Page 57 of Wicked Roses
“Do... do you know what he was doing there?”
“I wish I’d noticed in the moment. I would’ve called Steve and the police! He didn’t even bother locking up. He left the door ajar and... oh, Delphine. It’s not a pretty sight. Hedestroyedyour apartment. I can send you the photos and the footage.”
Over the course of the next five minutes, Rachel Flynn does just that. She texts me the photos she took when she wandered over after noticing the door ajar, and she forwards me the security camera footage of the man breaking into my apartment.
I can’t stomach watching it anywhere else but within the safe confines of my office at city hall. I barricade myself inside with the door locked and blinds shut. Chills skim across my skin and down my spine as I watch the man crank a tool of some kind into my lock and force his way inside.
I’ve never seen him before.
The photographs are just as upsetting. Rachel wasn’t exaggerating when she said he destroyed my apartment. I’ve seen homes after a category five hurricane that have looked better. He must’ve been given orders to break every last thing he found.
But who is he and what does he want with me? Could this be yet another terrifying warning from the man who attacked me?
* * *
The rest of my afternoon is spent doing two things. The first is following up with Cade in Cyber Crimes about the lost ring camera footage of Octavia Doukas’ brownstone.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Cade says, his fingers flying across his keyboard. “These kinds of malfunctions are usually easy to troubleshoot. And if anybody deleted something off here, I can probably recover that too.”
“Do you mind looking into some other footage for me? Someone came by my apartment and broke in. This is confidential. I’d prefer for it to be kept between us.”
Cade nods. “Send it to me. Unlike Doukas’, if your camera wasactuallyworking then it’s a matter of using facial recognition software to identify the guy.”
I thank him for his help and return to my office at city hall. It’s where I spend the rest of the afternoon consumed by the second thing—processing the bomb Rachel dropped in my lap.
An unknown man came by my apartment, forced his way inside, and destroyed the place. There didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason for what he was doing other than to wreak havoc. He was sending a message. He wanted me to know he had access to me.
Any time he wants he can come tear apart my world, like he’d done the night of my assault. That’s assuming it’s the same man. If Salvatore’s correct, and it’s a crime family or street gang after me, it could be different men.
This guy could’ve been ordered to break in. The truth remains so murky it makes my head hurt.
A sigh tumbles out of me. I’ve avoided it long enough. I promised I’d tell Salvatore if I had information on my attacker. He answers on the second ring, though he sounds distracted.
“Phi,” he says, surprise in his tone. “Everything okay?”
I hesitate for a second. “Is this a bad time?”
In the background, Stitches mentions something about a mess that’s been made. Salvatore shushes him and then returns to the phone.
“Sort of,” he answers vaguely. “But it depends on why you’ve called. You’re not known to reach out in the middle of your workday.”
“That’s because I’m usually bombarded with case work.”
“Phi, what’s up?”
I waffle between unloading what I’ve discovered in the last few hours and waiting until I see him later in the evening. When one second too many passes, I know it’s not the right time. Though he hasn’t said what he and Stitches are up to, clearly it’s important... and possibly deadly.
“I’ll tell you later. Over dinner. Want to stay in and cook?”
“You meanattemptto cook?”
“We’ve been getting better.”
“Define better.”
I hang up with Salvatore and sit, conflicted, in my office chair. I could wait a few hours and tell him about what’s happened at my apartment and the security footage we have of the mystery man—orI can be proactive and take control of my life for the first time in weeks.
Frausto has already damaged the case we’ve been building against him. The Belinis are fighting as dirty as possible against being held accountable for their crimes.