Page 44 of In the Shadows
He saw her face and set down the coffee pot.
“What happened?”
She held up the phone. He crossed the kitchen in three steps and took it from her hand. Read the message. Read it again. His jaw tightened the way it did when his mind was running faster than his mouth.
“When did this come in?”
“Fifteen minutes ago. I was asleep.”
“Same person who searched your house?”
“I don’t know. The number’s different from anything I’ve seen.”
He was already typing on his own phone—a message to whom she didn’t know. He finished, pocketed it, and looked at her with an expression that was equal parts concern and calculation.
“We go together.”
“Ronan—”
“We go together, or you don’t go at all.” His voice left no room for negotiation. “Someone lured you to your office with an anonymous text. That’s not a warning. That’s a setup. They want you to see something, and they want to see how you react.”
“All the more reason for me to go alone. If they see you with me?—”
“They already searched your house. They already know you didn’t sleep there last night. If they were watching, they saw my car in your driveway and yours following it here.” He picked up both coffee mugs and handed her one. “The time for pretending we’re not connected is over. Drink this. We leave in five minutes.”
She took the mug. The coffee was strong and dark and exactly the way she needed it. He’d figured out how she liked it without asking—no sugar, a little more than she should drink, hot enough to burn.
She drank half of it standing in his kitchen, watching him check the windows one more time, and tried to prepare herself for whatever was waiting at town hall.
The drive took twelve minutes from his cabin.
Ronan drove. Lila sat in the passenger seat with the anonymous text still glowing on her phone screen, running through possibilities. A threat. A trap. A message from someone inside the operation who wanted her to see what had been done.
The town hall parking lot was empty. No other cars. No early-morning workers. Just the building sitting quietly in the gray light before sunrise.
“Stay in the car,” Ronan said.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“It’s my office. My town. My fight.” She unbuckled her seatbelt. “You can come with me, or you can sit here. Those are your options.”
Something flickered across his face. Frustration, maybe. Or respect. With Ronan, the two looked similar.
They went in through the side entrance. She used her key card. The hallway was dark, the emergency lights casting everything in a dim red glow. The main power was out.
Her office door was open.
She stopped. Listened. Nothing moved. The building was silent except for the hum of the emergency backup system.
Ronan stepped in front of her. She let him. This once.
He moved down the hallway first, checking doorways, his body positioned so that he was between her and whatever might be waiting. At her office door, he paused. Looked inside. His shoulders dropped a fraction—not relief, exactly. More like the tension shifting from high alert to grim confirmation.
He stepped aside so she could see.
The filing cabinet stood open. Every drawer was pulled out and emptied. Papers were scattered across the floor like fallen leaves. Her desk had been ransacked—drawers yanked out, contents dumped, the careful organization of eight years destroyed in what must have been minutes.
