Page 23 of Reckless
We reach the door, and I knock hard three times.
No answer.
I wait a few minutes and then knock again. This time, I press my ear to the door to listen for movement inside. Hearing none, I try the doorknob. It turns easily, and I signal for Phoebe to follow close behind and hope she listens.
I step inside and find complete darkness.
It presses around me like a shallow grave.
Whatever waits here for us is giving me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Phoebe presses close enough to shut the door, closing us in.
Chapter Eleven
Phoebe
I try to control my rapid breathing because it’s so loud, but it’s pointless. Adrenaline floods my system. My heart beats so hard I can hear it.
Griffin moves deeper into the gloom, or at least I think he does. After a few steps, I can’t see him anymore, but I can hear the whisper of his clothing and the soft tap signaling each footstep. If I weren’t paying such close attention, I wouldn’t know he’s there at all. I try to mimic his movements while my brain screams about how we just committed a crime. How I shouldn’t be here.
I close off those thoughts and try to focus. What we’re doing is wrong, but it may lead to answers. I refuse to let someone derail my life ever again, and if that means breaking a few rules, then so be it. If there are consequences, I’ll face them.
The scent of stale air and rotting food is strong. It seeps into the back of my throat and nose as we venture deeper inside, and I choke back the bile threatening to make me gag. We clear the living room and kitchen and enter a short hallway that leads to a small bathroom, which smells even worse than the living room. Then we enter the bedroom.
After a quick search, Griffin lowers his gun and flicks on the lights. I wince at the change in brightness and holster my Glock. “What is it?”
“No one’s home. We’ll take a look around and see if we can find a real name on something or even the computer they used. Stay where I can see you. I have a bad feeling about this place.”
I would worry about his mental state if this place didn’t give him a bad feeling, but I bite my tongue and nod.
It’ll be a miracle if we find anything. The floors are littered with trash and papers, and God only knows what else. I pick my way through the maze of takeout boxes, old soda bottles, and dirty clothes to a desk in the corner of the room. There isn’t a computer, but there are bills and paperwork. Most are in the name Smith Johnson, like the name on the IP address.
This place is so dirty it would have taken more than a couple of weeks alone to accumulate the trash on the floor. They were here, using a fake name long before I got to California. So there must be some other reason they’re targeting me. Some way that I provoked them.
As I sift through the papers on the desk and then in the nightstand by the bare, stained mattress, a sense of desperation builds inside me. My hands are damp with a cold sweat, and my knees are loose and weak. We have to find something, anything. We have to.
I’m so distracted, so obsessed with finding a clue, any clue, that I don’t hear the footsteps coming up behind me until a hand clamps down over my mouth. A shriek rips from my throat before I catch the scent of the man behind me. Griffin.
“Be quiet,” he whispers harshly. “Someone’s here.”
Carefully, so as not to make a sound, he guides me back across the room, shutting off the light as we go. Somehow, and I don’t know how because my eyes are still adjusting to the darkness, he makes it to the small closet and shuts us inside.
Seconds later, heavy footsteps signal someone coming into the bedroom. Griffin’s arms are a vise around me and guide me deeper into the closet. He carefully arranges clothes in front of us, blocking us from view if whoever is out there decides to look inside. It doesn’t cover us completely, I imagine, but it’ll have to do.
A television turns on somewhere in the apartment, followed by muffled footsteps. Furniture squeaks in the bedroom, and the footsteps stop. A game show, it sounds like, begins to blare just outside the closet door. Minutes later, the scent of pot smoke filters into the closet, tickling my nose. I resist the urge to cough, causing my body to tense against Griffin’s.
He must feel my struggle because he turns and pulls me close to him. Even though I still can’t see him, I know he opens his jacket and presses my face against his chest. The woodsy, honey scent of whatever aphrodisiac he uses for cologne smothers the scent of weed, and the scratchy feeling in the back of my throat begins to abate.
I find that my arms are wrapped around him, but I’m not sure when that happened, and I don’t move to drop them. He anchors me to his body, rubbing his hands up and down my back to soothe me. I should be focused on the person in the bedroom, the one who almost caught us, but Griffin makes me feel safe despite the threat on the other side of the doors.
Minutes pass, maybe a half-hour? My legs begin to cramp and shake from holding themselves so stiffly in one position for so long. Griffin’s stroking hands have stilled as he cocks one ear to the bedroom to listen for sounds of movement.
He leans close to me, and the side of his cheek brushes mine as his mouth reaches my ear. I can’t stop the resulting shiver or the goosebumps that pop out along my arms. The sound of his whisper fills my ear.
“I’m going to go out there and see if I can catch him before he leaves. You wait here. I mean it.”
My hands clutch at his jacket. “No, you can’t. It’s too dangerous.”