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Jamie informed me that Mylee had been at the office all day. I told him to send me a text when she was leaving, and he did, propelling us out the door of the Gable Place and toward the bookstore on Monroe.
We waited for her on the stoop when she arrived with Charlie, and her face paled.
“We just want to talk to you for a minute, Mylee,” Lincoln told her, rising as she slowly emerged from the car. “You had to know we weren’t going to just let it go.”
“I kind of hoped you would, actually,” she confessed.
“Then you don’t know us very well,” he sighed.
“And you’ve seriously underestimated how we feel about you,” I added.
Mylee’s head jerked toward me, her face softening. She dug her keys out of her purse and opened the door to the bookshop, allowing us inside, and I was instantly consumed with the smell of old book pages. It reminded me of my grandfather’s library in Texas, but the memory was not as pleasant as this store.
“Will you lock the door behind you, Kai?” Mylee asked nervously, glancing back out the window.
My eyes trailed back toward the huge, unprotected window, my pulse quickening.
I frowned. “Is someone following you?” I asked.
She continued through the shop toward the back, and we trailed after her. I noted how she glanced back several times, her gaze stretched toward the bay window overlooking the street.
“Mylee, is someone bothering you?” Lincoln echoed my question.
Pausing at the base of the stairs, she turned to face us. “Guys, there’s no reason for you to put yourselves or your business in any more danger. I’ve already caused you enough problems.”
My partners and I exchanged a look amongst ourselves. “You have?”
“I know this seems… abrupt,” she went on. “But I did think it through, and this is the best thing for everyone. I need to keep my distance, and he won’t cause you any more damage than he already has.”
Flabbergasted, I stared at my friends, but they were equally perplexed by her confession.
“I don’t understand, Mylee. What damage?” Lincoln asked slowly. “Is this about the poisoning? Do you know who did that?”
She nodded, biting hard on her lower lip before she answered.
“I didn’t realize he had such a hard-on for me until I saw him in Italy, but now it makes sense. He was obviously the guy in the garage at Silverpiece, too…”
She was rambling now, not making any sense.
“Who? What are you talking about, Mylee?” Kai pressed. “Who was in Italy?”
“Richard—you don’t even know who I mean,” she laughed, embarrassed, hanging her head. “I can’t believe he would go through so much trouble because I humiliated him, but an incel’s gonna incel.”
“Richard?!” the three of us echoed in unison.
“Crossman?” I added, leaning closer to her. My heart rate rushed in my ears now. “That guy Paxton punched out on the day we met you?”
“I saw him in Italy,” she admitted. “I mean, I thought it was him… and then I thought about the elevator…” She glanced at me, and I remembered the night she had been scared by the guy in the parking garage. “I think that was him, too.”
“That makes sense,” I offered slowly. “He would know how to circumvent security.”
Mylee’s jaw slacked. “Why? How?” she demanded.
“Once upon a time, Richard worked on the executive floor,” I explained, my own jaw hardening as I realized just how dangerous the former employee had become. “Of course his clearance was revoked, but he would know the tricks of the trade.”
“Wait, he’s a former employee?” she mumbled.
“A very disgruntled former employee who tried to sue us and lost so miserably, he was forced to pay us for wasting our time,” Kai added. “He’s got several bones to pick with us. That’s what the scrap was about in Teatotler’s that day.”
