Page 17 of Cease and Desist

She started up the stairwell, so he set his glass next to hers and followed.

Hawk thought about leading the way. Actually, what he wanted to do was make her wait downstairs while he checked the place out, but he knew for sure she’d never agree to that. She was fiercely independent and would no doubt take it as some kind of insult. The chances someone was still upstairs were practically zero at this point, and he didn’t feel any danger lurking, but it still rankled him that she was charging in and not being more cautious.

“Maybe we should take it easy. Let me check—"

She threw open the door at the top of the stairwell.

“Or maybe not,” he mumbled under his breath and shook his head.

The place had definitely been tossed. It wasn’t as messy as downstairs, but someone had gone through it. Remy and Hawk entered at the end of a hallway. There were rooms off the hall. The first one was the kitchen, which was like the kitchenette downstairs, a total disaster area. The next room was a TV room, which wasn’t too bad. The books were on the floor and the cushions were strewn about, but they hadn’t been cut up and the stuffing was still inside them.

“Fucking assholes,” Remy said as she moved down the hallway. The next room was a bedroom, which was a mess but again, they hadn’t slashed the mattress or pulled the stuffing out of the chair. The last room on the left was a den of sorts. It had a desk and a hard chair along with shelves of books, which were now all on the floor like downstairs had been. Papers were scattered around the room, and the pictures had been pulled off the walls and smashed on the floor.

At the head of the hallway was a bathroom. That, too, had been tossed, but they hadn’t emptied the shaving cream or shampoo bottles or anything. They knew the place hadn’t been tossed for shits and giggles. Someone was definitely looking for something specific. All in all, Hawk had seen much worse.

Remy stood near the doorway that led downstairs, her arms crossed. “If I find these fuckers, I’ll strangle them with my bare hands.”

Hawk leaned against the wall and said nothing. There was nothing he could say at this moment that would make anything better, but the truth was those words coming from her mouth were all kinds of hot and he needed to take a moment to clear the thought of taking Remy to bed out of his mind.

“Do you want to call the police about this?” he asked in a quiet voice.

She shook her head. “What’s the point?’

“Insurance claim. You’ll need a police report to claim any damage.”

She snorted. “We’ve been through this. What these fuckers damaged isn’t something that can be fixed by insurance.” She leaned back on the wall next to him and put her hands over her face.

“You can hire a cleaning service.” He didn’t want to upset her, but she was exhausted. The lines of her body screamed that she was beyond tired and stressed. The fine lines around her eyes had deepened and the dark circles beneath seemed to have turned black just since they came upstairs.

“I…”

“They can do the kitchen and the bathroom. I’ll help you do the other rooms.” He studied her.

She dropped her hands and gave a nod. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do. I’ll take a pass through and pick the stuff up off the floor and put the furniture upright. Then I’ll get a cleaning crew to clean the whole place.”

At least she was seeing reason.

She bit her lip, lost in thought. “I think I’ll start cleaning now, then I can stay here tonight.”

So much for reason. “Ah, I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”

She turned to stare at him.

He hated to point out the obvious, but she had to understand what was going on. She would be putting herself in danger otherwise and he couldn’t allow that. He wanted her as far from danger as she could get. For his own peace of mind. “Look, this place has been broken into twice in the last twenty-four hours, and you were also attacked. I think—"

“That’s exactly right. Whoever it was has already been through here. They probably found what they were looking for, so it’s not like they’ll be back. If I stay here, I can work later and be up earlier to get everything up and running again. It’s just easier.”

He ran a hand through his hair. He was tired and didn’t want to pick a fight, but she wasn’t thinking straight. “You don’t know if they found what they were looking for or not. To be honest, I don’t think they did.”

Her brows dipped with a frown. “What makes you think that?”

He bit the bullet. Time for some hard truths. “Look at this logically. If they found what they were looking for, then the whole place wouldn’t be a mess, would it? They would have stopped searching once they found it. The fact that the whole place is trashed leads me to believe they didn’t find it.

“Also, if you stay here, you are on your own. No one will hear you if you yell. No one will notice if you’re in trouble. Say what you want about thin walls in the apartment buildings in Manhattan, but if you’re in trouble, someone is bound to hear it.”

Remy let out a puff of air. “I still think I should stay here. It’s been searched. Even if they didn’t find what they wanted, they know it’s not here, so why bother coming back?”

“Unless they decide they need to check again. If they didn’t find it, where else could it be?” He straightened off the wall and turned toward her. “If they think your grandfather has something they want, where else could he possibly have hidden it?”

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