“Okay,” I said to Opie. “I’m ready.” I cocked my head, swallowing over the lump that rose in my throat when I took a last look at my shredded interior. I blinked.
“Wait.” I slid back into the cab of the car and leaned down to where a long, jagged gash had been made in the center console. There was a spray of cotton from the shredded seat, a sprinkling of broken glass, and a tuft of dark fur.
I picked up the fur and stuffed it in my pocket.
After an uneventful—and quiet—drive home in the squad car, Opie pulled up to my apartment building. I plastered a smile on my face and turned toward him, wincing softly as the new bruises on my shoulder and rib cage protested.
“Thanks for the ride, Officer Franks. I can make it from here.”
He looked skeptically at the clean, well-lit sidewalk in front of my Nob Hill building and wagged his head, his eyes wide and ominous.
“I don’t think so, Sophie. There’s a bad element out there.”
I squinted out the window at the deserted street, fairly certain a lone tumbleweed would roll by at any minute.
“Gangbangers?” I asked, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
Opie didn’t answer, and before he could go for the door handle, I rested my hand on top of his.
“Officer Franks, what really happened tonight?”
Opie stared out the windshield, and I watched as he gnawed on his bottom lip, deep in thought.
I took a chance. “I really don’t think it was gangbangers.” I touched the broken skin above my eye, fresh pain blooming at the slightest touch. “I don’t think they do this kind of damage. This almost seemed … personal. Don’t you think?”
“We got to you just in time,” was all Opie said.
“Well, when you got to me, what did you see?”
A full thirty seconds of silence passed, and then Opie looked me full in the face and said, “We should get you upstairs.”
He insisted on walking me to my front door and standing far too close to me while I pushed the key in the lock. Then Opie slipped in front of me and into the apartment, doing a Law & Order-style, guns-drawn exploration of the house while I eyed him disdainfully from my spot in the hall. When Opie was certain no gangbangers were using the plastic ficus for cover, he left.
I immediately fished in my bag for my cell phone and sighed when I saw that Parker had tried to call me six times. I dialed him, and he picked up on the first ring.
“Lawson!” he shouted into the phone. “What the hell? I’ve been trying to call you for hours! Is everything okay?”
“It’s Sophie,” I sighed, “and yes, I think so.”
“Is everything okay at UDA? Where’s Sampson?”
“Yeah, yeah, the UDA is fine. But I don’t know where Mr. Sampson is.” I slumped into the couch, and found myself bawling.
“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” I heard Parker say between my hiccupping wails. “Slow down.”
“Something attacked me!” I sniffed. “They said it was gangbangers! But I don’t think it was gangbangers!” Sniff, sniff, wail. “My car is broken! Like a tin can!”
“Stay right there. I’m on my way.”
Barely fifteen minutes had passed when there was an insistent rapping on my door. My heart thundered as I stood on tiptoes and peeked through the peephole, seeing Parker’s head, distorted and huge in my view.
I opened the door timidly, just an inch, and my eyes settled on Parker’s. His were deep navy blue and intense.
“You didn’t ask who it was.”
I rolled my eyes, the relieved joy of seeing him standing in my hallway seeping away. “I have a peephole. And what is this, some kind of after-school special? I’m the victim here.”
Parker pushed the door open and walked past me. “And I’m trying to make sure that it never happens again.”
I closed the door and tumbled the lock, glancing once more out the peephole for Parker’s benefit. Then I sat on the couch, and Parker settled down next to me.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” he said.
But I couldn’t.
My eyes were locked on Detective Parker Hayes sitting on my couch at 3 A.M.: dark hair disheveled and unabashedly sexy, his square jaw littered with razor stubble, T-shirt on backward, his undershorts sticking out of the top of his sweatpants.
“Is that Daffy Duck?” I asked, eyeing the black cartoon ducks on his waistband.
He zipped up his sweat jacket and crossed his legs. “Geez, Lawson, can you keep your mind off my shorts for five minutes and let me concentrate? Now tell me what happened tonight.”
I opened my mouth to say something haughty and disgruntled, but Parker clapped a hand over my lips, effectively silencing me. “Just tell me what happened tonight, Sophie.”
I told Parker again about finding the broken chain and then about the attack on the street. “It was horrible,” I said, feeling my body start to shake. “The parts I remember. And then I woke up in Chief Oliver’s office.” I hugged my arms across my chest, holding onto my elbows. “They said it was gangbangers, but it wasn’t.” I wagged my head.
“You’re sure?”