Page 13 of Only for Him
“Anything on the security systems?” I ask.
“Disabled for two instances last night. Whoever did this was fucking prepared.”
I look back at the message on MacDougal’s skin.
TO DETECTIVE CANTIANO.
NotFor.
To.
The best boyfriend I ever had couldn’t even remember my favorite color, never mind give me a gift I actually wanted. He said I was hard to shop for. And maybe he was right. They don’t sell justice at Nordstrom’s.
But someone heard me last night. Someone saw me draw my own thumb across my neck.
And someoneremembered.
Hands down, this might be the best present I’ve ever received.
Arata’s name is called from outside the room, and he leaves me and Russo alone with the body. Russo moves to the window, andstares out over Central Park. His voice is quiet and meant for me alone.
“This isn’t random. This is targeted.”
“Obviously,” I say.
“Not the murder, G.” He leans in close so only I can hear as he points at those words meant for me and only me. “This. If you know something or if this is someone from your past, you let me know now.”
“It’s not,” I say.
But I’m lying, because I have the vaguest of suspicions—nothing but a gut feeling, mind you—that this is the works of a shadow who is hovering close by. The masterpiece of a pair of eyes that seem to watch me everywhere I go.
“Thought you two might be interested in this,” Arata says when he re-enters the room with an envelope in his hands.
I glance at Russo, who’s already pinching the bridge of his nose, resigned to whatever new hell is about to surface.
Arata slides the envelope open and shows me a dozen photos.
I pick up the first. It’s MacDougal, alive and well, leaving a Russian bathhouse in Brighton Beach by the name ofFabergewith a young woman on his arm.
I flip through the stack. He’s with a different woman in every picture. Some are in gaudy makeup and diamonds. Others blank-eyed and barely out of school. The timestamps jump around.
The photos span months, but the location stays the same.
But it’s the last photo that stops me cold.
It’sme.
I’m standing at the bottom of my building’s stoop last night, head turned as I look across the block moments before I go inside. The flash. The car. The eyes.
This photo was taken by my blue-eyed shadow.
Hekilled MacDougal.
But you already knew that, didn’t you, Giselle?
Russo’s voice is low, taking on the old-school cop cadence he saves for death notifications and personal disasters. “What is it, G?”
I show him the photo. He studies it, and then me.
