Page 117 of Protecting Peyton

The detective motioned with his hand. “Go on.”

“The man looked up, and I saw his face.”

“He was facing you?”

“Yes. He had eyes of two different colors, one blue and one brown. I’ll never forget him.”

He wrote on his notepad. “The two colors we were talking about searching for with the computer geek,” O’Connor confirmed.

“With Jordy. Yes.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing. I waved back to Cassie, but I didn’t want to intrude on her dinner. The man looked down at his food, and then away. They brought my order to the register, and I left. That was it.”

He relaxed back in his chair. “That was Wednesday the eleventh?”

I would never forget the date. “Yes.”

From there, he took notes as I went through my visit to Cassie’s apartment after she didn’t show up for work, the flowers and note I found there, and then the note and flowers I received. “I was sure he’d gotten my name from Cassie before he killed her, and I was clearly his next target. So I left town.” I took a breath. This next part I hadn’t spoken about to anyone. “He caught me in Atlanta, but I got away,” I began. “He’d learned my name and followed me, even knew where I lived. I had to leave everything again and hop on a bus.”

O’Connor waved a hand. “Never mind.” He shut off the recorder. “My jurisdiction doesn’t extend to there.”

For a moment, it hurt to have him not interested in the danger I’d been subjected to by this monster, or what had happened to poor Olivia. But the feeling subsided once I processed his words.

The detective wanted to catch her killer, but he had boundaries the Strangler didn’t have to obey. It wasn’t O’Connor’s fault that the system was unfair that way.

“Wait a moment,” he added, pausing as he checked over his notes. “You said you had to leave everything. Did you carry enough money on you to just leave like that?”

“I had a stash that wasn’t at my apartment.” I pulled out my mailbox key. “I rent a box at a mailbox store that offers twenty-four-hour access.”

“Very clever.”

I smiled. I thought so.

The detective asked a few more follow-up questions, and that was that. I had finally given the Boston Police everything I knew about Cassie’s murder.

CHAPTER 28

Peyton

After my interview,the detective left to locate a hotel and get some sleep.

Most of the Hawk team had gone out to spots around the city to wait for Jordy’s AI program, which he called Adeline, to locate my pursuer. So, I was here at the duplex with the geek Hawk brother, Jordy, and Grace’s brother, Pete Brennan, who had positioned himself in the front room.

Pulling the fridge open for the tenth time, I decided on an apple. After selecting a nice-looking one, I sliced it on a small plate. “Hey, I’m cutting up an apple,” I called to the guys. “Would you like some?” It was worth a try.

“No thanks,” came the answer from Jordy, though Pete accepted.

After delivering an apple to Pete, I popped a slice of mine into my mouth. I enjoyed the crunchiness as I opened my phone to disappointment. Still no message from Zane.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Just because he’d rocked my world this morning didn’t mean I had any right to expect regular text messages from him. But I did miss him. How crazy was that? My fingers itched to send him a message, so I typed one out.

ME: I miss you.

Then I deleted it for being too clingy. Clingy wasn’t a good look for me. I tried something different.

ME: Apples are healthy. Why won’t Jordy eat one?