Page 159 of One Night with Number Nineteen

She grins.

Then sighs and slumps against me. “I don’t know what to think. About any of this.”

“You don’t have to think about anything right now, Pages.” I inhale the scent of her, hold her close, thanking every deity in the universe that she’s safe in my arms. “Just know that you’re loved, Pages.”

“I do know that.” Gorgeous brown eyes on mine. “I just…I’m terrified he’s going to be right back on the streets. These charges rarely stick, and what if he comes after us again? Oh, God!” She digs her nails into my chest. “I don’t want to move. I love living next door to Faye, love the neighborhood, love the house—” A tear slips down her cheek.

I wipe it away. “We’ll figure it out, sweetheart.”

“But how can I risk it if he gets out again? Ollie⁠—”

“You don’t have to,” Detective Roberts interjects gently. “The charges—and several more from at least two other states—mean it’s unlikely that he’ll be released anytime soon. They should have come up during his initial arrest, but he didn’t have identification on him and he gave a fake name.” She sighs. “Unfortunately, my fellow officers assumed he was homeless and on drugs, and when the name he gave only brought up a few minor charges for trespassing, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct, they decided to let him go before fingerprinting him.” Her eyes narrow. “Obviously, that was fucking stupid. The name belonged to a local homeless man at least twenty years older than him. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to track Jonah down.” A muscle in her jaw flickers. “Clearly, not quickly enough. I’m extremely sorry about that.”

“Thank you,” Lainey murmurs. “But…”

“What?”

“I don’t understand how he could have called me from the police station’s number.”

“It’s something people do that’s called spoofing. They can make the number look legitimate. In this case, he made it look like it was the precinct. How he got the uniform and access to the arena and to this level, I’m still working on.”

“And the ring?” Lainey asks.

“I sent a team over to check out your house,” she says and holds up her phone, showing a picture of the nightstand on my side of the bed, and a ring…

Lainey exhales in a rush.

“Not Ben’s?” the detective asks.

“No.”

I frown. “What’s this, Pages?”

“Jonah said he left a ring on the nightstand, said he read what I was writing. If he got into the house⁠—”

I go stiff. “What the fuck? That’s—” But then I lean closer. “That’s my ring.”

“What?”

“It was my dad’s. I thought I lost it. I remember taking it off the first night we—” I cut my eyes to hers. “Not my finest moment, but I chucked it at the house.”

She winces at the memory of how our first night ended.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Old news, Pages, remember?”

Her lips come to my cheek. “Luckily, I got my head out of my ass and fell in love with you, huh?”

I chuckle, tug a curl. Then sober. “So, how’d it end up on your nightstand?”

She blanches, whispers, “He said he was inside the house.”

Fuck.

“There were footprints on the exterior balcony,” Detective Roberts says. “As though someone had climbed up. And scratches on the lock from it being picked.”

Lainey shudders. “And my office has that big window…and no curtains.”