Break Me (6 page)

Alex found himself nodding along. He pushed the fears and upset about Zoey out of his mind, as thoroughly as he could. He needed to focus. He’d send her a text before he left the office, just like he’d told Claire. If she was willing to at least talk to him, he’d bring dinner. Something simple. Pizza. Really good pizza and a nice IPA could soothe over a lot of hurts, in his opinion.

But first, he’d put his head together with Leo and scheme.

CHAPTER NINE

Helen watched Zoey eat every bite of an egg sandwich with a side of bacon and hashbrowns. As the mimosas found something to blend with, the feeling of disorientation in her belly got a little less extreme, and she was able to let herself relax, just a little.

“So what’s your next step?” Helen had switched to coffee herself, and although she’d scolded Zoey every time her fork lagged, all she’d eaten was a sausage wrapped in a slice of toast. “Are you still chasing the story, or are you going to let it go?”

Zoey paused and chewed. “I don’t feel like I can keep going on it without my involvement being questioned in a lot of ways,” she answered, after thinking through her options. “Especially because the cops want to talk to me about what I saw in Cindy Walden’s apartment.”

Helen nodded. “But you still think there’s a story here?”

It felt like an odd kind of betrayal, telling Helen. She and Alex had been so careful, involving no one else. But maybe that hadn’t been the right move. Information was dangerous, but the more people knew something, sometimes it lessened the danger. You couldn’t kill everyone, after all. “I know there is.”

“Do you have anything I can run?” It meant something to her that Helen didn’t seem to question at all if this was a way to get back at Alex, or if Zoey might have been a plant during some kind of bizarre thriller information attack scheme, or anything.

“I don’t—” Zoey started, and then everything froze. She sat perfectly still, willing the memory to fall into place. It was faint, hazy, hurt by everything that had come after. She had to be perfectly still, like a girl in the park trying to feed a squirrel.

She felt the pressure of the plastic in her hand as she remembered Cindy handing her the small Hello Kitty themed USB drive. “
It’s everything we knew,”
Cindy had said
. “The three of us. About the twins, but about Philip as well. Proof to substantiate our claims as his bastard children, the lawyers we each spoke to about the interpretations of the will. Everything that you could possibly want to know.”

Cindy had handed her the drive, and Zoey had needed to choke back a laugh. The USB dongle came out of Hello Kitty’s plastic molded behind, and she’d wanted to make a joke about shitting out information. But then everything had gone wrong, horribly wrong, and she’d run. She’d run, and she’d…what? What had happened to the drive? She hadn’t had it when she left the apartment. The killer hadn’t had it either. He hadn’t tossed the place, he’d left as soon as the shots were fired. He didn’t seem worried at all about any digital information.
He’s old, or he’s just an idiot. Or he’s way too confident.
She must have…dropped it? Did she remember dropping it? No, she couldn’t remember. She’d run so fast down the hallway, leaving Cindy behind as she tripped, and the drive—the drive had been in her hand then, she could remember the feel of it in her hand. As she’d run into the bathroom, and climbed into the closet. And she’d wrapped her arms around her knees, her hands clinging to her wrists. Somewhere between the living room and the bathroom it had fallen out of her hands.

So the next question was—did the police have it, or was it still in the apartment.

“I don’t have it,” Zoey said. “But I can get it.”

For the first time since this crazy saga had started, Helen leaned back in her chair, her arms crossing on her chest, her eyes narrowed. “Can you, luv?” Her accent always came back thickest when she was most irritated.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Zoey said. “I’ve never once mislead you on a story.”

“Why don’t you tell me what it is that you think you can get, then?”

“Cindy had a drive. A USB drive.” Zoey leaned closer to Helen over the table, lowering her voice. Her head still spun a little bit from the mimosas, but for the first time that day she felt more awake, alive, real. “It has proof. It has everything about the kids, the twins, everything. We need the drive, and then you’ll have what you need.”

“Where was it last?”

“In the apartment. She gave it to me, and then—and I dropped it, I think. I don’t know if the cops would have found it or not.”

She watched Helen weigh the choices. The wheels were turning in her friend’s head as she considered that she might be putting Zoey in continuing danger with the need to have the story, and probably, the odds that Zoey would keep digging, even if she was on her own. “Fine,” Helen said, eventually. “Then the next step is that you go to the cops. You answer their questions. And you try to find out about the drive.”

“Okay,” Zoey said. “It’s a plan.”

Helen squeezed her hand. “Be careful, luv. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

It would be too cruel to point out that the ship had already sailed. Instead, she just smiled and squeezed back. “Thanks, sha. I’ll be careful.”

Under Helen’s watchful eyes, she pulled out her phone and dialed Alex’s lawyers.

CHAPTER TEN

It was well into the evening by the time Zoey got home. Sarah O’Grady, from Rodriguez, Rodriguez, and Martin, had met her at the police station, and Zoey had taken an instant liking to the woman. She was small and stocky and incredibly Irish, with the kind of frizzy hair that people called red when it was really orange, and a kiddish spray of freckles over her incredibly pale cheeks. She had her hair contained—one couldn’t really say tamed—in a French braid, and even though her eyes sparkled with humor, her face was quiet and serious, and the cops at 1PP seemed to know her, and automatically defer to her. She kept Zoey from needing to answer any questions at this point, which also meant that Zoey got no chance to try and find out about the drive, m
uch to her irritation.

As they waited, and she and Sarah chatted about her partnership at the firm, she couldn’t help but love the woman’s irreverence. “After Alonso—he’s the grandson of the original Martin—and I got married, he and Juliet—she’s the Rodriguez—wanted to change the name to Rodriguez, Martin, and O’Grady, but how could I let them do that? It’d sound like we worked at the frickin’ UN.” It was the one time Sarah cracked a big broad smile, and Zoey found herself regretting that she was this woman’s client, because she thought going out for a drink with her and Helen would be amazing.

Maybe later
, she thought.
When this is done.

After the trip to 1PP, where the Commissioner seemed to deliberately avoid her, Zoey went into the office at the
Voice.
Her editor was conveniently out of the office, but she was able to check her email, check the work message boards, and log her on-site hours. She went home with a list of briefs to work on over night for the morning update. But when she walked back into her apartment, the sense of loss pinged at her attention and wouldn’t be ignored.

It wasn’t just him, and that grossed her out quite a lot. She missed the luxury. She missed someone making her a cup of coffee before she’d even thought to ask for one. She missed everything being sparkling and fresh and new. Two days in financial paradise, and the walls of her apartment felt smothering and uncomfortable. And it was vastly too quiet.

But it wasn’t quiet. The pipes were banging, and her upstairs neighbor’s three kids were running around, doing laps before bedtime, and the couple on the other side of her wall were slamming the headboard into the wall. These were the noises that had soothed her to sleep since she’d left Louisiana, that had told her she was home, and safe, and comfortable.

And now all she wanted was Alex, whispering behind her, pressing his lips against her neck as he stroked his fingertips down her bare arms.

She closed her eyes and tried to push the ghost of him away from her. Helen was right. He’d behaved horribly, and it was okay if she decided that an apology wasn’t enough. Especially since he hadn’t even apologized yet. But still, as she settled in on the couch and pulled out her laptop, she struggled to get comfortable. She struggled to shake the image of him, draped over her, out of her mind. She needed to get work done if she wanted to pay her own damn rent.

Her phone rang from a number she didn’t recognize, and her pulse started to throb.
Just let it go to voicemail
, she thought.
You don’t have to answer
. But not answering was like quitting. It wasn’t what she did.

She was proud of her voice, which barely shook as she swiped to answer and lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Zoey?”

Her breath let out in a little whoosh. “Claire?”

“Hi!” The girl’s voice was cheerful and happy, everything Zoey couldn’t find herself in that moment, but the effervescence was contagious. “So, for the party Friday.”

Zoey took a deep breath and tried not to let it sound like a sigh. “About that, Claire—I have a lot of work to get done—”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. Absolutely not. Don’t even try. Now, Olivia made the whole thing black tie—god knows why, and if she invited some camera person to do a profile of the happy-mourning Blankenship clan I will throw the most epic of temper tantrums—and I wasn’t sure if you’d have something you’d be comfortable wearing to an event like that.”

She seized on the out. “I really don’t, Claire. Maybe we can go to brunch the morning after?” That had sounded better in her head.

The victory in Claire’s voice surprised her. “I thought you’d say that. Lucky you, I have the perfect solution. We’re going shopping.”

Zoey took a moment to consider. She could tell Claire that she wasn’t coming to the party, get herself off the phone, and then call on Saturday morning to invite her out, now that she had the girl’s phone number. It would satisfy her pride, and it would make her feel miserable. Or she could admit that she wanted to go to the party, avoid Alex, and keep this smart girl in her life. “Doesn’t your brother have you on lockdown?”

Claire scoffed. “Please. We have the Internet at our disposal.”

Which began two hours of excruciating dress shopping, as Claire switched to video chat, started sending links to her email address, and eliminated the vast majority of the clothing Zoey would have chosen for herself based on esoteric criteria about hemlines and waist cuts that Zoey found herself just kind of chuckling at. The websites they were shopping at were the sorts where prices weren’t listed, which made her feel just a little dizzy, but when she tried to bring it up, she could hear Claire’s smile. “Mother dearest gave me a credit card. Please believe how much I will enjoy using it to buy this for you. Plus, I still need something for myself. You’re helping me, too. When she sees the bill, she won’t freak out anywhere near as much if I say I bought two dresses.”

The logic was strange and unfathomable, but she found herself smiling. When the call ended, Claire assured her that if she got the apartment half an hour early, a gorgeous sheath dress with a neckline that made her think of Audrey Hepburn in a shade of wine that had made her oooh, would be ready and waiting. “Get here an hour early, and I’ll help with your makeup,” Claire had offered.

So this was what it was like having a sister. She smiled to herself and told Claire that she would do her best.

She hadn’t done more than put her phone down and flip her laptop open again before she heard the buzz of an incoming text. She rolled her eyes and laughed, expecting another comment from Claire, but the message she saw squeezed her heart.

Meeting was a bust. I have pizza and beer. Can I come up?

She stared at the text and tried to decide. Could she invite Alex in? Could she control herself enough to have a conversation, set some rules, figure out how things needed to go from here? It seemed possible. Likely? Maybe not. But she wanted him. She wanted him very much.
Sure
, she sent back.
I’ll be right down.