"Yes."
The bastard was in her bedroom. He'd believed her story before and now his rage was even greater. It was-
"Everything but that rose petal." She brushed past him and knelt on the floor. "That wasn't here before."
And sure enough, there was a small rose petal-actually, more like half of a petal-that had been dropped and forgotten on the floor of the closet.
Dawn stared up at him, not touching the petal.
Think, fucking think. "You said this building was historic."
She nodded as she rose once more.
He glanced at the wall behind her. And then he went to it. He started rapping his knuckles against the wood.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking to see if anything is-" He rapped again. Only this time, the resulting sound was different. Pay dirt. "Hollow."
His hands slid around the wood. It looked like a wall, but at the very bottom of that frame, he found a ridge of wood that stuck out. He pulled on that wood...
The wall popped open.
"You are freaking kidding me," Dawn said, voice stunned.
///
No, he wasn't.
He pulled out his phone and used the flashlight app to shine light down into what looked like an old laundry shoot. "It goes down to the bottom floor." And there was a damn rope there. Tied off right near the small door he'd just managed to open. The bastard had been using that rope and climbing up to her room.
The perp had been letting himself inside her home, slipping right past her security when she was gone.
Only... Hell. He might not have gotten inside just when Dawn was away. The bastard could have been sneaking into her room when she was asleep. She wouldn't have even realized it. She'd said that when she woke up, she smelled him.
Because he was with her when she slept.
His head turned toward her.
"Tucker..." Horror was on her face.
"He came up from downstairs. Get that damn key to Jinx's place, right now." His temples were throbbing, his blood heating. This guy had been stalking Dawn. Coming into her home. And she'd been all alone.
Again, I wasn't there for her. A second time I've let her down.
She grabbed the key from her nightstand drawer. She hadn't touched the flowers on her bed. Neither had he. Tucker planned to get a crime scene analysis team in there right away.
As they rushed back down the stairs, he put in a fast and urgent call to his team. And when they got to Jinx's door, this time, Dawn didn't bother knocking on the door to her friend's home. She shoved the key in the lock and they ran inside.
No alarm beeped. No lights were on. The place was as dark and quiet as a tomb.
"Jinx?" He could hear the worry in Dawn's voice as they searched the rooms. There was no sign of Jinx, though. No sign of her, no sign of any struggle, either, but...
He looked up at the ceiling, then gauged where he thought Dawn's closet would be.
"Our condos are almost exact duplicates of each other," Dawn said, as if reading his mind.
He went into Jinx's closet. Sure enough, he found the entrance to that shoot. Easy to spot, since the SOB who'd used it had left it partially open.
"I need her to be okay." Dawn's voice was quiet. He looked back at her and saw that her skin had turned ashen. "I need it." Then she turned and began to walk very slowly and very determinedly out of the closet.
Out of the closet.
Out of the bedroom.
Down the hallway.
Into the kitchen...
Then she paused. "I saw her get a delivery a few months back." She was staring at a white door to the right. And her hand rose and she pointed. "That's her pantry. It must be in there."
It?
Eyes narrowed, he opened the door. And he saw the freezer.
"I need her to be okay," Dawn said again.
He needed to get a team out to that building.
"Open it." Dawn was close beside him in that narrow space. "I have to know." She grabbed his arm and when he looked at her, there were tears gleaming in Dawn's beautiful eyes. "I have to be wrong. She has to be out on a date. Or...or she has to be at the tattoo shop now. She has to be anywhere but here."
She was breaking his heart. "Dawn..."
Her lips trembled and she suddenly jerked away from him. She yanked open the top on that freezer-
And when he heard the sob that broke from her, he realized that her friend was far, far from okay.
* * *
HER SKIN WAS ICE. Her breath was cold. She couldn't stop shaking.
Dawn watched as Jinx's body was removed from their building. Not just the body. They're taking everything. The freezer, too. Because they hadn't wanted to lose evidence. Julia had wanted to move the entire machine so that when Jinx thawed out, all of the potential evidence would still be present.