Chasing Shadows (First Wives #3)(52)

When done, she stared at the piece of paper in front of her. She conjured up the face of the man the police said did the deed. “Why can’t I see you?”

He was already dead, killed by the man who hired him.

But Avery couldn’t see him.

She pulled a bottle of water from her refrigerator and her telephone rang.

She jumped, nearly dropping the bottle.

“Who the hell? Hello?”

“Avery?” It was Lori.

“Is everything okay?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“It’s two thirty in the morning, Lori.”

“I know. Alliance security called Reed. They heard a scream and then logged in on the cameras. Are you okay?”

“Jesus, I forgot about the cameras. I thought they’d been turned off.”

“Off, but not disconnected. Are you okay? You sound okay.”

“I had a bad dream. I’m fine. The phone ringing scared the crap out of me.”

“She says she’s fine,” Lori said, away from the phone.

“Hey, Lori?”

“Yeah?”

“What security company takes ten minutes to ask if I’m okay?”

Lori sighed. “You’re wearing a red T-shirt and standing in your kitchen. Reed said you were fine. But after tonight’s conversation—”

Avery looked across the room to where she knew the camera had been placed the year before. She stared right at it. “I’m fine. Now turn off the damn camera or I’m ripping it off the wall.”

“I can’t do that,” Lori said.

Avery turned her attention back to the phone. “I was talking to the guy watching the camera. I’m okay. Go back to bed.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Good night, Mother Hen.”

This was why she didn’t tell her friends what was going on in her head. The security guys would have heard her scream, clicked on the camera, seen she was fine, and then turned it all off. Over-the-top for a security system, but when the guy who hired the man to kill her last year was still alive, it had been necessary. Now, not so much.

Avery twisted until her gaze landed on the kitchen counter. The memory of Liam as he . . .

Oh, yeah. The cameras had to go.



Avery’s ass dragged the next day. She was 100 percent sure her emotional barometer was not ready to tackle the attic, but she was doing it anyway.

The Santa Ana winds were in full effect, with red flag warnings everywhere. The lack of rain and dry heat were a disaster waiting to happen. Days like this always made her happy she lived in a high-rise. Not much chance of a brush fire attacking her home.

The lack of cars in the driveway was a blessing. Her occasional helper wasn’t coming in today, and it didn’t look like Sheldon was there checking on the progress. In fact, she hadn’t seen him since he’d asked her out. Maybe it would stay that way. She had two more weeks on the job but was pushing to get out of the house in one. It would still take time to sell everything, between auctions and estate home garage-type sales. But her day in and day out would be over. Avery looked forward to it.

The air snapped when she walked into the house. Or maybe it was just the vibe coursing through her skin. Knowing the skeletons that were hiding in the Lankford closets wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

She glanced into the study where she’d found the hidden drawer in the desk. At first, she had every intention of selling the thing to an antique dealer. It wasn’t auction worthy, but it was old. But if there was any question from Sheldon about where she’d found the photos, having the desk, and the drawer, would make it easier for her to show him. Since he’d given her permission to determine where the best dollar would be found, she’d lie about the desk and keep it there until the last possible day. After she gave him the photographs.

She set her empty coffee cup on a hall table and walked upstairs to the attic access. The stairs had been pulled down the day before, but Avery hadn’t sucked up the nerve to climb them.

In addition to the concern that she’d find more shit she didn’t want to see, Avery had a deep respect for spiders. Respect defined as you stay on your side of the room and I’ll stay on mine. Again, a plus for high-rise living. The little shits had a harder time finding her than they would if she lived in a normal house with the foundation sitting on dirt, where those eight-legged, fast crawling creatures lived. Then again, maybe the guy she hired to spray for the things every year was doing his job.

She stared at the space above her head for several seconds. “Stop being such a girl.”

Avery forced a fast pace up the steps and hauled herself up at the top. Two dormers on the east and west sides of the house let natural light into the space, but it wasn’t enough. There looked to be old hanging lights, with chain cords to turn the things on, spread out every twenty feet or so.

She brushed away a cobweb and told herself it was probably decades old and the spider that made it was long gone. “Nope. Spiders need food to survive. None of that up here.”

Yeah, except the few flies she’d already swatted away from her face. Maybe opening the stairwell the night before hadn’t been a good idea.

She turned on the first light and took in the space around her. It was huge, spanning nearly the entire frame of the house. Most of it had plywood covering the floor space, except closer to the dormers. The musty smell of insulation and maybe the decay of a mouse or two rounded out the joys hitting her brand-new nose. Attics in larger, older homes all held the usual suspects. Old furniture people weren’t ready to part with, some of it worth something, most of it sentimental to the dead, so in other words, worthless.