Page 36 of Hunt Me, Daddy

So be it.

My objectivity had ended. Whatever this was now, it was no longer surveillance. It was no longer assessment. It was no longer something I could explain to the rational part of myself.

Kit Calloway had crossed from variable to necessity.

I stayed another hour anyway.

CHAPTER 9

Ivan

I should have left when the hour ended.

That was the first thought that raced through my head when the lock started turning.

I didn’t panic. Panic was for men who didn’t know where the exits were. I knew every exit in Kit Calloway’s apartment. I knew the distance from her bedroom to the fire escape window, the angle of the latch, the height of the sill, the sound the old frame made if lifted too quickly.

I knew too much.

That was the problem.

The lock turned all the way and then the door opened.

My body moved before the thought finished assembling itself. I was off her bed, pillow restored, sheet tension corrected as much as time allowed. It wasn’t perfect. There was no perfect now. Her pen was still in my inside pocket, a ridiculous hard line againstmy ribs, as though a stolen blue ballpoint could accuse me more loudly than the fact that I had been lying in her bed with her pillow held to my chest like a man who had forgotten what restraint looked like.

The front door shut.

Her keys hit the small dish near the entry.

I had eleven seconds.

Maybe nine.

Kit did not move through her apartment like a normal person coming home. Normal people shed the outside world in layers. They put their bag down, took their shoes off, turned on the lights, maybe even went to the kitchen if hunger managed to win a vote. Kit entered like a system check. She closed the door, locked it, and scanned the room. She took one step left, not right. She paused by the entry table. Her bag touched the floor with a muted sound, set down rather than dropped.

She had not turned on the light.

Good.

I crossed the bedroom without touching the chair, the books, the boots lined near the closet. I unlocked the window and eased it up by the frame, controlling the pressure with both hands. She was in the kitchen before I had both feet through the window. I froze halfway out with one foot on the fire escape, one inside her bedroom. One hand braced against the old frame. My breathing stopped so hard my chest burned.

Her kitchen was visible through the narrow gap between the bedroom door and the hall. Only a slice of her, reflected in the dark glass above the sink. She was wearing the black coat I’dseen her in before. Her hair was pinned up badly, strands loose at her neck. She was still, almost as if she knew that she wasn’t alone.

She knew I was there.

I slid the rest of the way onto the fire escape. The metal took my weight with a low, treacherous complaint. It wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough.

Inside, Kit spun.

I crouched beside the window, close enough that my shoulder nearly touched the brick. The fire escape was old, cold, and damp from evening mist, the metal biting through the fabric of my trousers.

I did not move.

Not when she came down the hall.

Not when she entered the bedroom.

She moved without turning on the light, which was either bravery or discipline. With Kit, the distinction was useless. Her hand was at her side, and I saw the small glint of metal before she tucked it behind her thigh.