Zachary could see from the end of the hall that there was something taped to his door. His stomach tightened. A notice from the landlord that his rent was going up or they’d had to access his apartment because of a burst pipe? A neighbor who had some complaint about him? He drew up to the door and looked at it.
Drop the investigation.
He stared at the note.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been told to back out of a case, but it was usually face-to-face with a lover who had caught on to his surveillance and was furious about it. A couple of times by the police, who felt like he was interfering with one of their cases with an accident reconstruction or interviews with the victims. A note on his door; that was a first.
Zachary tried the handle and found, to his relief, that it was still locked. He had envisioned the scene from a bad TV drama; finding the door unlocked and walking into his apartment to find that it had been tossed, maybe a dead body left in the bathtub or something equally sinister.
He unlocked the door and opened it slowly. It was dark. He turned on the light and scanned the room. He realized he had still been expecting it to be a mess. He was still expecting threats and a body or frame. But the room appeared just as he had left it. A little messy, but nothing seemed to have been touched.
Still, Zachary was nervous as he checked each of the other rooms. Including the bathtub. No body. No planted cocaine. No lipsticked threats on the mirror. No dead rat or horse’s head in the bed. His heart thudded. He knew he was letting his imagination get the better of him. It was just a note. There were no threats, no profanity; no letters clipped out of a magazine to form the words.
He went back to lock and bolt the apartment door before searching the fridge for something to eat.
Chapter Eight
Zachary slept restlessly. He woke up several times during the night, listening to the noises of his apartment and the surrounding apartments, worried there was someone there.
But even if the person who had left the note were someone who would consider harming him, they would at least have to wait until the next day to see whether he had dropped the case; whichever case it was. He was irritated that they hadn’t said which case he was supposed to drop. Did they think that he only had one case at a time? At least the previous threats had been made in person, so he knew which case they were talking about. It was incredibly annoying to be warned off without knowing what he was being warned off of.
Of course, there had been no threat. Only an instruction. That in itself left him feeling unsettled. Drop the investigation—or what? A threat to his life? To his welfare? Perhaps to the case itself? Or maybe nothing would happen. Maybe the most that the note writer could bring himself to do was to leave the note, and that would be it.
The next morning, Zachary downed two cups of coffee before leaving the apartment. Not something that he would usually do before going on surveillance. He would end up having to make a rest stop by midmorning. He didn’t know how long he was going to have to wait before he got his opportunity. Maybe it would be quick.
The familiar yellow VW was parked outside the coffee shop, where he expected it to be, but he didn’t dare get out and approach it yet. She would spend only a few minutes inside, depending on how long the line-up was. Then she’d be back out with her to-go mug, heading to work or wherever else she had to go. He found a parking space down the block and watched for her.
It was ten minutes before he saw her blond head bob out of the door, and disappear as she got into the car. He shifted into drive and waited for her to pull out. He envisioned her taking a small sip of her hot coffee and then settling it into the cup holder. Maybe changing the station on the radio before she headed out. Buckling her seatbelt. Turning the key in the ignition. Finally, she was pulling out into traffic.
Zachary let a couple of cars pass him before pulling out, putting a cushion between them so she wouldn’t spot him.
She didn’t go to work, but made an unexpected turn on Main. Zachary followed, lagging behind as much as possible. He didn’t know where she was going until she pulled up to the big, square, brick building. The doctor’s office.
It was perfect. She would be gone for a long time. There would be no danger of her walking back out and catching him in the act. Even after she went in, he waited another ten minutes to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything in the car.
As he worked, he thought about Kenzie. She had said that she had a medical appointment. That was why she had taken the day off and met with him for lunch. Was she sick? Of course, it could just be an annual physical. Or an eye check-up or dental visit. It could be a hundred innocuous little things.
After looking around the parking lot for surveillance cameras or anyone watching, Zachary felt under the bumper of the car, looking for a good place.
He hated the thought that Kenzie could be sick. She looked well enough. Pretty and in the peak of health. But then, so had Bridget. Neither of them would have guessed that there was anything wrong. She’d had no symptoms. No weight loss or pallor. She
