Desperate Girls (Wolfe Security #1)(72)

“I’ll just be a minute here,” she said over her shoulder. “I need to do a few things and pick up some case files.”

“Take your time.”

She got a pitcher from under the sink and filled it with water. She glanced at Erik. He was in her dining room now, surrounded by ladders and drop cloths, surveying the freshly primed walls.

“It’s a work in progress,” she told him. “I’m going room to room.”

“You’re doing it yourself?”

“Yeah. In my copious free time.”

He stepped over to the built-in corner shelf that she’d sanded but not painted. Once upon a time, it had probably been used to display someone’s wedding china. Brynn planned to use it for books.

“How long you been in here?” Erik looked at her.

“Two years.” Which made it pretty embarrassing that she’d only managed to finish the living room and the master suite. The kitchen had hardly been touched. It was mint-green tile and linoleum flooring. Brynn didn’t mind the green, but the tile was chipped, and the grout was discolored, and she hadn’t decided whether to pull it out or restore it.

Erik walked through the kitchen to her back door. He flipped the bolt and stepped onto the screened-in porch. Brynn had a wicker sofa out there where she liked to sip coffee or wine and do legal work.

She scooted past him and watered a fern in the corner. He was standing at the screen, scanning her backyard, looking for God knew what.

She wondered what he thought of her place. It wasn’t nearly finished, but could he see her vision for it?

Brynn had grown up in a series of one-bedroom apartments, where she shared a room with Liz while their mom unfolded the sofa bed every night. After that, it was dorm rooms and shared apartments as she worked her way through law school. Brynn considered this her first real home. She’d earned the money for it. And when she pulled into the driveway each night, she felt a wave of pride, along with an underlying panic that was hard to describe. Sometimes she felt completely at home here. Other times she felt like someone from the mortgage company was going to show up and tell her there had been a mistake, and they were taking her loan away. She’d had dreams where it happened, and she found herself in a courtroom, arguing not to be evicted from her house.

She returned to the kitchen. Erik followed and rebolted the back door.

“It’s nice,” he said.

She shrugged. “If you don’t mind paint cans.”

“It’s a three-two?”

“It was,” she said. “Now it’s a two-two. I had the master remodeled before I moved in.”

“Mind if I . . . ?” He nodded toward the hallway.

“Go ahead.”

He walked down the hall to her bedroom, her most personal space. And she discovered she didn’t mind at all.

She watered the plants in front, then left the pitcher in the sink and went into the spare bedroom, which she used as an office. In the closet, she crouched beside a row of file boxes and removed the lid of the middle one. She found the brown accordion file she’d been looking for. It contained handwritten notes from Corby’s trial. The official documents were still at the DA’s office. But her case notes and doodlings and half-finished thoughts—she’d kept those at home.

Brynn grabbed the file and went into the master suite, which was her pride and joy. The big windows let in plenty of natural light, and she’d gone with muted colors that would relax her when she was home. In the center of the room was a king-size bed covered with a cloudlike duvet and satin pillows. Stepping into the bathroom, Brynn cast a longing look at her Jacuzzi tub, where she liked to soak in an ocean of bubbles after a long day. The spacious bathroom was decadent, and the Realtor had warned her that giving up a bedroom for it would hurt her resale value one day. But Brynn didn’t care. This was her place, and she wanted it exactly her way.

She went into her walk-in closet and grabbed a tote bag. She threw in an extra pair of running shorts, then opened her lingerie drawer and selected a few pretty items—just in case.

She found Erik standing beside the shower in her unrenovated guest bathroom. He was fiddling with the window latch.

“Your lock’s rusted out,” he told her.

“I’ll add it to my list.”

“It’s a security issue. Don’t put it off.”

He slipped past her and headed into the living room, where her other windows got the same inspection. Seeing him move around her home put a little tingle in her stomach, even though he was clearly here in bodyguard mode.

Brynn opened the fridge and was happy to see a six-pack of waters—enough for her and Erik and the agents waiting in the driveway. She grabbed the drinks, checked the back door, and returned to the living room, where Erik was standing over her pile of mail.

“Brynn.”

His voice was sharp. She walked over to see what had his attention. He’d gone through the stack and found a slip of paper amid the bills and junk mail. No envelope, no postmark, just a note in blocky handwriting: I’M WATCHING YOU.

She clutched her hand to her throat. “He was here.”

Erik let himself into Brynn’s apartment and found Skyler at the bar on her computer. Keith was in the living room on the phone, and he gave Erik a nod.

“Hey,” Skyler said. “How’d things go at the courthouse?”