Page 81 of No Good Fight

“I know.”

“No, I’m starting to think you don’t.”

Captain Bell calls us back before I have to choose between an answer and another lie. Josh turns away first, but the look he gives me stays under my skin for the rest of cleanup.

By the time my shift ends, I’ve checked my phone so many times Casey stops pretending not to notice. Alex has answered enough to keep me from driving straight out of the station with my gear half on, but every gap between messages chews through another piece of my control.

She is at my house. Alarm on. Door locked. She sent a picture of the monitors and a cup of coffee in her hand with that book she was talking about. Alex: Your creepy robot children are behaving.

I saved the image before I could talk myself out of it. You can barely make out her face with the backlight of the monitors but I give zero fucks. She’s perfect.

Remy calls while I’m standing by my truck with a coffee I forgot to drink.

“Tell me you have something,” I say.

“I have several things, and all of them are going to ruin your mood. So don’t blame me when you have a shitty attitude later”

“My mood’s been gone all day.”

“Preston doesn’t have a stable address,” Remy says, the teasing gone from his voice. “Last lease ended months ago. No new one that I can find. He’s using motel rooms, short-term rentals, maybe couch-surfing with people who either don’t know what he is or don’t care for all I know.”

I set the coffee on the hood of my truck before I crush the cup. “What about his phone?”

“At least three burners that I can find he was stupid enough to register. One lines up with calls to Alex. Another pinged near Lucy’s the night he grabbed her. I’m still digging on the third, but it looks like that’s the one he’s using to call your place.”

Rain drips from the bay roof and hits the concrete in a steady, irritating rhythm. Through the open doors behind me, Josh laughs at something Mason says, and the sound makes my stomach twist. He is ten yards away from me, still outside the truth because I keep standing between him and it.

Remy exhales into the phone. “There’s more. I have a clerk two towns over who remembers a guy matching Preston’s description buying wire cutters, electrical tools, work gloves, and gas cans in separate transactions. Same build, same polished-friendly routine. Not enough for cuffs or even to talk to him, but it’s enough for me to start hating the pattern.”

My skin goes cold under my shirt. “Gas cans.”

“Yeah.”

“The breaker at her place,” I say. “The motion light at her apartment being shattered. Her window. He’s testing access and power because he’s planning something.”

“That’s what it looks like,” Remy says. “And with the old-building articles she’s been writing, I don’t like him circling fire. Parker pulled more footage from Lucy’s too. He was watching the door before he approached Alex, like he knew he had a window before you came in.”

I look at my truck door and picture Alex on my couch with her book, pretending not to stare at the monitors. “Does she know about the purchases?” Or any of it, really.

Fucking hell, my girl is going to lose her shit.

“Not from me. I figured that should come from someone she trusts.”

My laugh has no humor in it. “That’s a dangerous amount of faith in me.”

“No. It’s me telling you not to hoard the bad news because you think fear belongs better in your hands than hers.”

I press my thumb against the bridge of my nose. “I hear you.”

“Then act like it. We don’t put enough trust in the women we love.”

When I end the call, Josh is watching me from the bay doors. He has one shoulder against the frame and his arms crossed, and the look on his face tells me he heard enough to build questions out of the silence.

“This is about Alex,” he says. “And you need to tell me what the fuck it is, before I lose my shit and our friendship implodes.”

I unlock my truck. “I have to get home.”

“To Alex?”