Page 111 of It Starts With A No

Clary blew out a breath as she felt the weight of all that she had to do. “I’m a horrible judge of character.”

“Want to talk about what happened with Mr. Anderson?”

“No. I don’t want to talk about or even be reminded of him.”

“Then maybe you should take that ring off.”

Clary didn’t move, because she was too tired. “I will—when the food gets here. I don’t want to move until then.” She drew a deep breath through her nose. “Oh, and I think it was your father who sent the police officers to Seth’s place this morning. I’m quite annoyed with him. I got Mr. E to call off the welfare check, but your father decided he would still send four officers to check on me this morning.”

“That sounds like him.”

“Did you tell him you quit the police force to work for me? Did he do that as revenge?”

“I haven’t spoken to him for about a month. We had a major falling out.”

“Why?”

Andrea sighed. “My parents are really controlling. My whole life, I’ve always done what they wanted. I didn’t even want to be a police officer.”

“So what do you want to be?”

“I wanted to be a flight attendant when I was young.” Andrea laughed once. “That got shot down quickly, and I learned that my only option was to be a police officer.”

“That’s horrible, but until yesterday, you were still a police officer. So why the falling out?”

“I found out he’d been making calls to my captain, checking in on me and making sure I got assigned to certain high-profile cases.”

“He was an officer. Surely he knew better.”

“He raised me like a boy, and I think he forgets that I’m not one. I don’t belong in the boys’ club. So anyway, we got into a huge fight and I moved out. Want to see what you rescued me from?”

Clary laughed. “Later.”

“Want an update on the deranged man who held you at gunpoint?”

You killed my sister. Clary dropped her arm back to her side. “Did you find out who he is?”

“No. But we’ve—they have—established that he was following Seth Anderson. It seems he had been watching Mr. Anderson for a while. He’d parked his car near Movement. A different place every time, so he could be a professional.”

“A professional?” Clary frowned. “He looked and smelled like a homeless man.”

“He may be a homeless man now, but maybe he was in law enforcement. Someone who’s done stakeouts and knows how to avoid attention.”

“I still think it’s someone whose sister died while using one of Movement’s drugs.” It had to be. Despite the way things were between her and Seth, she didn’t believe Seth or his brothers had anything to do with Winnie’s disappearance.

Not even Elton.

They were all just kids—teenagers—then. Teenagers who were trying to survive all that Holly Eolenfeld was putting them through.

“Maybe.” Andrea stood and stretched with her hands on her back. “It’ll be impossible to investigate if that was the case. Movement produces a lot of drugs. We—they—can’t go through each and every death. So Murphy is leaning more toward the death threats. We only have the emails Mr. Anderson’s assistant dug up. IT’s tracing the IP addresses.”

Hearing Seth referred to as Mr. Anderson felt so odd. It was as if he was someone she barely knew.

Which was how they should have remained.

But why did that thought alone make her want to curl up and cry the rest of the day away?

“Are you okay?”

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