“Hey,” I say sharply, nodding at her bag.

  She jumps at the edge in my tone and doesn’t move.

  “You carrying?” I demand. “Anything in there I should be worried about?”

  Her shoulders release like tightly wound springs. “Oh God, no. No, sorry. I don’t have a gun. Nothing in here like that.” She holds up a small fabric pouch. “Needle and thread, some fabric. One pair of really sharp scissors. I’m an artist. Textiles.”

  I nod for her to continue since I don’t think this Annie Hancock is here to exact revenge on behalf of one of my former clients. I watch her body language as she pulls a glossy blue folder from her backpack.

  “About two months ago, my dad told me he’d pulled some strings and had gotten me into Mid-Florida College of Fine Arts. That was super weird. Dad has always wanted me to follow in his footsteps and work with him.”

  “And what’s your father’s line of work again?” I ask.

  “Lawyer,” she says. “So, what’s weird is that the application period closed months ago. To get into the masters’ program, you have to put together a portfolio of work, complete a personal statement, and get letters of recommendation. I didn’t do any of that.”

  That is odd. “Your old man do all that for you? Maybe as a surprise from Daddy?”

  “I’m not some spoiled rich kid, Mr. Arrow,” she says, the first real grit I’ve heard in her voice. “My father’s a real estate attorney. We’re not rolling in money. Far from it.”

  “But you think he bought your way into grad school? Is that what you’re implying?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t really know. I did have to go through the steps and complete my application, but it was all very late. I got a conditional acceptance letter before I even applied.”

  “So, you did apply, then?” Something here just ain’t adding up. The kid wanted to go to art school, and her dad decided to send her. Sounds simple enough. “Maybe he had a change of heart. A recent health scare. He realized life’s too short to force your kid to be a lawyer when she really wants to do…” I already forgot what kind of art she said she does, but she reminds me.

  “Textile art.” She sniffs lightly and shakes her head. “I wish that were the case,” she says. “But I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have worried about it and would’ve just thrown myself into the opportunity, but then this happened…”

  She slides the glossy blue folder, the kind I used in high school to keep my homework from wrinkling, across the desk to me.

  “These letters…” she starts, but then her voice catches. “I thought they were maybe just a mean joke. Maybe someone at school found out I got in around the normal channels and was pranking me. Until this last one.”

  I open the folder and see several notes handwritten on lined paper tucked into the pockets. “Have you shown these to anyone else?” I ask. “Your father? Any campus security people or anything?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t want my father to pull me out of school,” she admits. “And I’m afraid if I involve campus security, they’ll call my father.”

  That all sounds reasonable enough if she’s getting shitty notes delivered to her. But if she’s really worried about her safety, I can’t understand why she wouldn’t alert anybody and everybody who might be able to sort this out. Her father, the school. The police, if it’s serious enough.

  “Has anyone else touched these?” I ask. “Just you?”

  She looks confused but nods.

  “I’m going to grab a pair of gloves. If these ever need to be examined for fingerprints, I’d rather not leave mine behind or destroy what might still be there.”

  “Oh God.” She pales and watches me as I get up and walk into my office to retrieve a standard pair of latex gloves from a supply cabinet. “Do you think it’s that serious, Mr. Arrow? I’ve read and reread these like dozens of times. I’ve touched them so much that I can’t imagine anyone else’s prints are on them.”

  “Call me Josh,” I say, sliding on the gloves. “Let’s leave that to the experts when and if it goes there. For now, I’m just going to be cautious.”

  I suppress a groan when I see she hasn’t just read them tons of times, she’s used a Sharpie and labeled each note with a date and time. All except one.

  “This,” I say, pointing to the bright-red Sharpie ink. “This is you?”

  She nods. “The date and time I found each note. Except the last one. That one came this morning.”

  I carefully open each note and read them in order.

  And after I read the last one, I’m absolutely certain what this woman needs is more than just a strip mall PI. She needs to go to the police.

  3

  ANNIE

  “The police?” My heart rate spikes as I repeat the words the private investigator said. “You think this is serious? Do you think I’m really in danger? I was hoping this was just, like, a weird joke.”

  I start looking frantically around the office for a bathroom. I need to cool off. I feel sick. I need to splash my face, or I’m liable to lose the contents of my stomach. I can’t believe this. I might really be in some kind of danger?

  “Annie.” His voice is kind as he comes around the desk with a worried look on his face. “First of all, I want you to calm down, okay? I want you to take a deep breath and focus with me. You’re safe. I want you to remember that. I’m going to keep you safe.”

  I grab the bottle of water and take another sip. The other private investigators were exactly what I expected. Old. Grizzled. A little creepy. They all just wanted money up front and didn’t even listen to what was going on.

  Josh is different.

  He hasn’t asked me for a dime, and already, he’s told me more times than anyone ever has that I’m safe. I want so desperately to believe him.

  “I need you to do something for me,” he says, peeling the latex gloves off from the wrist and then dumping them in the little trash bin beside the desk. Then he goes back to his chair and sits. “Annie?”

  I nod and stare into his eyes, waiting for instructions.

  He leans forward and puts both hands, palms down, flat on the desk. “Just take a second and take a deep breath in, okay?”

  I watch his calm face; the steadiness in his palms seems to ground me in the moment. I relax my hands and take a deep breath.

  He gives me a real smile then. Not the professional, distant smile of a man who might just send me out the door when he learns I can’t afford a massive retainer. The reassurance on his face feels sincere. Like it’s meant just for me.

  “A little better?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yes, thank you.”

  “All right. If you feel ready, I want you to tell me everything you can about these notes. How were they delivered? Was there anything unusual that happened right before you started receiving them? Who else knows about them? I’m going to take notes, but I’m paying attention to every detail, so try to remember anything that might be important, even if you’re not sure.” He holds up those strong hands as if warning me to slow down before I even get started. “But if you need a minute, it’s fine. Take all the time you need.”

  I can’t get over the fact that I’m not paying this guy for his time and yet he’s doing the actual opposite of rushing me. Maybe I’ve been around lawyers too long. They bill for every microsecond of their time, and I guess when you’ve spent tens of thousands or more on your education and many more years perfecting your expertise, then you should charge for your time. But again, Josh isn’t like anyone else I’ve known.

  I inhale and catch the softest hint of what I think is Josh’s cologne. He seems young for a private investigator. He’s got longish brown hair that is parted on one side and sort of swoops over his right eye. As far as I can see, he’s got nice brown eyes, and his beard is trimmed. I want to know how scratchy or smooth it is. The feeling seems totally inappropriate given the circumstances, but I’ve never been in this situation before.

  My instincts feel all out of whack. Thinking the investigator guy is hot is a lot better than thinking he’s creepy. When he catches me staring at him, another smile lightens the seriousness of his expression, and I smile back. Warmth spreads through my belly, and I start to feel calmer.

  “You good?” he asks.

  I nod, and I mean it. I am better.

  So, I tell this handsome stranger exactly how I found the notes—each one slipped under the door of my private studio at school. He asks a bunch of questions—who has keys to the studio, is my schedule the same every day, have I ever seen anyone who might be leaving the notes. I answer them all, including telling him that I somehow misplaced my keys and that my thesis adviser returned them this morning.

  “But that was just today, right? That was after all this started?” he asks.

  I nod. “Sorry, I thought you wanted to know every detail.”

  He holds up a hand. “I do. I wasn’t being critical. Just trying to put together an accurate timeline. If your keys were lost before the notes started, that would lead me in a different direction than if you’d lost them after. No worries.” Then he starts to go deeper. “Let’s start with the first note,” he says, nodding at it. He’s left each one open so we can go over the contents while making minimal contact with each one. “When you read it, what did your gut tell you? Did you have any clue who would send it?”

  I look over the words scrawled on the papers and read them again one by one.

  “This is your fault.”

  “You’ve ruined everything.”

  “You thought I’d never find out what you did.”

  “You owe me.”

  I sit back in the chair and sigh. “I have no idea what any of these mean. When I got the first one, I’d sort of hoped it was some kind of mistake. But my name is on the outside of every note. Whoever left them meant the messages for me.”

  I watch as Josh scribbles on his notepad, and I notice for the first time he has the most colorful tattoos along his right forearm. I’m staring at the ink, trying to make out the designs, when he taps a long finger against the desk.

  “It’s obvious whoever sent these thinks you’ve taken something that this writer believes you’re not entitled to.” He squints at me and shakes his head. “Did you steal somebody’s boyfriend or girlfriend? Could someone be pissed that you took their spot in the grad program?”

  “No boyfriend or girlfriend,” I say, hugging my arms close to my chest. I suddenly feel the chill from the window air conditioning unit, and I’m so, so cold. “I’m single. Haven’t even dated anyone in over a year.” It seems like a relevant bit of information, but I feel like the PI swallows a little bit loudly when I share that. “And it occurred to me that maybe somebody did have some grudge against me for getting into the program late, but who? I mean, if someone wanted a spot but didn’t get into the program, how would they even be on campus to leave me notes?”

  Josh shrugs. “Maybe it’s someone who works on campus? Wasn’t good enough to get in?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, it could be anyone talking about anything. It could be someone pissed I stole a parking spot, for all I know. I mean…” I drop my face into my hands and sigh. “That’s why I hardly took them that seriously. I mean, I did. They’re creepy and stalkerish, but I figured it could be a pointless prank or mistaken identity. Anything. Until the last one.”

  He nods. “That’s the one that’s got me worried. The writer is clearly escalating.” He’s quiet for a moment, and he taps the end of his pen against his full lips. “They didn’t ask for anything from you until now. I wonder why…”

  He looks me in the eye then, and my tummy does a little flip. I wonder what kind of people he works with every day. He can look scary, tough, and aggressive when he gets that interrogational look on his face. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of his pointed questions.

  “Annie, you said your father’s not made of money. What about you? Your mom? This person seems to think you have something that you’re not entitled to. Can you think of anything they might be after?”

  I meet his gaze, but my shoulders sink. “My mom passed away when I was six. Cancer.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, filling the momentary silence between us.

  I manage a half smile. “Thank you. It was a long time ago, but it never really stops hurting, you know? Mom was misdiagnosed. She had been complaining of stomach pains for a couple of days. She went to the doctor and got checked out, even went to the ER. The doctors took a scan, but they said she probably had a ruptured ovarian cyst that would heal. They told her to stay in bed for a few days, get some rest, and check back with them in two weeks if the pain didn’t improve.”

  “Can you share any more?” Josh’s voice is gentle. I can only imagine how much tragic and painful information he’s had to pull out of people in this exact chair. Well, maybe in the chair in his office, but still. I look up at him and there’s a softness in his eyes. He looks like he’s hurting with me. That compassion gives me strength.

  “Yeah,” I say, meeting his crystal blue eyes. “She had a ruptured cyst but not the common kind they thought. It was a rare endometriotic tumor. A tumor on her ovary had ruptured. By the time Dad realized how sick she was, she had developed sepsis, and we lost her.”

  The room is quiet, only the gentle whirr of the motor on the window unit between us. I can feel the strong, cold air blowing the loose hairs across my neck and face.

  “Annie, I’m sorry to ask, but was there a lawsuit?” Josh is looking at me, the pen he’s holding gripped in a tight hand. Somehow, I feel like he’s angry for me, and that makes me feel even more trusting toward him.

  None of the other PIs I talked to spent more than five minutes with me before telling me their rates. I don’t think Josh is asking about a lawsuit because he’s only interested in whether I have money.

  I shake my head. “My dad requested a second opinion from some other doctor, and he did talk to a lawyer after the funeral, but everyone told us it was a rare but unfortunate error. Not really a misdiagnosis. Just…” I shrug. “Weird shit happens to our bodies sometimes. There was no failure on the part of the doctors, no failure to provide a standard of care. Every doctor Dad talked to told him that if Mom had just complained or gone back… But she’d lain in bed and tried to tough it out. Without her going back, there was no way that anyone could have known how bad it was until it was too late. Not that it was her fault, of course. But no. There was no lawsuit. It was just a horrible tragedy that left my dad a single dad and me…”

  “Motherless,” Josh fills in.

  I look up at him and am surprised at the warmth and understanding in his face. “Yeah,” I say. “Motherless. After a couple of years of grieving, Dad went to law school at night. I think he wanted to go into personal injury or litigation or something, but he ended up with a really boring, stable job. He does real estate closings. He earns a decent living, but we’re nothing special. We don’t have anything more than the average person. Regular house, regular cars. No secret stash of money in a trust fund.”

  That leads me back to the whole reason I’m here. I literally can’t imagine who would think I took anything away from them.

  “I’m totally at a loss about what these notes mean.”

  Josh gets up from the desk and starts pacing the length of the office. His black jeans make little swishing sounds, his thick thighs moving with the perfectly molded fabric. That denim has been well broken-in, revealing a strong body underneath the professional demeanor.

  “Well, somebody thinks you do. They may have been working up their courage with the first few notes. Maybe testing you out to see if you’d go to the police or campus security.” He stops in his tracks and faces me. “Annie,” he says, his deep voice skating along my nerve endings. I could fall into a seductive trance listening to that voice if I didn’t have stomach-twisting worries on my mind at the moment. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”

  I square my shoulders and nod. “What is it?”

  He sighs and scrubs a hand through the long layers of his hair. “This may seem like I’m being insensitive, but I’m looking for motive. If you didn’t take a position from someone, if you don’t think it’s related to money in some way, and you say you’re single—” he squints at me, as if he can read the truth of my heart with one stare “—do you have any deep, dark secrets? Shit even your father doesn’t know about?”

  “I mean… Maybe?” I nervously pick at what’s left of the polish covering my left thumb. “If there’s anything, there’s just one,” I admit. “But I’m sure it has nothing to do with this. Seriously nothing.”

  He crosses his arms and arches a brow at me. The muscles in his beautifully inked biceps tighten, and he shakes his head. “I can’t help you if I don’t know all the facts. The whole truth,” he demands. “I need to know everything about you, Annie. Even the things you’re afraid to admit to yourself.”

  I sink back in the chair. I’m not proud of what I have to tell him, but it happened. And I suppose, no matter how irrelevant it is to what’s going on with these notes, it can’t hurt to tell him. “You have to promise you’ll never tell my father,” I say, biting my lower lip. “Dad doesn’t know. And I don’t want him to, okay?”

  Josh gives me a look like I’ve asked him to pinkie swear to something, but he eventually nods. “I’ll keep everything you tell me in confidence,” he says. “Unless I think it might compromise your safety, Annie. Then, all bets are off.”

  I nod, relieved because there’s no way this secret has anything to do with these notes. This secret, as embarrassing and weird as it may be, will stay between us, I’m sure.

  “It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme,” I admit. “But after I found out I was going to grad school, Dad threw a little office party for me. A going-away thing with cake and pizza. You know, no big deal. My dad’s bookkeeper came, the new receptionist who they hired to replace me, and his law partner.”