Page 34 of Night Moves
“C’mon, let’s go.” Drake started down the hallway, taking long strides.
Natalie nearly had to run to keep up with him, which didn’t make her feet feel any better in the hopelessly high heels she’d chosen yesterday morning. She could dress more sensibly, she supposed. But looking good made her feel good, and on some of the dismal days on the job, that was all that kept her spirits up.
“Can you slow down a bit?” she asked.
He reduced his speed and waited for her to catch up at the elevator. “Sorry. I forgot you were wearing stilettos.”
“They’re not stilettos.”
“Close enough.” He held the door for her. “Still not very practical.”
“Trust me. If I’d known I’d be running from a serial killer when I got dressed, I would’ve worn running shoes.”
He punched the number two button. “You and Sierra are about the same height. We could go back and ask if she has something that might fit you.”
“I couldn’t impose on her.”
He paused, hand on the doorknob. “You don’t like to accept help, do you?”
She thought to blow him off, but maybe if she explained, he’d understand. “It’s not that I don’t want help. I’ve never really had anyone other than my sister aroundtohelp. So I learned to do things on my own. Now I’m more comfortable counting only on myself.”
He didn’t answer for the longest time but leaned against the back of the elevator and watched her. “What about when God puts someone in your life to provide assistance at the right time?”
“You mean like your family?”
“Exactly.”
He had a point. One she hadn’t really considered in the past. “I’ll have to give it some thought. But I still don’t want to bother Sierra. She’s probably already gone to bed.”
Drake’s eyebrow rose, and he watched her for the rest of the ride down to his condo. It appeared as if he really wanted to say something else but was holding it back. She didn’t want to get into a personal discussion when she was this tired and wasn’t about to ask him what he wanted to say.
On the second floor, he led her to his condo, his thumbs tapping on the knob as he held the door open for her. The atmosphere was charged with his hyperactivity, and she found it unsettling.
“You’re still pretty hyped up,” she said, thinking this was a safe subject to approach.
His thumbs stilled in the air, but he didn’t respond right away. “I want to hunt Gentry down. Be in on the action to bring him in and lock the cell door behind him. Not being in on the takedown is one part of my new job I hate.”
She could easily imagine him tracking and apprehending a fugitive and suspected he was really good at it. “Must have been satisfying to shut the cell door after you captured the person you were hunting.”
He scratched his jaw. “I didn’t actually get to close doors. We turned fugitives over to the local law enforcement agency. They held them in local jails while they waited for the prisoner’s return to the correction facility they escaped from or waited for their day in court.”
This was another area that they didn’t seem to agree on. “I know your job was necessary, but I’ve always had more of a rehabilitation than incarceration mindset.”
He frowned and stepped back, but didn’t comment on her response.
Okay. Maybe he didn’t want to go there so she would leave it alone. Excited to see his place, she slipped past him to go down a hallway to a spacious room attached to an open kitchen. Light gray paint covered the walls, and the trim was a crisp white. He had little in the way of decorations other than a bookshelf loaded with books about every kind of extreme sport she could imagine.
He passed her by to go into the kitchen. “And on your mindset, I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one. I know you often work with offenders, but most of them are in a far different class than the people I hunted down.” He gripped the edge of the counter on a big island until his fingers turned white. “Those very dangerous fugitives needed to be off the streets before they reoffended.”
“Agreed,” she said, though she still believed incarceration often did more harm than good, there were some people who had to be locked up. Unfortunately, way too many people fit that criteria these days. “Like Kirk Gentry. He shouldn’t be out on the streets, and he’s not a good candidate for rehabilitation.”
“We first have to find him.” He grabbed a glass from the cupboard. “Can I get you some water?”
“Please.”
He got down a second glass, and as ice dropped and water flowed from the refrigerator dispenser, he tapped his left foot at a rapid speed.
She settled on a barstool. “Are you always this antsy?”
