Lisa Childs - Dark Nights

The office door rattled under a pounding fist. Paige’s heart skipped a beat as fear filled her. At Ben’s insistence, she’d locked that door but not the one to the outside stairwell.

Why hadn’t he stayed?

“Paige?” a female voice called out. “Are you all right?”

“Kate!” She sprang up from her desk and fumbled with the lock.

The detective stood outside the door, her gun clutched in her hand. But the friend stepped into the office, her eyes soft with concern. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Now that she wasn’t alone. “In fact, I’m sure I overreacted. I shouldn’t have called you. You’re a major case detective, and this is just a little vandalism.”

“And these?” Kate asked as she gestured at the arrangement on the desk. “Granted, it’s been a while since anyone has sent me flowers, but still I don’t think black roses are all that romantic.”

“Are you sure?” Paige teased. “The concept of romance could have changed in the many years since you’ve tried it. I don’t remember the last time you went on a date.”

“You’ve been divorced four years. But when’s the last time you dated?”

Paige shrugged. “It’s been a while,” she admitted. What she and Ben did together could hardly be called dating.

“Was there a card with these ugly flowers?” Kate asked.

“It’s stuck to the stake.”

“Stake?” The detective shuddered. “That looks like what someone pounded into the steering wheel of your car.”

“Sebastian’s car,” Paige corrected her, then flinched as she recalled the damage to the sports coupe. “And he’s going to kill me for not protecting his pride and joy.”

“I think he’s going to be more concerned about you than his car,” Kate said. “What does the note say?”

She released a shaky breath. “It says I’m going to get what I deserve.”

“You don’t deserve this, Paige,” Kate said, her voice husky with emotion.

She was such a good friend—something Paige never would have suspected they would become given how they’d met. Back before Paige had joined the law firm, she’d been a public defender, representing some of the people Kate had arrested. Detective Wever hadn’t appreciated that Paige had sometimes gotten the charges either reduced or thrown out.

“You’re right,” she agreed. Whatever she might have done wrong in her life, she had already been punished enough with all that she had lost. “I think this is just a misunderstanding. Or mistaken identity. Or something. I can’t have a stalker.”

“Why not?”

She gestured at herself, pointing out her baggy sweatshirt and disheveled hair. “I’m hardly stalker material.”

“You’re beautiful, Paige,” her friend assured her. “I’m sure you have guys hitting on you all the time.”

“No.” Ben didn’t count. “I haven’t dated in forever.”

“So maybe it’s someone you represented,” Kate suggested.

“I haven’t practiced criminal law in years,” Paige said. “I’ve mostly been doing contracts and wills. Lizzy, being the divorce lawyer, is the one who gets the threats.”

“It’s only been a few years since you stopped practicing criminal law,” Kate said. “Even after you joined the firm, you kept doing pro bono work for the public defender’s office.”

“Much to your disappointment,” Paige said with a smile. “You sure you didn’t send me the flowers? There were times you called me a few unflattering names.”

“That was before I got to know you,” Kate said. “Then I understood that you were only trying to help.” She narrowed her eyes in a mock glare. “Damn bleeding heart…”

Remembering the stake, Paige shuddered. “Not hardly. It’s just that I know that people make mistakes.” Growing up, she’d watched her mother make mistake after mistake. And she vowed she’d never become like that, desperate and dependent on a man. But then she’d fallen for Ben….

“So you have no idea who could have sent these flowers or vandalized your car?”

She shrugged. “None.”

But then the voice reverberated in her head, its faint echo taunting her, You don’t belong here… .

And her shrug turned into a shudder.

“What is it?” Kate asked, as perceptive as ever. “You’ve thought of something.”

She shook her head, unwilling to admit to hearing voices. Kate, as practical as she was perceptive, would think she was crazy. “It has to be a mistake.” There really was no voice inside her head.

“The flowers were left in your office. That was no mistake, Paige. And even though it’s Sebastian’s car, you’re the one who drove it here.”

She shuddered again. “And I had a strange sensation,” she confessed, “a feeling that someone was watching me.”

A muscle twitched along Kate’s delicate jaw. “You’re being stalked, Paige.”

“Then it must be some random kook.”

“This feels more personal than that,” Kate said. Her voice deepened with concern, and her blue eyes narrowed. “You’re sure your ex isn’t holding a grudge over the divorce?”

Despite all the years they’d been friends, Kate had never really met Ben. All those times, before the divorce, that Paige had asked him to join her and her friends for drinks or dinner—he’d been busy with work…and whatever else that he had never shared with her.

“Ben’s not holding a grudge,” Paige insisted. “He never fought the divorce. We never really ever fought.” Maybe if they had, they’d still be married. But, she suspected that Ben hadn’t cared enough to fight with her…or for her.

“You’re lucky you never fought,” Kate remarked, glancing away as if unable to meet Paige’s gaze. She’d never talked about her divorce, which had happened before she and Paige had become friends.

But they were friends, and because they were, Paige felt compelled to confess, “I think it has something to do with this place.”

Kate met her gaze now, her blue eyes carefully guarded. “What about this place?”

“I don’t know. I just feel…I just feel that there’s something off about it. That there’s some secret about it. You mentioned it last night,” Paige remembered. “You know something about this place.”

Kate shrugged. “Rumors. Nothing I can prove.”

“What are the rumors?”

A ragged sigh slipped through Kate’s lips. “Nothing that makes any sense. Just that the club and its patrons are keeping a secret.”

“You don’t know what the secret is?”

“Something dangerous. Something unbelievable, but no one’s ever said what it is. I thought it was some urban legend—something not worth my time to investigate.” That muscle twitched along her jaw again. “But one of my best friends is being threatened. It’s damn well worth my time now to launch an investigation.”

“I know where to start,” Paige shared. Her hand trembling, she turned the knob of the office door and stepped into the hall. Then she pointed to that heavy steel door at the end of it. “That’s the key to the secret. If only I had the key to the door.”

A small smile curved Kate’s lips. “I seldom need keys.”

Instead of excitement or anticipation, a chill of dread rushed over Paige. She wouldn’t like whatever they discovered behind that door. When Kate pulled a small kit of metal tools from her pocket, Paige nearly stopped her, but then she pulled back her hand.

She hadn’t fought Ben, either. She should have pushed him; she should have fought to learn all his secrets. But then, like now, she’d been afraid of what she might discover.

It was well past time to face her fears.

“Live, damn you, live,” Ben beseeched the man lying atop the table. Blood gurgled around the stake protruding from Owen Buskirk’s chest.