’t answering her door. As cranky as Zoey was—the length of the day was starting to set in, leaving her ready to sleep more than anything else—she was also worried about the woman. This morning, she’d been stressed, but ready to go to bat for herself and the twins she’d talked about; the woman tonight seemed like a completely different person. Tangled up in fear and who knew what else, she was vastly different from the cool, confident woman who’d traded words with Alex in that prim and proper living room.
She pulled out her phone one more time—the battery was down to just 5% now. Cindy, are you there? I’m sorry, but I’ve been standing out here for fifteen minutes. If you don’t let me in, I’m going home.
Alex hadn’t texted her back, either. She checked her messages, made sure that everything seemed to be sending, and didn’t see anything wrong with the phone. Well, other than the fact that it was now informing her that it was shutting itself down due to its critically low battery.
She stared up at the tall building. It was nowhere near as elegantly imposing as Alex’s, but it was still head and shoulders above her own awkward studio. She would have given anything for a doorman right now, and maybe even her own personal elevator button pusher. If Alex decided to keep her around, she’d have to ask him about that. Someone just to follow around and push buttons for her. She cracked herself up.
As she gave up and turned on her heel to go, the door behind her buzzed. She pulled it open before the buzzing stopped, and walked through the lavish lobby to the elevator. Alas, no button pusher, but she managed to do the deed without even breaking a nail.
Zoey giggled at herself. She’d apparently gotten very very tired standing out on the doorstep, and now, she was going to have to seriously tone down her weirdness in order to not freak Cindy out even more than she was apparently already freaked.
She rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, then knocked on the door of apartment 12. Cindy answered the door immediately, pulling Zoey into the apartment and quickly closing the door behind her.
The woman looked like a caricature of a wealthy woman trying to disguise herself. She wore sunglasses that must have cost $200, and that Audrey Hepburn would have thought were too big and ostentatious. Her clothes were common enough, in that she wore jeans and a jersey top, but they were clearly cut for her specifically, and she wore black pumps that had to cost half a fortune. Zoey managed not to laugh.
“I’m going to give you the information on the twins,” Cindy said, her voice tight. “Where to find them. Who their adoptive parents are. And then I’m going to disappear. I’m done. I have enough money to just—be gone, and that’s all I want. I’ll never come after anything of that bastard’s, and you tell Alex never to even look for me.”
“If that’s what you want, okay,” Zoey said, reaching out to the other woman, who flinched away from her touch. “But you need to realize that you may be hurting everyone, including the twins, by doing this. Their best chance may very well be for Alex to get what he wants. If AEGIS moves in the direction that he wants, then you’re no longer a threat. Do you see?”
“No,” Cindy said. “Arturo and Thalia are dead. That shit on the phone made it very clear that I’m next. I am gone, just as soon as you take this off my hands.” She shoved a flash drive at Zoey. Zoey almost bobbled it, but then managed to keep her grip. It was a cutesy one, a little Hello Kitty with a USB port coming out of her butt. Not remotely the kind of device that one would associate with corporate espionage and death plots.
“What is this?” Zoey asked.
“It’s everything we knew,” Cindy 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,” Zoey tried again. “This doesn’t do us any good if you’re dead.”
“You aren’t—” the woman went completely still, a statuesque look that Zoey had seen before on her half-brother’s face, and then her eyes widened in panic. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered, like they were in a horror movie.
“I don’t hear—”
“Run. Bedroom’s that way. Go!” She gave Zoey a not gentle shove to the back, and Zoey stumbled. As she did, she heard the front door rattle in its frame. It was steady, and it held, but the pictures on the wall shook, and she had the feeling it wouldn’t hold for long.
She ran.
Behind her, Cindy ran too, but only a few steps. And then those spike heels slipped out from under her, and she crashed to the floor.
In her imagination, Zoey was brave enough to turn around, to help the other woman up, and to get them both to safety. Just down the hall, she could see a bathroom. She would grab Cindy, steady the woman and get her to her feet, then dial 911 from the bathroom. That’s what would happen in a movie.
This wasn’t a movie.
Zoey ran down the hallway by herself, skidding into the bathroom. Cindy had flipped herself over, but instead of standing up, she was crab-walking on her hands and feet, too frightened by the continuing blows on the door to stand.
The door burst open, and Zoey pushed the bathroom door as close to shut as she could get it without making noise. She saw a man, a tall man in dark clothes, with a ruddy complexion and light brown hair, walk purposefully down the hallway. He carried a pistol in his hand, the barrel lengthened by a silencer.
The gun made two little hissing sounds, and then Cindy wasn’t trying to crab walk away anymore. Her hands clawed feebly at her chest for a moment, then lapsed into stillness. She hadn’t made a sound.
Zoey pressed her palm to her mouth and bit her flesh as viciously as she could to keep the noises she wanted to make silent. She backed away from the door, bumped up against the sink, and felt her stomach twist, a sudden violent nausea rippling through her. She choked back the burning sickness, wanting to die as the taste and smell of salty sickness flooded her sinuses.
There was a nearly silent, careful footstep outside of the bathroom. He was coming closer.
There was a closet, and there was a bathtub. The bathtub was surrounded by a cloth shower curtain, but it was on wire hooks, and she bet money it would make noise if it was jostled. The closet—even odds it was a linen closet, and then she wouldn’t be able to hide there. Plus, the hinges might squeak.
She had to decide, and hope for the best. If he opened the bathroom door, and she was standing there, she probably wouldn’t even hear the hissing pops. She would just be gone.
The closet. The closet was the better chance.
Gods, random chance, or dumb luck; the closet door opened smoothly, and instead of shelves of towels, it was a regular closet, with robes hung on hooks inside. She darted in, and again, she pulled the door as close to closed as she thought she could manage without making a sound. She pulled herself down into a tiny ball in the corner of the closet, and did her very best to stop breathing.
She listened to the footsteps. She listened to them as they came down the hallway, push open the bathroom door, and walk in. She tried to keep her thoughts as small and silent as she could. And then the footsteps, bless them, went the fuck away.
Zoey didn’t know how long she sat in that closest, her stomach twisting. It could have been seconds. It could have been hours. She thought of Cindy again, clawing at her shattered chest, and the nausea rose again. It was somehow crucial that she not befoul the woman’s house any more than her murdered had already been done. She shoved the closet door open and skidded across the floor on her hands and knees, barely getting her head over the toilet bowl before she retched horribly, emptying everything in her body out.
And then she had to face what was in the hallway.
Cindy lied in a pool of blood, her eyes glazed and far away. Zoey didn’t have to touch her to know she was dead. She pulled out her phone, but her battery was dead now, and the phone wouldn’t turn back on. But thankfully, the neighbors had turned up now, and one of them was screaming while another spoke to a 911 operator, and there was a nice policeman here, too, and it seemed like a very good time to lie down on the floor and let everything drift for a little bit.
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