Page 20 of Only the Devil
Her jaw slows mid-chew, like she’s envisioning the office. She swallows and takes a swig of water. “I didn’t look. I remember the vacant desk. No papers. Her desk chair pushed aside.”
“Don’t women sometimes store their pocketbook and that kind of thing in a file drawer?”
Daisy blinks and picks up a fry. “Yeah. That’s probably where it was.”
“Did you know her?”
Daisy shakes her head. “She wasn’t introduced to me.”
“I sent her name to Quinn. Or at least, the name on the office plaque. She’s looking into her.”
“You think?—”
Immediately, I throw up a hand. “No idea. Just standard practice.” I rap my knuckles against the table. “Why don’t you go up? Get a shower? I’ll let you know if I see lights across the way. We can say we live across the street, saw the lights and came over to see what’s up.”
An hour passes with no emergency lights across the street, no sirens, no sign that anyone’s discovered what we found. Which means that woman’s going to lie there all night. The thought bothers me more than it should. But what bothers me more is watching Daisy on the sofa, dark hair still damp from her shower, staring at her phone like it holds all the answers. She’s been too quiet. Too still. In my experience, that’s when the shock really starts to set in.
Something’s different about her face, and it takes me a moment to figure out what. The sharp edges are gone—whatever she normally does to make her eyes look so intense has been washed away. Without it, she looks younger. Vulnerable in a way that makes my chest tight.
The urge to pull her close, to somehow shield her from what she saw today, hits me harder than it should. This isn’t what I signed up for—protecting her if her investigation put her in danger, sure. But I can’t protect her from death. Not from the kind of images that stick in your head and replay when you’re trying to sleep.
“Why don’t you get some shut eye?”
She looks past me, or maybe through me, to the window beyond.
“I don’t think anything’s happening tonight.”
Wordlessly, she drops her headphones on the sofa and climbs the stairs. At the top of the stairs, she asks, “That sofa isn’t comfortable, is it?”
I’ve been here several days, and she’s yet to ask, but my momma taught me right, so all I say is, “It’s good.”
“You keep rubbing your shoulder.”
“Old injury.” It’s the truth. More than one injury, but it’s the shrapnel that really did it in.
“I’m… Would you do me a favor? Would you maybe sleep in the bedroom tonight? It’s a king bed. We don’t have to touch, it’s just?—”
“Not a problem.”
She’s frozen at the top of the stairs, watching me with an expression I can’t quite read. But I’ve seen that look before—on the faces of civilians caught in crossfire, people who’ve witnessed something their minds aren’t equipped to process. She’s not just scared. She’s questioning if she’s safe. If the world still makes sense. If she can trust me to keep the nightmares at bay.
I jump up from the sofa. “Let me turn off the lights and I’ll be up.”
Out of habit drilled into me since god knows when, I secure the perimeter. Double check the lock and deadbolt. Flick off the lights. When I’m back at the stairs, she’s still standing, watching.
Damn. She’s more shaken than I realized.
I climb the stairs two at a time and guide her into the bedroom, flicking on all the lights so I can go into the bathroom without her getting scared.
I’m not one to get messed up in the head about what I see. I’ve known others, though—good men—who didn’t compartmentalize so well. And she’s not a soldier. She’s not a cop. She’s a coder who set off on a personal mission to catch some scammers targeting the gullible and vulnerable. If she’s shaken, I don’t hold it against her.
Death doesn’t keep me awake. Fifteen years of military service beat that sensitivity out of me, mostly. But watching Daisy try to process what she saw today reminds me that not everyone’s wiring got rewired by combat. She’s brilliant with code, fearless when it comes to taking on shady crooks, but she’s never had to step over an innocent person to complete a mission. Never had to make peace with the fact that people die, sometimes for no good reason, sometimes right in front of you. The protective instinct that’s been simmering since we started this operation cranks up another notch. She shouldn’t have to carry this alone.
I crawl beneath the sheet, T-shirt and boxers on, my attempt to stay respectful.
I fall asleep somewhat easily, but I’m awoken by a cry. I’m not sure she’s awake, even though her eyes are open. I pull her into my arms and lie there awake until her muscles relax. The bedroom door’s open. If emergency lights filled the street outside, they’d reflect on the walls in the condo. But I drift asleep in the darkness.
Chapter 7
