Final Verdict. Jessica R. Patch
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hole. What if he’s not calling to offer me gracious words?”
“Why, after two years, would he call you if not to extend a little kindness?”
“Anniversary of his son’s death is February fifteenth. Maybe he wants to make sure I remember.” Like she could forget.
“Aurora.” Kelly’s motherly tone warmed her. Her own mother hadn’t been too motherly, and she’d spent most of her time locked in her bedroom. At least, when she wasn’t taking her antidepressants, which was most of the time. “Trust God to work on your behalf.”
She’d trusted God once. Before Richie had been stamped guilty. Before Aurora had been. Before her world had crumbled all around her. It didn’t seem like God was there for her at all. “I’m heading to my office. I’ll think about what you said.”
She was leaving Kelly’s chambers as her phone rang.
Unknown Caller.
Did she ignore it?
Chills poked her spine, but she answered.
No one spoke, only breath filtering lightly through the line.
“I was doing my job. So back off. If you think I won’t figure out who you are, then you’re mistaken.”
A dark and menacing laugh cut straight to her marrow. “We’ll see.”
The line went dead.
Had she seriously taunted this guy? Well, she wouldn’t be confiding that to Beckett.
She crossed the street to her office on the corner, working to erase the creepy-crawlers scuttling up and down her arms and the back of her neck. She entered.
“Mags?”
Her receptionist wasn’t at her desk, but the light was on and piano music played on the Pandora station. Maybe she had run to grab tea at the Read It and Steep shop.
She ambled down the hall to her office and unlocked the door. Aurora caught a whiff of something. A foreign yet familiar scent. Something possibly masculine.
Bizarre. A wintry whisper pricked her neck.
She eyed her office. The lid on the cardboard box housing files for Richie’s case was loose. It’d been on tight before Beckett had driven her to breakfast. Heels clicking on the tile caught her attention, and she poked her head out the office door.
Mags came in, blond hair spiking all over her head. “Hey, boss. I’m trying this new blooming tea. Felicity talked me in...to... What’s wrong?”
Aurora controlled the panic in her voice. “Did anyone come in while I was at The Black-Eyed Pea?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” She ducked back inside her office and finished removing the lid on the file box.
They were out of order.
Someone had pilfered through them.
But why?
And who? And how had he gotten into her office when she’d locked the door before heading to breakfast?
Peeking out the window behind her desk, Aurora skimmed the street. Nothing. Was this something she ought to bring to Beckett’s attention? If she did, he’d go right back on his spiel to stay somewhere else. Maybe she hadn’t had the lid on tight, or the files organized.
No. She had.
And the scent lingering. That was new.
He needed to know—once she drummed up a defense in favor of not packing up and running scared.
She combed through the files. Nothing had been taken. She called the detective and Gus McGregor’s widow and rescheduled, then met with a few clients.
At lunch, she wasn’t as shaken up, and by the time Beckett picked her up for dinner, she had decided not to mention it. Yet. He seemed tense on the drive to her house. He pulled into her driveway.
“I really don’t like this,” he said.
Aurora plucked Richie’s file box from the floorboard. “See you tomorrow morning. My appointment with Detective Holmstead is at ten.”
“I know you heard me.”
“What was that?” She slanted her head as if she couldn’t hear.
He scowled. “I’m coming in to clear the house.”
“Well, of course you are.”
Beckett climbed out of the Tahoe and walked Aurora up to the front door. She unlocked it and he entered first. A few moments later, he deemed it safe and she kicked off her shoes. “See you in the morning.”
He hemmed and hawed around, then left. She locked the door and lit the fireplace. By the time she had finished making a few notes to ask Detective Holmstead, it was nearly nine o’clock. A low whistle pushed through the small crevices in the plywood covering the broken window. The glass man was coming out the day after tomorrow.
She crawled in bed and watched the news until she couldn’t stay awake. The phone rang, startling her from sleep. Glancing at the clock, she growled. Eleven o’clock.
Unknown Caller.
She ignored it, her nerves fraying.
It rang again.
Silence filled the house except for the hum of her heating unit kicking on. Please leave me alone.
The shrill of the phone came once more. She answered. “Stop calling. It won’t change anything. And you’re not scaring me.” Lies. Lies. Lies.
Nothing but a low exhalation. She hung up.
He called back.
After a few more times, she turned her cell phone off and padded to the kitchen for some chamomile tea. She filled her teapot and set it on the stove to boil. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she focused on calming her pulse.
The kettle whistled.
The light above the stove flickered and died.
She peeked under the microwave. Bulb must have burned out. She switched on the kitchen light.
Nothing.
A sense of dread pooled in her gut. She crept into the living room and turned the switch on the lamp.
Darkness.
Might have tripped the circuit. She tiptoed down the hall, refraining from the instinct goading her to sprint. She entered her room and retrieved her gun and a book light. She wasn’t the idiot heroine who walked outside without a weapon. She flicked the safety off and approached the garage to flip the breaker. Invisible fingers slid across her skin, raising goose bumps.
It’s a tripped circuit. That’s it.
Muted moonlight left a sliver across the frigid concrete floor. Aurora quivered. Maybe from winter monopolizing the garage. Maybe a fair amount of fear. Probably both. She hurried to the metal breaker box and shined the book light on the black switches.
Yep. Tripped circuit. She slid it left and back to the right, then relaxed. “Stupid breaker. You picked a fine time to fail me.”
A whiff of that same scent from her office snaked into her nostrils.
Hairs stood on end, awareness hammering her like a gavel against the sound block.
No time to move or swivel toward the presence in the garage. A strong arm shrouded in a black jacket came around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides; a gloved hand sealed her mouth and nose.
Can’t breathe!
Panic kicked in, sending a sour taste to her throat and leaving her light-headed. She still clung to her gun, but he had her across the forearms, pinned and unable to aim even at his foot.
Aurora stomped the