as Galen opened the door to see the manager there with several cops.
They stepped inside, and the manager cried out, “Good Lord,” he snapped. “Who did this?”
“Well, if you had any security cameras in the building,” Tyson said in a mild tone, “we might be able to find out.”
The cops turned to look at the manager, who shrugged. “No, there are no security cameras here.”
The cops took one look around, one of them shoving his hat back off his forehead to scratch at the hair underneath. “Somebody took their time here.”
“But they didn’t have a whole lot of time,” Joy said. “We were only gone a couple hours for dinner.”
“Got it,” he said, and he proceeded to take information from all of them.
Johan stayed close to Joy the whole time. He could see her starting to flag. Her energy level was going down, and her will to respond civilly was failing as well. But it was what it was, and he would just be sure he was here for her as much as he could be. In the back of his mind though, he knew that the time frame had just been accelerated. Even now they would be under watch. Somebody was out there enjoying the show. Johan just wanted to make sure they didn’t get to see too much more.
Chapter 13
Joy woke up the next morning in a hotel room all alone, feeling incredibly tired, worn out, and sad. The things that people did to each other were just so depressing. She didn’t deserve what these assholes had done to her. She didn’t have much money. Only her fourth paycheck was coming in now, and that wasn’t enough to recoup the cost of her move to a new apartment, her new clothes, and one month’s notice at her current apartment building, all especially if she lost her job too. She’d hit her savings pretty hard for the months that she didn’t have any money coming in. And now she was out the rent as well.
That was beyond disturbing because she still had to come up with the money to stay somewhere else. At the moment she was in the same hotel as the others. Kai and Tyson had taken a room beside them, and Joy was in a room between the two groups. At least she was alone, though that was both good and bad.
Part of her was sad, and another part of her was overjoyed. Nothing like a quiet space to sort herself out. She was also terribly lonely. Somebody out there had targeted her, and she didn’t know who, but she felt that sense of being victimized. She knew it was a sad state of affairs for her to feel like that, but it also went along with everything else that was happening. Would she have still gone through with this if she’d realized how personally involved she would end up being? She knew the answer should be yes, but she was still too confused to sort herself out.
When a knock came at the door, she froze and then forced herself to relax. “Who is it?”
“It’s Johan,” he called through the door.
She hopped up, wrapped the hotel room robe around her, and opened the door. He carried a tray of coffee. She smiled and let him in. “Because you’ve got the coffee,” she announced, “I’m happy to have you come in.”
He smiled and set it down, then looked at her in concern. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Maybe, the jury is out as to whether it was a good sleep though,” she said. “It was a pretty late night before we finally got in here.”
“It was,” he said. “Well after midnight, as I recall.”
“Well, it put a stop to you going out and getting into trouble, so maybe that was a good thing.”
He smiled. “I’m just heading out now with Galen.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s only seven o’clock,” he said.
“Then how did you know I was awake?” she protested.
“I figured, if you were sound asleep, you wouldn’t have answered the door,” he said.
She frowned up at him, not sure she wanted to believe his logic. But she crawled back into bed, pulled the covers to her waist, and he handed her a cup of coffee. “You sure you want to go now?” she asked. “There is no darkness to hide your movements.”
“It’s not darkness we need,” he said. “I’m a big believer and feel like, when the time was right, things would happen on their own.”
She laughed at that.