“Find your address and leave you a box of snakes?” Troy filled in. “I think it’s fair to say zero people would expect that.”
She laughed a little roughly. “Yeah. You’re probably right. I know a way to recover the ones I deleted. And they contacted me on social media, too. That leaves digital footprints. Maybe we can help the police catch this guy.”
“We will,” Troy said. “We’re here for you, anything you need.”
“What if I need my phone?”
Troy blinked. “Let me revise that. Anything except going back into your apartment before the police get rid of those damn snakes.”
Aimee laughed, then reached over and hugged Troy tight, and something tightened in my chest as I watched him melt against her, burying his face in her hair and breathing her in. I let them hold each other for a minute, rubbing her back with one hand while I reached out and captured Troy’s hand with the other. He threaded his fingers through mine, giving my hand a squeeze.
“We’ve got you, Aims. Okay?” I said.
Aimee smiled, blowing out a shaky breath before backing away from the hug and wiping her hands on her jeans. “All right. I guess it’s time to call the cops.”
I nodded and reached for my phone. “I’ve got a friend who just got promoted to detective. We’ll make sure they take this seriously this time around.”
Chapter 10
Aimee
IsprawledonRhettand Troy’s couch, too exhausted to even keep my eyes open but too wired to sleep. My body felt like it had been hollowed out, scraped clean of everything but fear and fatigue.
We’d spent most of the day answering police questions, filing reports, and gathering evidence. Between giving them access to all my devices so they could trace the digital footprint of my internet bully and searching every inch of my apartment for snakes, no part of my life had gone untouched.
And my phone had shattered completely when I saw the snakes inside the box and chucked it at them.
Someone had targeted me, had found my safe space and deliberately turned it into a nightmare. I couldn’t go back there.Not tonight. Not even with assurances that every single snake had been captured and removed by animal control.
“Water or whiskey?” Troy asked, hovering over me with two glasses, one in each hand. His dark eyes were soft with concern, though I could still see the lingering tension in his shoulders. He’d been jumpy all day, checking corners and under furniture like he expected serpents to materialize from thin air.
“Both?” I managed a weak smile. “Mix them.”
“That’s disgusting,” Rhett called from the kitchen, where he was aggressively chopping vegetables, the rhythmic thunk of his knife against the cutting board comforting. “Get her the good whiskey, at least. The one we’ve been saving.”
Troy set both glasses on the coffee table and disappeared into their liquor cabinet, returning with an amber bottle that looked expensive. “One finger or two?”
“The whole hand,” I muttered, and was rewarded with Rhett’s burst of laughter from the kitchen.
“That’s our girl,” he said. Something warm bloomed in my chest at the casual claim of possession. Our girl. It was stupid how good that felt, especially today when everything else felt like shit.
Troy poured a generous amount and handed it to me. I took a sip, wincing at the burn but appreciating the immediate warmth that spread through my chest. For a minute, I let myselfdaydream about what it would be like to give in and let these two take care of me.
It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Two men in my life always fixing things, always showing up with food, holding me, running their big firefighter hands all over my body. I took another sip of the whiskey, letting the burn chase away the filthy thoughts.
There was a soft knock on the door, and I watched from my seat as Troy answered it, talking to the officer from animal control.
“You’re sure you got all of them? I don’t want one trying to murder me when we take Aimee back to her apartment.”
“We’re sure,” the officer said. “And I don’t think any of them were trying to murder anyone. They were just scared. But once we realized two of the snakes were venomous, we searched thoroughly. We think they came from a small reptile zoo in Colorado Springs.”
“Fuck. See, I told you guys!” Troy yelled over his shoulder at us. “Poisonous death noodles!”
I stood and walked over to stand next to Troy. “So what does that mean for the case?”
“The fact that the snakes he sent were dangerous makes this a more serious crime. We have some good people tracing his digital footprint right now, and they took the box back to evidence to analyze it. We’ll find this guy, ma’am.” “Jordan, the guy from the apartment downstairs, mentioned some zoo guywhen he was ranting in the hall,” Troy said. “Do you think he saw the stalker?” The officer pulled out a little notepad and wrote that down. “I’ll make sure Detective Joyce knows about that. We’ll be questioning people who may have seen the suspect.”
“Thanks, officer,” I said, smiling at him. “And thanks for making sure my apartment is safe to return to.”
