Page 38 of Hunt Me, Daddy

Kit turned off the kitchen light first. Then the living room lamp. The apartment fell into layers of shadow until only the weak city glow remained. She stood near the bedroom for a long moment, silhouetted by the window, one hand resting against the doorframe. Then she went into the bedroom and closed the door halfway.

I waited.

I waited long after the apartment went quiet. Long after the first shift of her mattress, and the controlled stillness that followed.

I stayed until her breathing changed.

Only then did I move slowly. Quietly. The fire escape gave one small complaint as I rose, and I froze for a full sixty seconds before continuing. The window slid up beneath my hands withless sound than the wind. I entered through the kitchen because the bedroom was not an option anymore.

The apartment was dark now. I stood inside it for exactly three seconds and listened.

She did not stir.

I crossed to the front door. The door was locked. She had locked it when she came in. She always locked it. Kit was not careless about thresholds, but the deadbolt had not been thrown.

I turned it for her.

The sound was small. Final.

I stayed motionless after, waiting for movement from the bedroom.

Nothing.

I went back out onto the fire escape and left. Outside, the night had gone colder. I descended three floors before stepping across to the neighboring landing and taking the route down that no camera would see. My car waited three blocks over.

Sergei would have called this reckless. Maxim would have called it unacceptable. Nikolai would have laughed first and judged second. Aleksei would have understood too much, which was why I intended not to mention it to any of them.

At the corner, I stopped and looked back.

Her window was dark, but I watched it anyway.

For twenty-three minutes, I stood across the street in the shadow of a closed shop and looked up at the fourth floor like a man waiting for judgment.

None came.

There was no light. No shadow moving behind the glass. Eventually, I walked away.

The pen remained in my pocket.

The scent of her pillow remained in my lungs.

And the sound of her breathing followed me all the way back to the car.

CHAPTER 10

Ivan

The Orlovs found the first sign of her before the sun rose the next day.

They hadn’t gotten her name, at least not yet. If they had found her name, several people in Chicago would have died before breakfast and Maxim would have received a call he would not enjoy.

But they found enough to make the room around me go very still.

They tagged her as a freelance cybersecurity consultant centered in Boston. Private contract. Likely independent. Their goal was to identify her within seventy-two hours.

Seventy-two hours.

People liked deadlines because then they could pretend it was manageable. Three days. Plenty of time. Time to assess, time tobuild a plan, time to inform the proper people and distribute responsibility like a well-run organization.