That one would have been the hardest for my mom to take. It had been when I’d told her something similar when she’d come to visit. She was convinced I’d one day be able to overcome my struggles speaking in front of a jury. She couldn’t change my personality, though, and I had to end my days proud of the work I’d done. I couldn’t say I’d made the world a better place if my job was freeing criminals.
“Is that it?”
He nodded. “Unlike me, you seem to have as many things you like about city living as you do about small-town life.”
He hadn’t mentioned Sugarwood at all. Surely I’d miss Sugarwood. I closed my eyes and imagined the things I loved about it, but all that came into my mind were my horses, the people, and the trees. I wasn’t attached to the work there at all, and with Stacey wanting to take on more and more responsibilities alongside Russ, pretty soon they wouldn’t even need me. Stacey, much to the chagrin of my ego, was better at my roles there than I was. Not only that, but she loved them more.
Despite the fact that we were meeting for dinner in Annapolis, Maryland, an hour from DC, I still hadn’t worked it all through in my head by the time we arrived. Mark parked the car, and we strolled along the red brick streets and down by the water. Despite its size, this part of Annapolis had always felt full of Old World charm to me. I’d rarely had the time to make the drive back when I lived and worked in the DC area, unfortunately.
The little Italian restaurant Mark’s potential future boss had picked out served delicious penne, and they were a couple I could see us becoming friends with if we moved back to DC.
That in itself was a strange thought. The people here would only ever have known us as Nicole and Mark together. Back in Fair Haven, our friends had known us separately as well.
My phone vibrated in my purse as we were finishing dessert. Since Mark’s boss’ wife had left for the restroom, I excused myself from the table. The private investigator was supposed to call me when he’d delivered Terrance’s belongings to him, and I wanted to make sure it was done. Once it was, Terrance wouldn’t have any legitimate reason for returning to Skin Canvas, and Ahanti could immediately call the police if she saw him hanging around.
The number on my screen did belong to the PI I’d hired. Answering with Is it done? sounded a little too mafia-ish, so I opted for the old standby. “Fitzhenry-Dawes.”
“It’s Lucas, ma’am. I didn’t know if you’d get a call from the police or not, so I thought I should check in with you.”
It was a good thing I hadn’t stayed at the table. I was pretty sure I currently wore an oh crap expression. It couldn’t be Ahanti. If anything had happened to her, Geoff would have called me, not the PI. “What’s going on?”
“After your friend went home, I took the boxes to the guy’s address like you told me. He didn’t answer when I knocked, so I waited around for him to come back. Turns out I wasn’t the only one. Before I could get out of my car, some guy jumped him.”
For a second, I felt like I’d walked into a glass door—dazed and confused. Thankfully, he seemed to interpret my silence as a sign to continue.
“I scared the attacker off, but the guy you had me sitting on was sliced up pretty bad. He lost a lot of blood before paramedics got to us.”
Sliced up…that sounded like… “The guy who jumped him tried to kill him with a knife?”
“That’s what it looked like to me. They took me in the ambulance since I got cut across the hand, but nobody here’ll tell me anything about the other guy. All I can tell you was he was still breathing when we got to the hospital.”
“Did you get a good look at the attacker? Could you identify him?”
“Sorry, ma’am. It happened too fast.”
I sank into the empty chair nearest to me. Someone had tried to kill Terrance. Likely the same person who’d killed Cary. If Ahanti’s stalker and Cary’s murderer were the same person, then Ahanti’s stalker had tried to kill Terrance.
Terrance wasn’t Ahanti’s stalker after all.
18
One of the least flattering qualities I’d inherited from my dad was how difficult it was for me to apologize. Perhaps it was because it meant admitting I’d fallen short. I’d worked hard to apologize when I was wrong, but it still never felt comfortable.
Even less so when my mistake landed someone in the hospital. Mark tried to convince me on our drive back to DC that Ahanti’s stalker would have attacked Terrance whether or not I believed him. Maybe that was true, but maybe not. Maybe he would have been watching his back, expecting the stalker to come after him the way he came after Cary.
Maybe he would have even been somewhere else, preparing a defense.
Or maybe he’d be dead because you wouldn’t have sent the private investigator after him, the rational voice in my head said.
Even if I couldn’t have known for sure what was coming, I’d let him down by not considering that he might be telling me the truth.
Which was why we were now standing in the hospital instead of heading back to our hotel. Lucas had been able to tell me where the ambulance took them, but he hadn’t known anything more about Terrance’s room number…or even whether he’d pulled through. The hospital could give him blood, but if the knife hit an organ, they might not have been able to save him. And I didn’t know what long-term damage extreme blood loss might cause. For all we knew, Terrance could have brain damage if he survived.
Mark came back to where I’d been waiting. When I was turned away peremptorily, he’d gone back to talk to the woman at the desk. We’d wagered that either his dimples or his MD might get us a little more information.
“As a professional courtesy, they told me Terrance is alive but in critical condition. They’re not allowing him visitors at this time. That’s all they were willing to say.”
It wasn’t much, but at least he had a chance. As my dad liked to say, it’s not over until the verdict is read, and even then, there are appeals.
“Should we tell Ahanti?” Mark asked.
My gut reaction was to say no since it’d destroy the modicum of peace she’d found in knowing who was stalking her. If I didn’t, though, she wouldn’t be paying attention anymore, and that was even more dangerous than the possibility of another panic attack.
I dialed her number. “Is Geoff with you?” The last thing I wanted to do was give her the news over the phone if she were alone.
“Yeah, we were celebrating.” Her voice sounded so unsuspicious that pain bloomed in my chest. “Did you want to talk to him?”
Coward that I was, I almost considered it. I could tell Geoff and he could tell Ahanti. But if I couldn’t be there for my best friend, I didn’t deserve to have one. “No, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t there by yourself.”
A beat of silence. “That sounds a lot like a version of are you sitting down? What’s wrong?” All the lightness drained out of her voice.
I explained what had happened to Terrance.
She didn’t respond right away, but I could hear sniffling on the other end and then Geoff asking what happened. I listened as Ahanti repeated what I’d said. Geoff swore.
It was his voice when someone finally came back to the phone. “The guy you hired is sure it was Terrance who got jumped? And the police don’t think it was a random mugging or something like that?”
I hadn’t talked to the police. “I’ll check with Detective DeGoey, but the investigator I hired knew what Terrance looked like and he helped him until paramedics arrived. It was definitely Terrance.”
