Page 9 of Talk to Me

The man I’d helped to kill.

It wasn’t there yet.

“Later,” I promised myself, then closed down the screens one at a time before I peeled off my headset. I had a treadmill upstairs. While I couldn’t outrun the nightmares, I could at least delay them.

A run, then coffee.

I took my phone with me in case Remy ran into more trouble. I wish he’d taken me up on the medical offer.

Giving myself a shake, I locked up the office and headed up the stairs. I knew better than to get involved.

But sometimes… sometimes it was more challenging to keep my distance than I liked to admit.

Chapter

Three

PATCH

Wednesday.

Hump day.

Well, it used to be. Now it was delivery day.

A message pinged my civilian phone with the drop off details. The driver was here. I checked the external camera, zoomed in on the truck.

It was correct. Then the driver. The number was familiar, but there were only three drivers that brought my deliveries. The one time they sent the wrong driver, I refused to let them in. The service had been far more particular since then.

When the ring sounded on my phone, I hit answer. “Hello Jimmy, you’re early today.”

“First drop-off for a change,” he said. “I have everything except the ice cream. They said they were out. But they will have it for next week’s delivery.”

“I’ll live.” At least they didn’t try to replace it with frozen yogurt.

I opened the exterior garage so he could bring the groceries in. He always lined them up neatly on the table along the side of the garage with the cold stuffs closest to the door.

When he was done, he grabbed the trash can and the recycle bins and wheeled them up. One of the neighbors always grabbed them for me and put them at the curb. My drivers always brought them in.

“You all good, Ms. Kensington?”

“I’m great, thank you so much, Jimmy. Have a good rest of your week.”

“You got it—oh, hey, your laundry service is here. Want me to stay and make sure they put it where it goes?”

“You don’t have to do that,” I told him.

“I know, but my wife would smack me if I told her I left while they were here.”

A laugh escaped me. “Well, we wouldn’t want that.”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “We wouldn’t.” So Jimmy hung around as the driver carried the fresh laundry up, then collected the bag from the porch. I’d put it out first thing. They collected laundry every week when they dropped off the fresh.

Locked inside my office, with a gun on the desk next to me, I watched as Jimmy supervised it all. Once they were done, he waved the driver off then waved to my camera.

I pressed the button to close the garage then added more to Jimmy’s tip. Only after the external door was closed and secure did I let myself out of the office. I secured the gun to the holster at the base of my spine, then hurried through the process of ferrying everything inside the house.

Mail always came in through the slot. A package door had been installed before I moved in. The beauty of the Internet, everything was available online and could be delivered. Made maintaining a low profile easy.

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