Page 18 of Anders and the Girl Worth Fighting For
Grace squeezed my hand and nodded her head in agreement.
“Thank you.”
“I also need more information about your boss to rule himout as a target.” She nodded her head as I continued to outline my plan. I pulled out the pen and paper that I kept on the coffee table and handed it over to her.
“Now, if you’ll give me your address, I’ll go check your place out. Stay here, keep the door locked. I’ll take your car, in case anyone followed you here. That way, they might think you had left and leave—”
“Wait. Wait. Wait,” Grace interrupted me. She had stood rather abruptly when I asked for her address. She had the cutest little furrow between her eyes. “I thought you said ‘we.’ As in, we are going to my apartment.” She pointed between the two of us. “We are going to investigate what is going on. Now it’s all ‘stay here, Grace. I’ll do everything.’” She paced as she spoke, and by the end of her speech, she had made it to the other side of the room before she turned towards me, arms akimbo. I suppressed the urge to smile.
“That was more of a metaphorical ‘we,’” I said. I’m used to working with a team and the word ‘we’ slipped out without conscious thought. “You’re staying here where it’s safe.” I stood to match her, but kept my distance.
“No,” she said as she folded her arms and lifted her chin just a little. It was the opposite of how she was just minutes ago and that settled something in me, just a little. There was always a thread of stubbornness in her letters that I loved. She may not have seen it herself, but she got worked up about people thinking she wasn’t capable.
I debated continuing to fight her on this. I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe I could keep her safe in every situation, but if she was determined to go, she might just get herself in more trouble by following me without me knowing. I needed to keep an eye on her. I could always call one of the guys to have them come to babysit her, but then some idiotic part of me wanted to keep her all to myself, at least for a while longer.
“Fine, but you follow my directions exactly. Give me your phone.” I held my hand out to her. She stared at me for a moment before she complied.
“Why?” she asked, suspicion lacing her voice. Despite that, she handed it over, showing just how much she already trusted me. I didn’t want to ruin that.
“If I tell you to go,” I said, as I typed in a number and name, “you go. You get in your car and you drive and while you do that, you call this number.” I handed her phone back, a new contact on the screen and a new text sent to that number informing him of the number’s owner. “You don’t hesitate. You don’t worry about me. You go to whatever address he tells you to go to. You follow his instructions carefully. If you think you are being followed, you tell him. Do you understand?” I asked.
She had moved closer to give me her phone, and I was happy to see she hadn’t stepped back after I gave it back. A wild mix of emotions played across her face, her green eyes hopeful even as she worried her lip. I wanted to reach out to her, hold her, comfort her, and tell her that everything would be ok, that I would make the world right for her again. I didn’t do that. I clenched my hands at my side, cleared my throat, and stepped back.
“Let me get my go-bag and we’ll head out,” I said as I took another step back to put more distance between us.
The drive to Grace’s apartment was short. She lived in an old, nondescript brick building just outside the historic district of Savannah. The busiest part of the small street was a gas station that sat directly across from her building and the railroadmuseum just down the roan. Though, I don’t think that counted as busy. With the gas station and the nearby freeway, it was more exposed than I liked. The building itself was a flat brick building, clearly utilitarian. A small alley ran down the side of it and other similar buildings flanked it.
“Where do you usually park?” I asked Grace as we passed by the building she had pointed out. I didn’t see dedicated parking.
“Anywhere that’s available. Sometimes even the alley, if it’s not trash day,” she said.
She hadn’t said much on the way here. Opting instead to stare out the window at the passing scenery. It was beautiful here, but she seemed to stare right past it, lost in her own thoughts.
The whole area was hard to secure. I ran through my options as I pulled into the first spot I could find that put us on the same side of the road as her building. I let her lead me to her apartment as I kept an eye on our surroundings, looking for anything that seemed off or odd. It wasn’t even conscious. Years of service drilled situational awareness into me pretty firmly.
I noticed how Grace haunched in on herself and didn’t raise her head to the area surrounding her as she made her way to the door. She acted like prey, trying to hide from the world, and that would get her killed.
There was no way she watched her surroundings. She likely didn’t see anything besides the ground beneath her feet. I wasn’t yet sure if this was her habit or if she was afraid of what we would find. We were going to have to work on that, if she let me be in her life enough to teach her, that is. She couldn’t keep walking around pretending the world didn’t exist.
A white car drove by just as we reached the blue-painted steel door. Grace fumbled with her keys as I turned to watch the street go by. Something about the car raised the hairs on my arms. I made no move to alert Grace to my alarm, but I notedthe make, model, and license plate number just in case I needed it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the car slow down and turn into a nearby alley, placing itself just out of my view. My hand came up toward my gun on instinct and I placed myself between the fumbling Grace and any threats that could come our way.
She got the door open within seconds of me becoming alerted to the white car, though it seemed like longer, and I ushered her inside as quickly as I could. The sound of the door closing behind us reassured me.
“Does that door automatically lock?” I asked as she headed towards the stairs. “How many people can get in here? How many apartments are there?” I noted the row of mailboxes just to the side of the stairs.
“Yeah, it locks automatically.” Her expression said she thought my crayon box for a brain was missing a few colors. “There’s two other apartments, and Mr. Jones gets his mail here, too. I don’t know how many people can get in, but probably not many.”
I motioned for her to let me go first up the stairwell. It was a direct shot straight up to the landing of the second floor and I could see three doors off the short hall. I scanned the hall and then let Grace lead me to her door. It was the last one in the hall on the street side of the building. Her windows must have been at least some of the windows I had noticed when we first arrived. That would be a problem.
“Let me go first,” I said when she unlocked her door. I grabbed her hand before she could open it. I didn’t want to alarm her, but my gut was never wrong and something didn’t sit right with me about this whole thing. I pulled my gun and let it lead me into the room to check things out. Thankfully, light filtered through the sheer curtains on the window and we wouldn’t need to alert anyone to our immediate presence by lighting the place up.
Grace followed closely behind me as I scanned the small studio apartment. There were two windows and one other door leading to a small bathroom. One window faced the alley that ran to the side of the building. That had to be the fire escape I’d noticed from the street. Her street-side window had the curtains pulled closed. A small blessing. I moved to the bathroom and finished my sweep of the apartment.
“Close the door,” I ordered Grace, who had stood frozen by the entrance. She startled and turned to follow my directions.
“What’s wrong? Is something out of place?” I scanned the room again, looking for what would draw that reaction out of her as I moved the stand to the side of the street side window, looking out the small gap between the curtain and the wall. I didn’t notice anything unusual, but then I’d never been here before and wouldn’t notice something small and mundane.
I peeked out the window, noting the changes since we were on the street, while she locked the door. The white car drove by again and I realized why it had seemed odd to me before. The street was small and crowded with cars, but even that didn’t warrant the unusually slow speed of the car as it passed this building.
