Page 95 of Rival for Rent
Ten minutes later, I was still waiting, and the sterile confines of the hospital were starting to feel oppressive. The air seemed heavier, charged with urgency. Restless, I pulled out my phone. With the curtain drawn, I had a little privacy. Maybe I’d send Kai a few pictures of my own, something to distract him and lighten the mood.
I smiled, my chest warming at the thought, but the feeling vanished as a notification appeared on my phone screen. A bead of sweat rolled down my temple, and my pulse quickened. Themessage was from the company that made the location tracker I’d tried—and failed—to stick in the stalker’s shoe. For the past week, it had been a useless piece of evidence, gathering dust at the police station.
But now, it was on the move.
Quickly, I opened the app that tracked its location and tapped over to the active viewing screen. A little red dot blinked on a map of DC, stark against the muted grays and blues of the interface. It was leaving the police station, a tiny speck of foreboding that made my stomach twist.
I stared, heart in my throat, watching the dot linger for a couple of minutes right outside the station. Then it started moving again—towards Wisconsin Avenue, then taking a right and heading south.
Why was it moving?
My brain jumped to the worst-case scenario—because when didn’t it? Had the stalker somehow gotten into the station and taken it? No, that didn’t make any sense. If Kai’s stalker knew about the tracker, they’d avoid it completely. Which brought me back to my first question—why the hell was it moving?
Could the police be bringing it back to Kai’s house? Why now, after keeping it for a week?
I froze, realizing something. The police had never asked Kai or me about the tracker. They’d just swept it up with the rest of the evidence like it was nothing. But that was odd, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t they want to know who it belonged to?
My sense of unease grew. I swiped over to my messages and began typing out a text to Kai, warning him that the cops mightbe on their way. I wished I were there with him. I didn’t want him answering the door alone.
Then I looked up, staring unseeing at the curtain in front of me. Why would the police be going to Kai’s house now?
It was 10:45 at night. Even if Myers or Branscombe were still working the case, they wouldn’t bother Kai unless he was in imminent danger. Unless…
My blood ran cold.
Unless Kai was in dangerfromthe cops.
It felt like I’d been kicked in the ribs all over again as everything clicked into place. Myers’s refusal to take the case seriously. His aloofness. His weird back-and-forth between being dismissive and uncomfortably intense. His claim that none of the security cameras had caught anything—and his insistence on checking the footage himself.
Kai had said Myers didn’t like him, and I’d brushed it off.
But maybe Kai had been right.
I gripped my phone tightly as a pit opened in my stomach. Myers had never mentioned the tracker. But then, why would he, if he didn’t know it was there? If he were the one who’d attacked me—if he’d gone back to the station after, changed out of those shoes, and left them behind—then by the time I’d been conscious enough to check, it would’ve looked the same to me as if the tracker had been collected as evidence.
And all this time, it had been sitting in Myers’s sneaker. Left alone—until he needed those shoes again to go back to Kai’s house and finish the job.
Dread twisted inside me as I remembered the receptionist’s confusion over why I’d returned to the ER. That phone call I’d gotten—it had come from a doctor, or so I’d thought. But itcouldhave been Myers, now that I thought about it. Myers, trying to make sure I’d be out of the way so he could get to Kai without me interfering.
All the hospital noise faded as I saw the scene playing out in my head. Myers knocking on Kai’s door, claiming he was in danger. Kai would let him in, of course. And then Myers would be able to do whatever he wanted—to Kai, to the house, to the security camera footage. The company had already given the police access to the security system. He could erase any trace of his presence.
I jumped up from my hospital bed and shoved through the curtain. Kai was all alone right now.
And I was the only one who could protect him.
22
KAI
Istared at Detective Myers standing in the doorway, completely confused.
“What are you doing here?”
He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
I shook my head, still not quite making sense of what I was seeing. “Well, you’re pointing a gun at me, but I can’t figure out why, unless—” I broke off, my eyes going even wider—if that was possible. “Wait a second, areyouthe person who’s been trying to kill me?”
“Nice to see you finally put that together,” Myers said sarcastically. “I was getting worried about you.”
