Suddenly One Summer (FBI/US Attorney #6)(16)

Okay, maybe a lot curious.

She tiptoed to the sliding doors of her balcony—before realizing that was a touch overdramatic since he couldn’t hear her, anyway—and peered through the glass.

Not seeing anything at first, she had to readjust her position to get a better angle. Then she spotted him on the balcony next to hers: a tall man wearing a baseball cap. He leaned against the ledge with his back to her, and even when he angled to the side he had the baseball cap pulled down too low for her to see much of his face.

But what she could see was that he wasn’t alone.

A woman with long, blond hair stood side by side with him on the balcony. She held a bottled beer in her hand, and looked at F. Dixon with a serious expression. From their body language, there was no mistaking the fact that the two of them were close.

Victoria couldn’t help but wonder if the blonde had any clue about the brunette who’d just spent the night at his place.

“I love you, you know,” the blonde said to him.

Victoria would take that as a no.

She couldn’t make out his response, but, really, it didn’t matter. After eight years of being a divorce lawyer, she knew his type—men who wanted to have their cake and eat it, too, when it came to women. They led women on, they lied, they cheated, and in the end, people got hurt.

Sometimes really hurt.

Are you still there, Victoria? Help is coming, I promise.

Shoving the memory aside, she tried not to gag as F. Dixon put his arm around the blonde’s shoulders and pulled her in close. Aw, wasn’t he so sweet and affectionate? Why, he looked so caring, one would never guess that just last night, he’d had another woman in his bed.

The jerk.

Thinking that she’d seen enough of her neighbor for one day, she stepped away from the sliding glass doors and headed back into her kitchen to order that pizza.

Six

AMAZINGLY, OVER THE next four days, the ubiquitous F. Dixon actually allowed Victoria to get some sleep.

How gracious of him.

Oh, sure, there were minor annoyances. Like his nighttime routine. From the low din of television she could hear through her bedroom wall, he liked to watch the news at night, followed by sports. At least, she assumed these were sporting events he was watching, judging from the shouts of Yes! and Aw, come ON! and What the hell was that? that permeated her wall while she tried to read a book in bed.

Either that, or F. Dixon had a strangely critical way of dirty talking.

The sounds coming from his bedroom weren’t overly loud, and they always ended by eleven thirty P.M., when she went to sleep. And, yes, she knew that neighbor noise was simply part of condo living. Still, reading in bed was her way of relaxing at the end of a busy day, often the only peaceful thirty minutes she ever got. So, rightfully or wrongfully, this nighttime routine between her and F. Dixon just . . . irked her.

Normally, there’d be an easy solution: she could buy a white-noise machine. But that was out of the question after the break-in at her townhome. She felt safer in her new place, but nevertheless, she didn’t want to do anything that would impair her ability to hear strange sounds at night.

So for now, she supposed she would have to grin and bear it.

Or at least, frown, mutter sarcastically under her breath, and bear it.

On the upside, she was now clocking in a luscious seven hours of sleep per night, and holy crap did it ever feel good. She felt more energized, more like herself than she had in over a month. So much so, in fact, that she’d begun to wonder whether she needed to continue her therapy sessions with Dr. Metzel. True, she still wasn’t riding the subway or attending her exercise class, but in the grand scheme of things, weren’t these minor inconveniences? Mankind had, after all, invented taxis for a reason. And, really, who needed to exercise indoors when one lived in a city where the weather was nice . . . at least twenty days out of every year?

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, girlfriend.

Great. Suddenly her subconscious was a psychotherapist, too. And kind of a little sassy.

Victoria mulled over these thoughts while walking back to the office after court Friday morning. From the looks of things in the lobby, someone in her building was hosting a workshop or some kind of conference, because there were nearly thirty people milling around the elevator bank wearing nametags. Not thinking much about it, when the elevator arrived and one of the men in the group gestured politely in her direction—After you—she stepped into the elevator and moved to the back.

And then about fifteen people crammed in after her.

When the doors closed, and the elevator began to rise, she began to feel uncomfortable with all the people pressed against her. Maybe she was imagining it, but the air in the elevator suddenly felt stuffy and warm. She was essentially trapped—a realization that made her heart beat faster.

Just stay calm, she told herself. This sudden onset of anxiety was all in her head. She knew that.

Or was it?

After all, she’d blacked out just a month ago in circumstances a lot like this. What if that happened again? What if she felt light-headed and needed to get off the elevator and nobody moved out of her way and everyone stared as she . . .

She took a deep breath and exhaled. As people chatted around her, she stared up at the floor indicator, counting down the seconds until she was free. Her mouth was dry, she felt hot and flushed, and her heart was pounding, but she could do this, she was going to make it—thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two—