Page 13 of Shadow Secrets
Her studio above the laundromat was a shoebox with unreliable heat and a stove with only the one burner, but it had her sketches pinned to the walls, her thrift-store quilt on the bed, and three half-dead succulents on the windowsill. It was hers. This room belonged to no one, and the emptiness pressed against her skin like sandpaper.
She sat on the edge of the bed, bare feet on the cold floor, and tried to make a plan. Every plan she’d ever made had been built on the assumption that her life was small and manageable and under her control. As of last night, that assumption had been shot full of holes on the sidewalk outside Iron Rose.
Shot. She raked her fingers through her hair. I should strike that word forever from my vocabulary.
She needed a plan. Something simple to keep her mind from spiraling. Get up. Get dressed. Find coffee. Then she’d figure out the rest.
She put on her boots. The leather was stiff where the stains had dried.
Sebastian leaned against the wall across the way. He looked up when she opened the door.
He looked like he’d slept about as well as she had. Same jeans from last night, but a fresh white T-shirt. His dark hair was damp at the temples like he’d splashed water on his face and called it a shower. A five o’clock shadow covered his jaw.
He’d always seemed so put together, so in control. Always clean-shaven, perfectly dressed, and hiding behind dark avatars in all the online photos and magazines after Penn was dead. She’d tried not to follow his rise to stardom. She’d hated him for it. But his picture had been everywhere. Even the friends she’d had at the time at school had constantly talked about him, calling him the sexiest hero on the planet.
Even in this less-than-photographic moment, he was drop-dead gorgeous. He exuded calm and absolute confidence. “Morning,” he said, his voice rough.
She opened her mouth to reply and found she couldn’t speak. She nodded, instead.
He motioned down the hall. “Let’s get you some breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
His head tilted a degree. He boosted off the wall and started walking. “Your choice.”
She watched him walk away, noting how his T-shirt fit his body as if it were made for him. It probably was. He and his family had more money than she could spend in a lifetime.
Like so many things, she hated him for that, too. That he got to live a life of ease while she struggled every damn day.
He turned a corner and disappeared from sight. The smell of coffee and bacon wafted down the hall. Her stomach growled loudly, her hunger a gnawing monster. Coffee was part of her plan, so going to the kitchen was allowed. She started walking.
The smell of breakfast turned out to be the most normal thing about the SPS compound. Everything else—the reinforced doors, the key-card access points, the cameras mounted at every junction—made her feel like she’d woken up inside a very polite prison.
When she finally entered the kitchen, Sebastian was holding out a plate to a guy making eggs. The man looked up and grinned. “Hey, you must be Sutton. Sorry, I missed the introductions last night. I’m Jasper, aka Bobcat. I’m usually in the control center. This morning, I’m on KP duty.”
Bobcat? “You’re a tech?” she asked.
The grin widened. “Something like that.”
Sebastian slid a plate across the counter to her with toast and two strips of bacon. A mug of coffee and several sugar packets were already on a table that he pointed to across the room. “Sit,” he said. “Eat.”
Her stomach cramped at the sight of the food. She hadn’t eaten since the granola bar at Iron Rose sixteen hours ago. Her body wanted the plate. Her pride wanted to throw it at him. “All I need is coffee.”
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday. It’s going to be a long day. You’ll need fuel.”
She sat. Not because he told her to—because she was hungry enough that the alternative was passing out right here on the floor. That would be humiliating.
The eggs were decent. The toast was just toast, but it tasted better than she expected. She downed the sugary coffee and glanced around for the pot.
Sebastian arrived at the table with it in hand, refilling her cup. “Did you get any sleep?”
The images had been too horrifying every time she shut her eyes. “What do you think?”
He sat across from her with his own plate. “Claire shared your statement with Blackridge PD, so you won’t have to recite it again.”
That was a relief. “I need to call Dom,” she said between bites. “I need to make sure he’s okay, that the parlor?—”
“Dom’s fine. The parlor’s still standing. I called him this morning.”
