Page 18 of The Stalker

It was very rare for someone to sneak up on her, and she gasped as she turned around to glare at him.

“Where the hell were you?”

“In my library,” Hayden admitted, looking sheepish as he did.

“In your li—you don’t have a library. There was no library yesterday. Is it on another floor?” Tatiana narrowed her eyes at him.

Hayden cringed and admitted, “I didn’t show it to you.”

Tatiana’s blood boiled, and she took some long, slow breaths to try and calm herself down.

Clients are the fucking worst, sometimes.

Still, she wouldn’t gain anything from ripping shreds off him like she wanted to do right now.

“Show me,” she bit out.

Hayden walked over to a shelf nearby and slid a small bowl slightly to the side. He then tipped a vase onto its side, and finally twisted a second bowl, before he placed his thumb on a scanner that had been exposed. As he did, a door swung open, and Tatiana’s mouth dropped open.

She’d seen a lot of things, even hidden rooms like this, but she hadn’t been expecting it this time. She walked over to the door and pushed it shut again. As she did, she heard a noise from her right and looked over to see what it was. All of the items Hayden had moved appeared to have returned to their previous positions when she closed the door.

She turned to inspect the place where the door joined the wall. Because it was at the very corner of the room, any thought that there might be anything amiss was hidden as part of that wall’s corner.

“Open it again,” she instructed.

Hayden repeated the process, twisted the final bowl again, and placed his thumb on the thumbpad before the door popped open in front of her. She shook her head and walked into the room. The same large windows at the edge of the apartment gave a view of Chicago. The walls were lined with bookshelves and absolutely filled with books. There was also a single armchair by the big windows, with a small side table next to it and a reading lamp next to that.

Tatiana could see a different book from the one Hayden had been reading the previous day on this table with a bookmark in it. Now that she thought about it, she recalled seeing the book from yesterday in his room when she was looking for him.

“This was what felt weird,” she commented as she turned to face him. “When you were showing me the apartment. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but something felt off between the living room and the kitchen. The walls don’t line up perfectly, and I’m guessing I’m behind the kitchen wall right now?”

“You are,” Hayden confirmed.

Tatiana sighed. “You can’t lie to me, Hayden. You can’t hide shit from me. If I ask for a tour of your apartment, I expect you to show me everything.”

“I’m sorry, Tati,” he sighed.

He had a concerned look on his face, as though he was worried about making this mistake. Tatiana hated herself for putting that look there. She normally had very few fucks to give for clients’ feelings when they had breached her security protocols, but she disliked upsetting him.

Tatiana frowned at him and asked, “Who else knows about this room?”

“Nobody.”

Tatiana raised her eyebrows at this information. Given what she knew about his friendships with the rest of his band, this was surprising to her.

“Really? Nobody?”

“Well, my friends know I have a library. Obviously, the workers that put the room in know that it exists and where it is, but nobody else knows. Even my friends don’t know where in my apartment it’s located or how to get in here.”

She wondered why he’d kept this secret from his friends, but didn’t want to pry further. As far as security breaches went, this wasn’t the worst. In fact, she could see a use for this room as a panic room in an emergency situation.

“So, I saw the items return to their places when you close the door. How do you get out?”

Hayden closed the door, and Tatiana heard the sound of the items moving, along with the click of the door latching shut. She saw an exposed thumbpad like the one Hayden had used to open the door from outside. He placed his thumb on it, and the door opened soundlessly.

Tatiana went and inspected the latch. It was solid, and would definitely hold up against some kind of brute force attack if necessary.

“What about Blake? Does he know how to get into this room?” Tatiana asked.

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