Page 67 of Kill Me Again: Psychics

Chapter Twenty-five

Lake

It took precisely twenty minutes to call a cab, dress, jump into the vehicle—which had thankfully turned up straight away—and reach Baxter’s address. I knew it had taken twenty minutes because each of those individual minutes had felt like a lifetime. Baxter had refused to call the police, pointing out, quite rightly, that they wouldn’t send a car for someone standing on the street. Instead, he’d agreed to lock his door and not let anyone in who wasn’t me.

There was no man standing across the street when I got out of the cab. There was no one around at all, which wasn’t that surprising with five a.m. approaching. Someone exited the building just as I reached it, his apparent haste and the bike he was wheeling suggesting an early start at work. Either that, or he was a dedicated cyclist with some serious mileage to log. Whatever his reason for being out and about, it allowed me to slip past him and into the building.

I paused in the lobby, eyeing the stairwell and the lift, calculating the relative dangers of each. Because if the man was no longer on the street, there were only two options: he’d left, or he’d found his way into the building.

I chose the lift. At least if an attack came, it could only come from one direction. Yes, there was the whole being trapped in a metal box with a single exit issue, but it beat climbing five flights of stairs where every dark alcove and bend offered another potential hiding place.

My hyper-vigilance proved unnecessary. Not a single soul appeared during the brief journey from the ground floor to the fifth. My footsteps sounded abnormally loud as I made my way down the corridor to the flat number Baxter had given me, and knocked.

Nothing happened.

The wait stretched close to a minute—long enough for a dozen scenarios to flash through my head. What if he’d already gotten inside? The door was intact, so he hadn’t forced his way in, but what if he’d talked his way inside? Pretended to be me. Claimed some dire emergency. Fire, gas leak, anything.

“Lake?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

The door opened a crack, the chain still fastened, and I breathed easier. Baxter wasn’t that stupid. I glanced left and right. “The corridor’s clear.”

He nodded. A few seconds later, the door opened wide enough to admit me. Once inside, I waited for him to lock it again and refasten the chain before pulling him into my arms. He wore only a thin robe; my cheek brushed bare skin as I buried my face in his neck. “I was so worried something dreadful could have happened to you.”

“I shouldn’t have scared you like that,” Baxter said. “I was probably overreacting.”

I pulled back to study his face. His slight pallor told that for a lie. “So there was no man?” I challenged. Letting go of him, I went into his bedroom and pulled the curtains back, staring out at the silent street below. “Where was he?”

Baxter joined me, pointing to the opposite side of the street. “There. By the red car.” He pulled his robe tighter around himself. “Maybe there was an innocent explanation.”

“You said he was staring at your window.”

“There’s a flat above me and one below. He could’ve been looking at one of them.”

“Really?”

Baxter shrugged. A car passed, and we both followed its progress until it disappeared. Dawn was just beginning to creep across the horizon. I couldn’t remember the last sunrise I’d seen, but it looked like I was about to witness one now.

“If he was staring at my window,” Baxter said eventually, “then he knows where I live.”

“Yeah, I worked that one out already. Why do you think I got here so fast I forgot to wear underwear?”

At least that brought a smile to Baxter’s face, even if it was fleeting. “How did he find me?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “None of this makes sense.”

“I bet you wish you’d never gone to that bar the night we met.”

I drew the curtains closed. “I don’t wish that at all.”

“I’m trouble.”

I rolled my eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know. I figured that out the moment you jumped on me and tried to stick your tongue down my throat when I’d only invited you back to be polite.”

“You liked it.”

“I did,” I admitted. “Far too much. That’s how I knew you were trouble. But lucky for you, trouble is my favorite flavor. I just can’t get enough of it.” I wasn’t sure how successful I’d been at being glib. I suspected no one would nominate me for a BAFTA any time soon. “Pack a bag.”