Inside meant reality. Inside meant facing something I didn’t want to face. “Just tell me.”
“Tessa.” He said my name in a way that under different circumstances would have made me drop my panties and drag him to my room. I swayed. Dani nudged me gently. I wasn’t okay.
Wyatt watched me, something heavy in his expression; it was soft now, like he was trying to figure out the proper words he was going to use. He’d been so confident only a moment ago, but now I wasn’t sure what I saw.
“It’s about Ray,” he said again, softer.
Four
Wyatt
Wood met bone, paint dust jumped from the casing, and for a moment, the cheap light in the hallway buzzed like it was considering giving up.
“Dani, what the hell was that?” Tessa hissed.
“He looked like a murderer, Tess.“ The women's voices flowed through the door like there was no barrier between us.
“He knew my name,” Tessa said. Her volume was too high; words blurred at the edges. She sounded drunk. Not tipsy, not warm and loose, but properly drunk. “Why does he know my name?”
“He probably searched you online before he came to cut you up,” Dani said. “I bet Colin set him.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. Of all the tasks I had expected to handle today, knocking on the door of a rundown city apartment to deliver a death notice to a drunk niece who wanted nothing to do with her family had not been on the list. Yet here I was.
I knocked again, and both of them screamed.
“Tessa, he is still there,” Dani hissed.
“Oh my God, do you think he can hear us?” Tessa asked.Her voice climbed higher with each word, like panic was driving it up by the inch.
“Yes,” I said, pitching my voice low. “I can hear you.” I let the irritation slide through me and settle into something colder. I spent all afternoon managing shocked neighbours and the logistics that came with a body. This was the last stop. I wasn’t leaving without doing what needed to be done. I knocked again, slower, the sound echoing down the narrow hall.
On the other side, there was a flurry of movement. Something clattered to the floor. Someone cursed.
The lock slid, and the door opened the width of a finger. A single brown eye peered out at me. “Tessa,” I said. Hearing her own name seemed to go through her like a jolt. Her gaze dragged over my face, my shoulders, the hat in my hand. Mascara smudged beneath her eyes, dark crescents against red blotches. Her cheeks were flushed from liquor. Her hair fell around her face in careless waves, half knotted, half smooth, as if she had run her hands through it too many times.
“What do you want?” she asked. Her voice landed somewhere near exhausted.
“I need to speak with you,” I said, “in private.”
“About what?”
“Open the door.”
There was a pause long enough for me to see how her fingers trembled against the edge of the door. Behind her shoulder, Dani appeared. Pink hair, wild eyes, a pillow clutched to her chest as if that would help.
“Maybe we should let him in,” Dani said.
“He is not coming in,” Tessa muttered, but it was more to herself than to me.
I felt the muscle in my jaw tighten. I’d chased cattle through ice, pulled stuck calves in the dark, and squared off with bulls that hated me on principle. I wasn’t aboutto stand in a hallway and argue with two drunk women who already decided I was the villain.
“Tessa,” I said. “I wouldn’t be here at this hour if this could wait until morning.”
Her eyes flicked to mine. Something in what she saw there must have cut through the alcohol, because her shoulders sagged a fraction. She glanced back at Dani.
“You said something about Ray,” she said quietly as she opened the door fully.
The apartment looked like an emotional storm went through it. There was an empty wine bottle tipped on its side, blankets in heaps, shoes in places shoes did not belong. A bra hung crookedly off a lamp, as if it surrendered mid-battle. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
