I blink towards her and realize the room has been dismissed. I’m the only one sitting down. “Sure, what’s next?” I croak out.
She looks at me with underlying concern but doesn’t push it. We haven’t talked directly about her wedding day, but we both know it’s happening.
“I need to get my things from my office, but I’m done for the day.”
I nod, and we head back upstairs in silence, but I can’t shake the noose around my neck.
She’s getting married.
And, as if the universe gets off on cruel jokes, there’s a big white box with a big white bow sitting outside her office door.
“Miley, did you see who left this?” She asks her intern.
“No, ma’am. I was out getting a coffee, and left for aboutten minutes.”
“Let me just…” She starts to hand me her briefcase as if that’ll make this less awkward.
“It’s okay, I’ll get it.” I bend to grab it, and as soon as my hands are under it, the cardboard saturates my fingers, and I freeze.
“Hayes?” She asks from behind me when I don’t move.
“If I ask you to turn around, would you listen?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” I spin to face her and hold the box up, watching her eyes go wide. “It’s blood… Isn’t it?”
Her hand covers her mouth, and she nods.
“I guess your stalker knows you’re getting married Saturday.”
* * *
“There are cameras at all the entrances in the building, but it’s a public courthouse; we’ve had over three hundred people in and out today,” Malec says, scanning the security footage at the courthouse.
He pulled a chair up and told me to sit next to him so we could go through the footage. I hate to admit it, but he’s growing on me despite his profession.
“A big white box isn’t normal,” I utter, staring at the split-screens.
“No, it’s not. And, it should have been pulled aside at security.”
“Are you sure it was a deer heart? Not human?” Liv asks, pacing back and forth in front of Malec’s desk.
“I’m positive,” I reassure her. “My dad always made me gut the deer when he forced me on his hunting trips.”
“Didn’t like to hunt?” Malec asks me absently.
“Didn’t like my dad.”
He nods in understanding and leaves it at that.
“He was abusive and horrible. He was a cop,” Liv scoffs. “No offense,” she says directly to Malec, and I look at her in disbelief. She shrugs, “Sorry, I ramble when I’m stressed.”
“No offense taken,” Malec says, completely unbothered. “Right here. The office supplier loads his dolly with four boxes of paper, but when he gets into the building, there are five.”
“The office supplier is my stalker?”
“Doubt it. He probably was just an easy target. No one pays attention to the paper delivery.”
