Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(24)

AJ pulled the collar up on his coat and rubbed his gloved hands together. Fall was definitely starting to add a bite to the air. He sized up the outside of the building from the sidewalk across the street. Industrial in its function, contemporary in its architecture. This was once East Berlin, and it showed in the lack of character and homogenized look.

The front door to the complex had a massive iron gate, as did most of the windows on the first two floors.

Dodging traffic, AJ jogged across the street and looked at the address he’d written down.





#625.


He looked at the long list of names.

#625 didn’t have Olivia’s name, or anyone else’s, next to the number.

AJ pressed the buzzer and waited. People walked by on the street.

No answer.

He pressed it again, gave it a longer ring . . .

Still nothing.

“Fuck it.” He pressed several numbers all at once. The door buzzed open at the same time the PA crackled random voices saying hello.

AJ pushed the door open and said, “Sorry, mate. Pressed the wrong flat.”

He took the stairs and started to climb. Once on the sixth floor, he exited the stairwell and made his way down the long, narrow hall.

The inside of the building was nicer than the exterior. Here the halls were clean, the walls freshly painted. Still not a place he would call home.

He knocked when he reached her door.

Nothing.

The back of his neck itched, like something just didn’t seem right. Why would a new grad buy a flat on this side of town, change her name . . . or change it back, and have no trackable job or source of income? Oh, and no name on her flat number on the ground floor? Yeah, that felt off.

AJ took a quick look around, didn’t see any security cameras in the hallway or any neighbors peeking out.

Still he ducked his head into his coat a little deeper and removed two long, needle-like prongs from his back pocket. He glanced at his gloves and smiled. He hadn’t intended to need to hide his fingerprints from anyone when he’d left the hotel . . . yet here he was.

He briefly wondered what getting caught breaking and entering would get an American citizen in Germany.

When the lock clicked and the handle easily turned, he realized he was already guilty.

He moved slowly into the quiet apartment and closed the door behind him.

The place was practically empty. White walls and only the basics of furniture. A gray sofa, a glass coffee table, two white iron stools at a kitchen counter. There wasn’t a single dish on the counter or seasonings by the stove.

Impeccably clean.

Not a speck of dust.

AJ wanted to probe more, but he first wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to surprise a sleeping woman.

He tiptoed down the hall, pushed open the door to the bathroom, and then moved to the next door. He sighed. The bed was made and empty. “What the hell?” He opened the closet door, sure he would find it bare.

It wasn’t.

Women’s clothes hung on hangers, neatly spaced. Three pairs of shoes lined the floor of the closet. He bent down and picked one up, looked at the bottom. A dusting of scuff marks said they’d been worn.

He put it back and started opening drawers.

He found women’s lingerie, but not an abundance of it. One neatly folded up pair of blue jeans and two T-shirts that looked like they could have been purchased at the corner from a street vendor. Everything was too perfect and too sparse. AJ searched for a hamper, dirty clothes . . . didn’t find either.

The bathroom had a few cosmetics and shampoo in the shower, but the towels didn’t look like they’d been used. There wasn’t one TV or cord hanging from an outlet to charge a phone. No pictures.

Olivia McNaught might own the place, but she didn’t live there.

AJ backed out of the flat and locked the door before he closed it behind him. A quick search of the hall and he made his way back to the stairs. His years of not playing by all the rules kicked in and he took the stairs to the roof, not the sidewalk.

The buildings were like brownstones, all pushed together. Using the rooftops as his own walkway, AJ jumped over several buildings until he found a door to the stairs open. Five minutes later he was walking away with his phone to his ear, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

Reed didn’t answer his phone, so AJ left a message.

“The address you gave me might be owned by the woman we spoke of, but she doesn’t spend any time there. Maybe her old roommate in Arizona will have some insight. I’d be grateful if you could find a phone number for me. Thanks.”



“I don’t think I can do it, Jax.” Claire stared up at the ceiling, counting the same hundred and sixty dots in the tile she’d counted a zillion times.

“It isn’t that bad.” Her best friend sat on the edge of her bed, her Richter uniform rumpled from being tossed in a pile and swept under the bed before inspections.

“Easy for you to say, you get out once in a while. This place is like a prison, and now that I’m eighteen, I have the key and I’m not using it.”

“What about college? How are you going to afford that on the outside? It’s only three more years.”

Claire stuck out her tongue and made gagging noises.

“If you go, I go.”

“You’re not eighteen until next August.”