She stopped halfway to the bottom and eased down onto a step.
“What’s going on, Grant?”
“We had a visitor while you were upstairs.”
“Who you’ve handcuffed to the banister?”
“Paige, meet Sophie. My partner.”
Paige rested her forehead against her knees and said, “Oh God.”
“Sophie, meet Paige. My sister.”
Sophie glared up the staircase, and then back at Grant.
He said, “Paige, we need to talk. Could you come join me in the kitchen please?” And then to Sophie. “Give me your purse.”
She wiped the mascara-stained tears from her cheeks and threw it at him.
“I hate this,” Grant said.
He unzipped her handbag and fished out her phone. Powered it off, slid it into the side pocket of his jeans.
He set the purse on the first step and looked at his partner, asked, “Who else knows that you came here?”
Paige walked past Sophie and Grant and started down the hallway toward the kitchen.
“Fuck you.”
“Sophie, I will explain everything to you. I promise. But right now, I need to know if more people are coming. For all of our safety.”
She blinked through a sheet of tears that glistened in the candlelight and said at barely a whisper, “Just me.”
“How’s the hand? You didn’t break it hitting me, did you?”
“No.”
“The cuffs all right? Too tight?”
She shook her head.
Grant paused at the banister on his way down the hall and tested the bracelet around Sophie’s left wrist and the bracelet around the balustrade.
Chapter 25
Paige stood waiting for him at the kitchen island, her face grim in the candlelight.
“How bad is this?” she asked.
“We need to leave.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know, but more people will come.”
“From your work?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going to happen when they ...” She cut her eyes toward the ceiling.
“Nothing good.”
“Your face is swollen.”
“She hit me.” Grant glanced back down the hallway. “I should talk to her.”
“About what?”
“Make her understand what’s—”
“No.”
“No?”
“Why would you tell her about any of this?”
“Does it not look bad enough already? I just handcuffed my own partner to a staircase and took her gun.”
“How’d she even find you?”
“The private investigator I called this afternoon. My phone died, he couldn’t reach me, so he called her.”
“Does this mean she talked to your PI?”
“I would assume.”
“So maybe she has some info on the house.”
“I’ll find out. I’m going to tell her everything, Paige.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because maybe she believes me, and then it’s three of us against whatever’s upstairs.”
“You didn’t believe me until you saw your friend cut his neck open with a piece of glass.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe she won’t believe me. But she will listen.”
# # #
Grant sat down a foot outside of Sophie’s reach.
She glared at him, dark eyes ablaze with equal parts sadness, anger, and fear. In the thousands of hours they’d spent together, he’d never seen this look before. A new level of intimacy reached under the worst possible conditions. It felt unnatural, impossible that he might be the object of that intensity. That he had hurt her. In the back of his mind, he’d always thought it would be the other way around.
“I need you to do something, Sophie.”
With her free hand, she pushed her straight black hair out of her face. “What?”
“Try and remember what it felt like to trust me.”
“Are you joking?”
“Three months ago, when you had your biopsy—”
“Don’t do that.”
“Hear me out. You know I would have been sitting in that waiting room when you came out, whether you asked me to be there or not.”
Grant thought he saw the hardness in her eyes give just a little.
He went on, “Now imagine the kind of situation the guy sitting in that doctor’s office would have to be in to physically disarm you and chain you to a banister. Imagine how scared out of his mind he’d have to be.”
“I can’t if you don’t tell me.”
“I’m going to. And I hope you think about all the things you love, or used to love, about me. I hope you’ll give me the benefit of all the doubts you have.”
“Why should I?”
“Because no one in their right mind would believe what I’m about to tell you.”
It was raining again. Grant could hear it pattering on the windows. A good, rich smell wafted in from the kitchen. The soft crackle of browning butter. Paige making grilled cheese sandwiches, he hoped.
The modest heat of the day had fled and a damp, merciless chill had begun to overtake the brownstone.
“Those Facebook profiles you sent me last night?”
“Yeah?”
“One of them was just a pair of eyes, but I recognized them. They were my sister’s. What I said about the concierge was true. He told me about this place. I showed up last night, and sure enough, Paige was living here.”
“Your sister, the one you hadn’t seen in years, is living in Queen Anne and working as a prostitute?”
Grant nodded. “Maybe you can understand why I came here alone.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“She let me in, and right off, I noticed she didn’t look well. Strung out, I figured. She’s always struggled with addiction, so I’ve seen it before. But nothing like this. She looked emaciated. Pale as a ghost.”
“You should’ve called me.”
“Be glad I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Grant glanced up the staircase.
His stomach churned.
“I need to show you something. If I uncuff you, am I going to regret it?”
“No.”
Grant walked into the living room, grabbed the flashlight from the coffee table, and then retrieved Sophie’s Glock from beneath a tufted wingback chair that sat in the corner. He pocketed the magazine, racked the slide, and caught the semi-jacketed .40 cal hollowpoint in midair.
“You think I’d shoot you?” she asked.
“You ever think I’d cuff you to a banister?”
Grant dug her keys out of his pocket as he walked back over to the stairs. Unlocking the bracelet from the balustrade, he cuffed it around his own wrist and helped Sophie onto her feet.
“Can I see your hand?” he asked.
She held it up, the swelling already begun along the ring and pinkie fingers below the knuckles, Sophie’s light brown skin flashing the darkening blush of a bruise.
“Next time you hit someone,” Grant said, “keep your fist closed.”
“Your jaw’s an asshole,” she said.
“You hit like a girl.” He motioned toward the steps. “We’re headed up.”
“Why?”
“To show you something.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“Remember what they say about seeing?”
“No.”
“It’s believing.”
They climbed in tandem, Grant’s right hand bound to Sophie’s left. Halfway up, they lost the morsels of light from the candles down below. Grant switched on the flashlight, its beam striking the landing above them with a circle of illumination that seemed much weaker than the last time he’d used it.
He was suddenly aware of the shudder of his heart, like something shaking manically inside his chest.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t like it up here.”