Page 56 of Rough Hard Fierce (Chicago Underground 1-3)
A cool breeze whistled through the trees. I leaned over to make sure the blanket was still in place, tenting Bailey in her own warmth. The blanket was fine, but from this angle, reflected sunlight glinted at me from the street. I glanced over.
A parked car, black, vaguely familiar. Was it possible that was the same car Shelly and I had watched from her apartment windows, watching us back?
It had to be a coincidence. I hadn’t been close enough to that car, or even this one, to get the exact model. The shape looked similar, but it was common. And so was the color and dark, tinted windows.
What were the odds?
I walked faster than before.
It was silly, I knew, but my heart raced. My body was always betraying me.
Could it be Andrew? He shouldn’t even know where we were. And if he did, would he really watch instead of just approaching us? Then again, it hadn’t worked so well for him before. Maybe he was waiting for something. Or gathering evidence to use against me.
I sped up.
As I reached Colin’s street, I heard the low rumble of an engine. I glanced back as I rounded the corner and saw the car moving away. Good.
I wished I could laugh it off, but my breath was still coming too fast. I paused only at the bigger bumps, not wanting to jar Bailey out of sleep but still needing to get home now. Home, yes. I’d be safe there.
Turning the stroller onto Colin’s driveway, I saw the same black sedan pull onto the street from the other side. It had circled the block in the opposite direction I’d gone. And arrived here. A handful of houses down from Colin’s house. Within viewing distance. Fuck.
No longer concerned for Bailey’s nap, I raced the stroller inside through the back door and slammed it shut. And locked it.
A quick glance; Bailey was still asleep. Normally I would push her into the dining room so she could finish her nap while I got dinner started, but the bay windows in the dining room didn’t have curtains. Neither did the cupboard window in the kitchen. None of the windows in this house did—goddamn bachelor pad—making me feel like a bug in a jar.
Who could they be?
Then I realized—cops.
Fucking cops. Of course. They knew about me and Bailey. They knew about Colin and Philip. And they wanted to know more. Stakeout seemed too strong a word, when the most dramatic thing that might happen on our walk was a poopy in Bailey’s diaper. Surveillance, though. That made sense. Learning our routines. Trying to get something on us. On Colin.
Protectiveness was a welcome feeling, anger even more so, but it didn’t distract from my discomfiture in this house. An hour ago it had been home. Now it was a goddamn evidence storage facility. What secrets did he hide here? Besides me and Bailey, that was.
I had to get out of here. I packed a still-sleeping Bailey into her car seat and drove to the grocery store. I’d put this trip off for a couple of days now, making meals that taxed my creativity with whatever I’d found in the pantry because I had eighteen dollars in my bank account. The credit card Colin had given me only two days after I moved in, all officially printed with my name, had rested unused in my purse. This day had loomed, of course, ever since I’d traded in my apartment and my job for this security. The day when I’d surrendered Bailey and myself completely to Colin’s care. Now it was here, when that very security was suspect.
Bailey woke up on the way and fussed. I sang to her from the limited selection of nursery rhymes I knew. She, thank goodness, turned a deaf ear to the tinny waver of my voice today and settled down.
At the store I distracted myself with price comparisons and Bailey with produce. Bell peppers in particular made excellent toy doubles with their stoplight colors, hardy shape, and ability to go into a stir-fry at the end.
We’d made it through the pantry aisles and were just approaching the dairy section when I heard my name in a hiss. Startled, I glanced behind a display of chocolate syrup to see Rick.
Christ, he’d scared me, huddled behind there like some sort of mugger of perishables. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
He glanced behind him, toward the meat counter, and then back at me. “Come here.”
“What? Why?”
“Just…come back here. I need to talk to you.” Then he turned and went down a fluorescent-lighted hallway.
Goddammit. Rick always brought the weird. But he was my friend, of a sort, and I couldn’t just continue shopping as if I hadn’t heard him. I backed up my cart and then pushed it after him. I caught sight of his boot just as some maroon loading doors swung shut. We shouldn’t be back here. And I had Bailey with me. I paused.
Rick poked his head out. “Come on.”
“All right, all right,” I grumbled. This had better be good.
Chapter Six
I pushed the cart through the doors into a large, shadowed room. Stacks of crates sprouted haphazardly from the cold, concrete floor.
