Who the hell walked up to a building and handed over a written message?
At the back desk, a sleepy-eyed guard sat taller and pushed a folded piece of paper across the counter to me. Unsealed, as I’d expected.
I sighed and read the messy scrawl.
Tyler, Johnston is getting out. Tomorrow. You need to handle that fucker – Jonas.
My pulse spiked.
Wrong. All wrong.
Johnston was in prison for life. My uncle couldn’t be right.
“You say he just left,” I breathed.
The guard nodded. “Just a minute before you called. He was, uh, staggering.”
On my phone, I switched the camera view to the exterior ones and scrolled back until Jonas appeared. He lumbered up from a concrete bollard, his focus up like he was watching something. The time stamp said I wouldn’t be far behind if I chased him down.
I balled up the note, tossed it into the bin, and addressed the guard. “Add floor seven to the patrol.” Then I exited the building.
Cold air swirled over my black t-shirt sleeves, and deep shadows spread across the car park. The scent brushed over me of the swampy river, a metallic tang from iron railings, and the urban undertone of the city. I tracked Jonas, adrenaline rising in my veins. He’d left barely a few minutes ago, which meant he couldn’t have got far.
It could’ve waited. But his words had sparked something to life inside me. I needed to know everything he’d found out.
Circling the warehouse, I took the cobbled walkway that ran down the river to join the harbour, water lapping stone. There was not a soul around. Nothing but the trees that lined the path, their leaves rustling in the spring breeze.
Something hung from a branch.
I slowed, horror stalling my steps. It was a body. Dangling limp from a rope around its neck. The frame tall and slender.
After Esther in the water, and Karla on the opposite bank, this felt purposeful, displayed.
Left to be discovered.
Except the swing to it suggested it had only just been tied up there.
The timing… I drew closer, needing that confirmation that it couldn’t be Jonas.
An arm locked around me from behind. A hand clamped over my nose and mouth and something stabbed into my arm.
I slammed an elbow back, connecting with bone, but even as my attacker fell, so did I.
“No witnesses,” a familiar voice grunted.
I hit the cobbles, and everything cut out.
Chapter 41
Dixie
A knock on the apartment door had me flying to open it. Mila waited the other side, and my heart fell. Not Tyler.
I masked my disappointment and stepped aside so she could enter. He’d brought me back here then left me at some point during the night, a guard outside the door filling me in that he’d had important business to attend to.
Well, didn’t we all.
Mila touched my arm. Something in her expression put me on high alert.
