The cop seemed satisfied. He took down my information, then let me go and moved to the next door.
I stood for a long minute behind my closed door, my mind spinning. What the hell had Devon done? And where was he?
I should be angry. I should dismiss him from my thoughts, from my life, and get back to work. I didn’t need to have anything to do with a criminal. That wasn’t me.
I walked back to my sketchbook, but I couldn’t sit down. I couldn’t even stay still. I paced around the apartment, scraping my thumbnail over my lip, thinking. Damn it, I was worried about him. I didn’t have a phone number to warn him that the cops were at his place. If he came home, he’d walk right into it.
Which he probably deserved, because he was a criminal. I shouldn’t care about this. I really shouldn’t.
I couldn’t be inside anymore, pacing and staring at the walls. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and left, walking down a side set of stairs to the patio.
When Shady Oaks was built decades ago, the patio was probably imagined as a fun place for parties spilling over from the pool. Now the pool was dry and empty, and next to it the patio was dark and cold. No one ever used it, which made it a good place to be alone.
I sat on the hard fence that surrounded the patio, sipping my beer and looking out past the gravel parking lot to the tired straggle of trees beyond. This was a wakeup call—it was time to forget Devon. If he didn’t walk into the trap that was his apartment, it was only a matter of time before the police tracked him down. He wouldn’t escape, unless…
My stomach clenched. Maybe the police were here because something had happened, and Devon was dead. I took a breath. Either way, it was over. I had to get used to it. One way or another, Devon was gone. I took another swig of beer, forcing my brain to stay on the thought until I got used to it.
There was a shadow in the trees.
I put down my be
er and stared at it.
It emerged silently into a silhouette. One I recognized right away. Devon was on foot, crossing the scraggly field in the dark, coming toward the parking lot.
I darted a look behind me to make sure I was alone, then without thinking I stood. I needed to get his attention, warn him away. What should I do? Wave my arms? Would the cops see?
But I didn’t need to do anything. Halfway across the field, Devon stopped. Just as I’d seen him, he’d seen me. I couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but I knew he was looking at me, silhouetted against the lights from the building behind me.
Think fast, Olivia. I shook my head, trying to tell him there was danger. Then I pointed above me to the fire escape.
Devon started to move again, quicker this time. He knew the layout of Shady Oaks as well as I did—which meant he knew that if he climbed the fire escape, out of sight of his own apartment and the cops inside, he’d end up a few feet from my kitchen window.
I left the patio, hurried up the stairs, and headed down the open corridor to my door. I passed the cop I’d talked to, going the other way, and this time my heart barely even sped up. I lifted my beer bottle. “Just taking some air,” I said to him casually, then opened my door and went inside, locking the door behind me.
I went straight to the kitchen and tugged on the window, pushing it up. The night air blew in, cold and damp, making me shiver through my sweatshirt. There was nothing for a minute except silence. Then a big hand gripped my windowsill, a shadow moved outside, a long pair of legs swung over, and in one flawless motion Devon was standing in my dark kitchen.
Seven
Olivia
I still couldn’t see his face, since I hadn’t turned on the light, but I heard him breathe. “What the fuck is going on?” he whispered.
“There are cops at your place,” I said.
He swore, a string of words so foul I gaped at him, and brushed past me, so close I could feel the icy damp on his jacket and smell the faint, sweet tang of his sweat. He moved to my front window and looked out, angled exactly the same way my sister Gwen had been angled yesterday when we’d watched him come home.
“Fuck,” he said again when he saw the cops. “I thought I’d have more time. Did they talk to you?”
“They asked me about you,” I said, still standing in the kitchen doorway, holding my forgotten bottle of beer. “I told them I didn’t know you.”
He was quiet.
“What did you do?” I said.
Still, I couldn’t see his features. He sat on the arm of my sofa, put his hands on his thighs, and bent slightly, as if thinking. “Someone talked,” he said to himself. “Not Westerberg. Not Danny, unless they scared him. Not Jam. It had to be Chaz. Or Gray.”
I shook my head, even though he wasn’t looking at me. None of that meant anything to me. My heart was in my throat. Now that he was here, big and looming in my small apartment, I realized how much danger I could be in. “Did you hurt someone?” I asked.