Page 43 of Broken
She furrowed her brow. “You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”
“I thought we could hang out.”
A chill slithered down her spine. “We broke up.”
He laughed. “Ah, c’mon, you didn’t mean that. I think you just freaked because I was giving you a key, you know, to the kingdom.” He gestured to himself.
“How did you get in?”
“I know your building code, duh.”
“You need to go.”
His eyebrows jutted into his forehead. “What? You can’t be for real.”
She pointed toward the entrance. “Out. Now.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “And here I was all ready to chillax with my girl.”
Jacqueline stormed to the front door and shoved it open at the same time she pulled her phone from the strap around her arm. “If you don’t get the hell out, I’m calling the police.”
As he moseyed close, he chuckled. “What are they gonna do?”
“I’ll get a restraining order.”
As he passed her, he banged his shoulder against her.
On a shudder, she exited the building and waited while he meandered down the sidewalk. Once he was gone, she re-set her code, and retreated inside.
She might have overreacted, but she wasn’t comfortable with him showing up and getting into her building. The last thing she needed was a stalker.
Her blood ran cold while dread had her hurrying up the stairs to her apartment.
Once inside, she bolted the door. She hated that she lived in fear, hated that she overreacted to an ex showing up. Just because he showed up didn’t mean he was going to harm her.
I’m okay, she told herself as she set her Glock on the bathroom counter. After stripping down, she stepped into the shower.
I’m safe.She repeated the mantra over and over.
After the trembling subsided and she regained her composure, she rinsed off the soap and dried off.
While eating dinner, she hopped online in search of a ruthless killer who had gotten away with murder for far too long. She’d been looking for a decade, and she’d continue looking until she found him.
Even if it took her the rest of her life.
* * *
Prescott
At just aftereleven that evening, Prescott walked into his home office, set down his mug, and opened his laptop. Though he wasn’t an ALPHA Operative, he had full access to ALPHA’s secure system, thanks to Z.
After plugging in his sixteen-digit password, he opened the video chat window and dialed in. He had time before the call started, so he opened a different ALPHA window and typed in Jacqueline Hartley.
While waiting for the report, he sipped his coffee.
Seconds later, the report was completed. Thirty-one-year-old Hartley was single with no children. She’d graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in criminology, then earned a Master’s in psychology at Maryland two years later. Her career with the Bureau had begun when she was in high school where she spent every summer and winter break working at HQ in DC. From what he could tell, the Bureau had been fast-tracking her.
Since graduating, she’d worked her way up to RAC at the Winchester office. A few weeks after the cult standoff ended, she was transferred to San Francisco to work on a task force.
