Someone was looking in.
A woman.
Eve would later wonder if everything would have gone differently had she not moved. If she had screamed or called out for Darius. If she had run from the room, never once looking back.
Would things have gone better?
But in the moment, Eve didn’t yell. She didn’t run. She didn’t scream.
Instead, she hesitated.
That’s the only reason she saw the woman put her hand up to the window. And that’s the only reason she noticed the writing scrawled across her palm.
Save them.
It was the woman from the steel mill. The one who had broken into the same house the day before. Eve could see the sling was still on. She could also see that the woman wasn’t holding a weapon.
There was blood, though, along her hairline and dripping down the side of her face.
Maybe that was why Eve went to the window and, against all her better judgment, slid the curtains to the side.
When the woman made no immediate move to attack or show aggression, Eve took her lack of judgment even further.
She unlocked the window and slid it up a few inches. Just enough to hear her.
The woman didn’t waste any time.
“A man is in your living room threatening to kill Theo Weaver, Winnie Collins, and Deputy Collins to get your detective to leave the house with him,” she rushed. “He wants Detective Williams to lureyouout, but if he finds out you’re here, then he’ll kill the detective without a second thought.”
Like she had timed it perfectly, there was a commotion coming from the front of the house. Yelling. But no shots.
Yet.
Eve glanced at her phone.
The woman hurried on.
“They can track phones, but they can’t track me,” she said. “Leave with me now, and you can save them all later.” The commotion from the other side of the house became louder. The woman might have been bleeding, hurt and pale, but her words were steady, her eyes clear. But that didn’t mean Eve could believe her.
“Why would you help me?” she asked. “You’ve attacked us before.”
Despite the intense situation, the woman actually rolled her eyes.
“I’m breaking my contract, and the only way to not get killed is to help you guys not get killed.”
Eve’s adrenaline spiked as something in the other room shattered.
Her heart squeezed.
“Why?” she had to ask once more.
The woman was nothing but serious when she answered again.
“Because when enough men keeping telling you to kill a woman, it’s always a good rule of thumb to reevaluate. Now, come on so we can outsmart those idiots.” The woman stepped to the side, angling her body away from the house. She looked seconds away from running.
Not attacking.
All concerns about Eve’s relationship with Darius disappeared.
