Drake Forever (Unrestrained 7)

"I'm a surgeon. I need to have my name and business number out there." He turned to me. "Not that I have any patients..."

"For the time being, until the publicity around the trial dies down, I'd change your number to unlisted and take down your home address where it's publicly available. Monroe probably got your address from your testimony at Ms. Monroe's trial."

"I will." Drake took out his cell and called Karen. In a moment, she answered. "Hey, Karen," he said, his voice soft. "How's it going?"

He listened for a moment and then nodded. "Unfortunately, the police say there's been a credible threat to me from Lisa Monroe's brother. Has anyone called you tonight?"

Drake frowned at that. "Okay, when did he call?"

Drake covered his cell and looked at John in the rear view mirror. "Some guy called the house about eight wanting to speak with me. Karen said I was out for the evening. She didn't tell the man where when he asked, and when she asked who was calling, he hung up."

"Sounds like our boy trying to see if you were home."

"We should go and pick up Sophie first, before we go to the precinct. Can I go by myself later? I'd rather get everyone settled in the hotel, then you and I could drive over."

"Probably a good idea," John said. "Just to be safe."

Drake spoke to Karen, telling her we were coming home early because of the threat. We decided to pick up Sophie and take her with us to the hotel.

"Sorry about this," Drake said to her. "We'll be there soon." He ended the call and put his cell away.

"What happens now?" he asked.

"The police will pick him up for uttering a threat, take him in," John said. "Until we know he's in custody, you should stay away from the apartment."

"Can they charge him for making a threat?" I asked.

John caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. "They can," he said. "They can detain him and get a psychiatric assessment done. If he's delusional, or they feel he's a threat to himself or anyone else, they could temporarily admit him."

"Oh, God," I said, a knot of fear in my gut. "He's gone off the deep end."

"That he has," John said. "From what the Detective said, Lisa and her half-brother were rather close. Maybe too close."

I glanced at Drake. "Unhealthily close maybe?"

Drake nodded. "All kinds of boundaries crossed probably. She may be manipulating him from jail."

We drove to the 8th Avenue apartment and John passed the curb in front of our building.

"I don't want to go in the front," he said. "It's too hard to control the scene with pedestrians and vehicular traffic. It's impossible to know if Monroe is hiding in wait."

He drove down the street to the back alley and parked beside the back entrance. Before we got out, John surveyed the alley and finally, got out and spoke on his cell to someone.

"I have a man standing by at both ends of the alley. We should be okay. Be quick."

Drake and I got out and went into the building from the rear door. We took the stairs up with John in the lead. The fact that his hand was still on his sidearm made me nervous. There was no way Monroe could have gotten into the building but I supposed he wanted to be safe.

We unlocked the door and went inside to find a frightened looking Karen standing in the hallway.

"Drake!" Karen came over to us, her face concerned. "What on Earth is going on?"

"Like I said, Lisa Monroe's brother made a threat against me. He's probably the man who called you earlier."

"Oh, God," she said, her hand to her mouth. "I thought it was strange that he asked where you were. He said he was a friend but I didn't want to tell him anything because we hadn't talked about how to deal with calls. When I asked him for his name, he just hung up. I thought maybe he was a colleague or something."

"It's good you didn't tell him where we were."

I went to Sophie's bedroom and stuffed a few clothes for her and some diapers into her diaper bag. Drake came in behind me and picked her up, putting her jacket and hat on. She was very sleepy and kept her eyes closed in the dark, sucking hard on her pacifier. I was surprised she didn't wake, but she was very tired.