I hadn’t talked to her yet, but I wasn’t letting her stay at her own apartment tonight. Not until we got some more information.
Walking across the hall to where Swift told me the neighbor lived, I knocked on the door.
“Iris,” a female voice called from the other side of the door. “Come look at the peephole, dear. There is a very handsome but slightly scary man on the other side of the door. Do you know him?”
I heard shuffling feet and muttered voices, and then the door opened.
I wasn’t sure what I expected her neighbor to look like, but it certainly wasn’t an elderly woman,barely five feet tall, wearing bunny slippers. A yappy dog started barking incessantly as the door swung open even wider, and I saw Iris.
“Hey, Hector,” she said to me amid the loud barking.
She looked defeated and wrung out. Her eyes were dry, with no signs of having cried, but they also looked tired.
“Hello, I’m Nancy,” the old woman said to me as she ushered me into her place, holding a tiny dog in her arms. “And this is Cocoa. Her bark is worse than her bite.”
Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to find out if that was the truth or not.
“I’m Hector. Thank you for watching out for Iris,” I told her.
I was glad Iris had this woman to go to for support and comfort. She deserved it, though a part of me found I also wanted to give her some of that support.
“Thanks for coming,” Iris said to me. “I can take you over to meet the cops if you want.”
“I went there first, actually,” I told her, filling her in on the fact that I knew Officer Swift. I chose not to tell her what they said about the cotton ball just yet.
“Here. Come have a seat, young man,” Nancy said, pointing at her couch.
I took her up on that offer and sat down next to Iris, facing her and Nancy, who was sitting in the chair with her dog in her lap.
“I highly recommend you stay somewhere else tonight other than your own place,” I told Iris, and I was about tosuggest a friend or family member when Nancy chimed in.
“She can stay with me. I have a pull-out sofa, and Cocoa and I will take good care of her.”
While I had no doubt this woman meant what she said, I wasn’t sure she was any safer here than at her own place. Not to mention, her dog wasn’t exactly ideal protection material. I just needed a delicate way to tell her that.
“That’s very kind of you, but it might make her relax a little more to be away from this apartment complex for a night,” I informed her.
She looked at me and nodded as though she understood where I was coming from.
I hated where my next thought went, but it needed to be asked.
“You got a man, Iris?” Because if she did, and he was a good man, he would want to know about the break-in. “One you can go stay with?”
“Not anymore,” she said, grumbling.
I was happy about that for reasons I chose not to think too deeply about. I was not, however, thrilled with how she muttered it.
“Why?” I asked before I thought better of it.
“Because men suck,” she murmured, looking down at her cup of tea.
I knew I shouldn’t ask. Shouldn’t get involved. But I wanted to know what happened. If someone had hurt her, even if they’d just disappointed her, I needed to know.
Before I could say anything else, Nancy took thatmoment to fill me in on some of the losers Iris had dated—including one who wanted her to lose weight. That one pissed me off the most because Iris had an incredible body and didn’t need to change a damn thing. Any guy would be lucky to have her at his side—or underneath him.
Shit. I needed to bring my thoughts back to the here and now.
“You can stay with me,” I blurted out, suddenly unsure if it sounded too forward.
