I’m just about to cross the street when I see her.
She’s walking briskly, a calf-length maroon coat pulled tight around her. Her hair is in a loose braid down her back, and she isn’t wearing glasses, which makes me smile. She’s as beautiful as I remember, a decade older but as sweet as ever. She smiles at someone she passes on the street, and it lights up her whole face. When she pauses to pet a dog that runs toward her, my gut clenches a little as I fight off the urge to call her name. It’s disconcerting that she still has the same effect on me that she had the night I met her.
I’m usually better than this.
What is it about this woman?
She speaks to a few people as she walks up the steps to the school and then disappears inside and out of sight. I scan the street and there doesn’t appear to be anyone watching or following her, though I wouldn’t be able to see them if they were indoors somewhere looking through a window.
Well, that answers my first question.
Now it’s time to get to work.
I go back to my hotel, change into generic clothes that will make me look like a repairman of some kind, pick up a few supplies and head back to her apartment building.
I get in quickly and easily, which is good for me but bad for her, and get a feel for the place, the basic layout, and how she lives. Her apartment is a little harder to get into since she has multiple locks, but it doesn’t take that long.
The place is definitely a woman’s apartment, filled with bright colors, plants, and feminine touches. There are red and pink throw pillows on the couch, a turquoise afghan hanging over what looks like an antique rocking chair, and white lacy curtains on the windows. I do a sweep, checking for bugs or anything out of the ordinary, and slip out without drawing any attention to myself.
I tend to do things like this at night, but Shannon will be home then and I have no choice but to do it now.
I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon scouring over every aspect of Shannon’s life. Her social media pages, phone records, email, bills, everything. Samantha gave me a ton of information and Chains did a good job running her name through every system he has access to. She isn’t a criminal and doesn’t have a record, so I focus instead on her daily life, spending habits, and social life.
I feel a little guilty about invading her privacy like this, but that’s the only way to get some insight on what might be going on.
Of course, I can’t deny I’m curious.
She doesn’t post a lot, mostly when she travels, but her feed has a spattering of fun photos of her with some of the people in her life. Skiing in Switzerland with friends, shopping in New York with her mother, biking in a vineyard somewhere in France. She seems happy and healthy, though her posts are few and far between, and she appears to spend most of her time with the same few people.
I dig into her ex-husband next.
Douglas Maynard is a thirty-five-year-old Washington, D.C. attorney. His wedding just last month to another lawyer at his firm was all over the gossip pages and I scowl as I scroll through the photos. He’s dorky looking while his new wife is extremely attractive.
Not prettier than Shannon, of course, but one of those women who has every hair in place and her makeup spray-painted on. She’s pretty, but she doesn’t hold a candle to Shannon in my opinion.
I’m probably happier than I should be that Shannon is single, but I need to see what there is to see with her ex. There are quite a few references to their divorce but the details are sketchy. Someone cheated, but D.C. gossip columnists didn’t call either of them out specifically.
My gut tells me it wasn’t Shannon.
Nothing raises any red flags, so I log off my laptop and grab my coat. I want to be outside the school when Shannon leaves, just to get a feel for her routine. I’m doing some of what I’m trained to do, but this isn’t a mission. This is personal.
There’s a part of me that desperately wants to look at her, lose myself in a wonderful fantasy about the one who got away. Hell, she was never mine, but for several hours one night I pretended she was. Somehow, the idea dug itself into my psyche and never let go. I’m not usually such a romantic.
In fact, I’ve never been much of a romantic at all, so this pull to Shannon doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I pick up my pace and try to focus. I need to find out what’s going on, not lose myself in memories. And the sooner I do it, the sooner I can get back to the real world—one that doesn’t include a blonde with big blue eyes.
Chapter 4
Shannon
My mother talked me into sleeping at a hotel for one night, allowing me to get a great night of sleep. I’m in a better mood now and determined to either get to the bottom of whatever is going on or get out of my own head. I’m going to buy a nanny cam of some kind as soon as I get off work today, and either prove there’s something going on or figure out why I’m freaking myself out.
Douglas did a number on my self-esteem, but I’ve never been the melodramatic type and this is getting ridiculous. I’m Wayne Barrow’s daughter, dammit, and it’s time to take control of the situation. If I’m having hallucinations or anxiety attacks or some other mental issue, I’ll get help.
The problem with that is, I don’t think I’m crazy. It feels like it sometimes lately, but I’m too sane and rational in trying to sort out the situation, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“Have a good day,” the man at the front desk tells me as I brush past him on my way out.
