop toward her and was frantically typing what Norah assumed were notes. “He’s got to be holding a pretty big grudge after being knocked out, dragged over to Mr. P’s house, and arrested.”
“That would explain why Dash was targeted.” Moving so she could see the screen over Cara’s shoulder, Molly tugged her bottom lip as she read what Cara was typing.
“The person on the stairs was too small to have been Zach.” Norah paused, hesitating to say anything, since it seemed a little egotistical to think that everything was targeted at her, but she knew there was a chance it hadn’t been Zach after all. “What about Leifsen? He left that note in my pocket when he saw me and Dash together at Dutch’s.” She left out the dancing part of that story, since Molly and Cara appeared to have recovered enough from their worry to resume their usual teasing. “And we still don’t know who left that pen from Dash’s gym on my bed.”
“Hmm…” Molly moved her gaze from the computer screen to Norah’s face. “Good point. Do you think they’re working together?”
“Um…” Although she hated the pressure of putting forth theories that might be entirely and ridiculously wrong, shepreened a little at being asked her opinion. She’d always been part of the business, but that part had—until very recently—been in the background. That had been where she’d wanted to be, so she didn’t have any resentment toward her sisters about that, but now it seemed like a whole new path was opening up to her. “Maybe? I can search for any connections.”
“Leifsen was arrested for deactivating security systems for a burglary ring,” Cara said, her voice sounding distracted as she spoke and typed at the same time. “That might be a good place to start searching for a link between those two.”
“Good idea.” Molly gave a nod. “Let’s come up with a list of Zach’s usual accomplices and try to get a glimpse of each of them before the bruises fade. We need to see whose face is messed up.”
Norah felt another little pleased glow, this time because she might’ve left evidence behind, a trail they could follow.
“Did you feel anything break?” Molly asked. “Nose? Maybe knock some teeth loose or out?”
“Maybe?” Norah ran the knee strike through her mind again, ignoring the squelch of distaste at the memory. “I think I hit their nose, not their mouth, and I thought I heard a crack.”
“Doctors then.” Cara’s typing turned to tapping on the touch pad. “ENTs or plastic surgeons, do you think? Maybe ERs?”
