Chapter 5 Chapter 5
Wrapping my hand around the booth handle, I pulled the door open, at the same time muttering, “Good talk, idiot,” as I stepped through.
Cool air brushed over my bare arms while I stopped outside the booth and listened, waiting long enough for the steady hum of the air conditioner to begin filling the silence again.
I didn't hear anything, and with the outer door remaining closed, the narrow window beside it showed only darkness beyond the building.
Taking another moment to listen, I finally started forward, my sneakers making soft sounds against the floor as I crossed between the empty cubicles, passing a desk chair sitting crooked beneath one workstation, as well as a coat hanging over the back of another while the copy room ahead remained dark beyond the doorway.
I'd walked through this office hundreds of times without thinking twice about any of it, but tonight every partition looked tall enough for somebody to crouch behind, every doorway opened into a space I couldn't see, and every damn shadow seemed to deserve a second look.
This place was a lot less creepy before I started looking for murderers in it.
Halfway across the room, something shifted near the floor to my left, and jerking toward it, I brought the flashlight up while my heart slammed so hard against my ribs that the sudden rush of blood filled my ears.
My gaze landed beneath someone's desk where a plastic grocery bag rustled across the floor.
Staring at it for the count of another heartbeat, I watched as a burst of air from the vent caught one side of the bag and lifted it before letting it fall again.
“You asshole,” I whispered, slowly lowering the flashlight as another puff of air sent the plastic rustling against the floor.
Shaking my head at myself, I continued across the room until I reached the outer door, where wrapping my hand around the handle, I pulled. It was locked, but I checked it again anyway, giving the handle another hard tug before leaning toward the narrow window beside it.
My SUV sat beneath one of the parking-lot lights exactly where I'd left it, with a few other cars scattered farther down the lot, but nobody stood between them and nothing moved near the building. No mysterious stranger lurked beneath a light, and no conveniently guilty person took off running because I'd spotted them. It was just an empty parking lot.
A breath slipped slowly from my lungs as I straightened, and with some of the tension between my shoulders beginning to loosen, I almost felt ridiculous for letting a plastic grocery bag and an anonymous text message scare the hell out of me.
See? Fine. Then my gaze dropped. A padded envelope lay on the floor beneath the mail slot, and for several seconds, I simply stared at it while the tiny bit of relief I'd managed disappeared. Written in thick black letters across the front of the envelope was one word.
TAYLOR
Keeping several feet between me and it, I crouched, my gaze moving from the envelope to the mail slot before lifting toward the narrow window and the dark parking lot outside.
Someone could have pushed it through without ever entering the building, which meant the locked door I'd just checked twice didn't mean a damn thing.
They'd been standing on the other side of it, maybe five minutes ago. Hell, maybe thirty seconds ago for all I knew.
Gaze traveling across the parking lot again, I searched between the parked cars and the shadows beyond the lights as a thought slid through my head that didn't have a damn thing funny about it. How long have you been watching me?
Any humor I'd managed to hold onto disappeared as I straightened enough to look at the phone still clutched in my hand. The last message filled the screen.
Taylor.
I looked from my name on the phone to my name written across the envelope, but instead of reaching for it, I lifted the phone and took several pictures of the front, the back, the way it lay beneath the mail slot, and the thick lettering across it before pushing myself upright and heading toward the supply cabinet.
I wasn't a cop, but I investigated things for a living, and I'd learned early that destroying something before deciding whether it mattered was a damn good way to spend the next week wishing you hadn't.
Opening the cabinet, I found the box of disposable gloves we kept for cleaning equipment, and after pulling out a pair, I glanced over my shoulder toward the outer door again. It remained closed, and nothing moved beyond the narrow window.
“Look at me making responsible decisions,” I murmured as I tugged the gloves over my hands, because after wandering through a dark office at the request of an anonymous stranger, at least one of my life choices tonight deserved recognition.
Returning to the envelope, I crouched beside it and looked it over again, finding no return address, no stamp, and nothing else that gave me the slightest clue where it had come from. Just my name.
Sliding one finger beneath the unsealed flap, I carefully lifted it, and when something hard shifted inside, I tipped the envelope until a small recorder slid into my palm.
Someone had stuck a strip of masking tape across the back, and written over it in black marker were three words.
NOT THE FIRST
My stomach tightened as I stared at the words. Not the first what? Not the first recording? Not the first person chased through the woods? Not the first person supposedly killed by an animal?
None of those possibilities did a damn thing to loosen the knot forming in my stomach.
Straightening slowly, I looked toward the locked door before turning toward the office behind me, but everything remained exactly where it belonged. The plastic bag beneath the desk had stopped rattling, no shadow moved between the cubicles, and no mysterious stranger stepped out to explain why they'd decided shoving evidence through a mail slot was preferable to having a normal damn conversation.
Holding the recorder in one gloved hand, I started back toward the booth, only making it halfway there before one word finally shoved its way through everything else crowding my head; police.
My steps slowed. If the recorder had anything to do with Owen's supposed death, calling them should have been the first thing I did, especially considering I was standing alone inside a building holding something that had been delivered by a person who apparently knew exactly where to find me. Except the anonymous texter had already given me a reason to hesitate.
Because some of them already know.
