She had been bringing her coffee up to her lips, sure to burn her tongue, but seeming to need the distraction as I spoke. But at that last part, her hands lowered, curling more tightly around the too-hot paper cup. “What?”
“I know,” I said, nodding, reaching out to squeeze her wrist. “You thought it was just since the move. But from what we could tell, he followed you when you moved, bought a house just a couple streets back, so he could come through the woods to look at you.”
Her gaze went to my hand long enough for me to feel the need to remove it before she looked out the front window, watching a bluejay flutter from tree to tree. “How could I have missed it for that long?”
“Because, until eight months ago, he didn’t ever seem to engage you. He just watched. Just took pictures. Something must have happened eight months ago to set him off. Maybe his shrink said something he didn’t like, and he stopped going. Maybe you finally passed him on the street and smiled at him, and he took that as encouragement.”
“I know you don’t know me that well, Quin, but I don’t smile at random men on the street.”
She had smiled at every one of my team members when she met them, even as traumatized and brutalized as she was. It was a small, curtesy smile, but that was all these whack jobs needed. “Maybe he held a door open, and you thanked him. It’s impossible to tell. Well, at least until I read through his journal. But something triggered the switch. And then your less-than-thrilled reaction to his advances likely was what turned him more angry, more violent.”
She nodded a little at that, teeth nipping into the inside of her cheek as she thought. “Were there pictures of me without my clothes on?”
She knew the answer to that.
She just needed the confirmation.
“Aven…”
“That’s a yes,” she concluded, taking a deep breath, holding it so long that it must have burned her lungs, then letting it out slowly. “A lot?” she clarified.
“There was a collage on his bedroom wall. Most of them weren’t fully naked. And it all stopped eight months ago.” Sort of.
“Except?” she pressed, picking up on the fact that I was leaving something out.
“Except the camera he had on him that night had a few pictures as well.”
She was silent for long enough that I uncomfortably shifted in my seat, full of all the wrong things to say.
“Is it weird that I somehow feel more violated about the pictures than about him jerking off outside my windows?”
“Your body is private, babe. Who does – and doesn’t – get to see it should be your choice. He took that right away. Him jerking off is just some jackass being fucking disgusting. I get where you’re coming from.”
“What was his na–”
“No,” I cut her off.
Her head snapped over, eyes fiery. “What? Why not?”
“Because knowing his name changes nothing. No need to humanize him after the fact. And it’s better all-around that you never know.”
“In case this woman goes to the cops, and they start asking me about Joe Somebody.”
“Something like that,” I agreed. “Though, I don’t think she’s going to the cops.”
“Why not?”
“First, she has no proof anything went down with you. Second, his house – until Smith and I cleaned it out – looked like a stalker’s wet dream. She likely knew that wouldn’t look good for him.”
“What are you going to do when you find her?”
“That depends a lot on her behavior when we start watching her.”
“What does that mean?”
“Is she off her rocker like she was last night? Is she running her mouth to everyone? Is she just genuinely worried about her brother?”
“And in those situations, what would happen?”
“Babe, that isn’t how this works,” I told her, shaking my head. I had allowed too many breaks in protocol with Aven. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t let it be on her conscience if we had to do something like get the woman committed. Have her disappear.
“Okay,” she said, swallowing hard. “I guess that is, in a way, an answer.”
“We don’t–” I started, but cut myself off, finding the lie didn’t come as easily as it should have. Because we did, once in a very blue moon, kill people. It came in the line of business. Deals went south. Someone went back on their word. It wasn’t exactly rare to be caught in a situation where bullets start flying. In those cases, you had to do what you had to do to survive. Case closed.
I couldn’t promise her that there wasn’t even a shred of a chance that this woman could end up shot. I didn’t have that foresight.
And while lying to a client wasn’t exactly against my moral code, somehow lying to Aven felt like it was.