A gym would be nice.Maybe a run.What was the worst thing that could happen to him running on icy sidewalks in the dark?A broken ankle?Might be an improvement.He moved to the windows in the living room, looked down at the street below.
Itwasstill dark, but there was a faint hint of light off to the east.Must be getting close-ish to morning.He rubbed at the spot where he’d been shot this summer.It didn’thurtexactly, but something there just kind of ached.
Hell, everything ached.He wondered what the hell he was doing here in Marietta, planning on passing the bar here, planning on… building a new life here when there were so many gaping wounds.
Then, for some reason—maybe because Glenda had been in his nightmare—he thought about Jill’s book.
She hadn’tstolenanything from his life.Her fictional characters were both in law enforcement, and their pasts and futures weren’t anything like his.
But the traumatic amnesia plaguing her main male character—a fascinating FBI Agent with a past at leastascomplicated as Cal’s, if not more so—felt real and…validatingwas the only word he could think of.
When he thought about himself, thought about not remembering, it felt like shame and weakness, but on someone else?
He shook his head.Stupid that he’d let himself off the hook just because she was a good writer who could create a sympathetic character out of some very unsympathetic shit.Herswas fiction.
His was real fucking life, and what the hell was sympathetic about not remembering important things?
Something flashed behind him, and Cal searched the room.He spotted the new source of light—his phone screen lit up.Someone was calling him.At four o’clock in the morning.That couldn’t be good.
He glanced at the name on the screen.Nate.Yeah, really not good.
“Hello,” Cal greeted warily.
“Security alarms went off at Honor’s Edge,” Nate said, his voice terse, a military-like command.“Cops are on their way.I need you to stay put until they get there and sweep the building.Sam and I will be over in a few.”
Cal didn’t bother to say he would stay put, because like hell.He shoved the phone into the pocket of his sweats, shoved his feet into the boots by the door, then headed down the stairs into the back room of the office and building.
The door was still firmly closed, so he walked out to the main office area.That door was closed too.So whatever had set off the alarms wasn’t a full-fledged break-in.
When he heard knocking at the back door, he retraced his steps, and since he could see the blue and red flashing lights from the window, he opened it.
He recognized the cop on the other side of the door and figured it was just his luck.Officer Brian Mathews was a prick—and had been his whole miserable life.But the kicker had been fucking with Cal last year when the threats against Aly had been going on.Of course, Hayes had been in on that too.
“Got an alarm call,” Mathews greeted, somehow making it sound like that was all Cal’s fault.But then Mathews held out an envelope.“It was in the door.Got your name on it.”
Cal didn’t say anything.Just took the envelope.Yeah, it had his name and it looked just like the last one.He didn’t wait around for anyone to tell him not to.He opened it.
This time, the drawing of him was a little more graphic.Instead of numbers exed out on his forehead, there was a nice red dot.
AndXs over his eyes.With little red squiggly lines coming out of his mouth.
“Got a lot of fans I take it.”
Cal smiled sharply at the police officer, but he didn’t say anything.Sure, he could be an ass right back, and be ten times better at it, but where would that get him?
Personal satisfaction?And he wasn’t a lawyer anymore—not until he passed the Montana bar—so…
But he pushed that very tempting thought away.Getting into it with a cop wasn’t going to help Sam and Nate—and even if it was about him, this was Sam’s building.
“This is the second threat I’ve gotten like this in the past month.”He noted in this one he was wearing a Marietta High School sweatshirt.He frowned over that detail.Because that spoke to his lifehere.It spoke to phases of his life from lawyer to… high school student?
“Did you report the first one to the police?”
“No, I reported it to…” He trailed off as a truck pulled into the lot.
Nate’s truck.Sam and Nate got out.It might have been humorous—Sam in thick flannel sweats and her hair a mess.Nate with a weird lock of hair sticking up at an odd angle—but it just spoke of a happily domestic couple being pulled from their bed by…
Well, who knew what.
