She flinched and he knew he’d overstepped, but didn’t care. She walked to her front door and opened it wide, not looking at him. “Call me if you need anything else.”

He stood looking at her for a few seconds before walking through the door. It closed sharply behind him and he heard the click of her deadbolt. With a sigh he walked down a flight of stairs, only to find David Hunter sitting on one of the steps, looking very cold.

“Is everything all right?”

Hunter stood. “I figured you two needed to talk about whatever happened tonight.”

Noah narrowed his eyes. “She didn’t tell you?”

“She witnessed a crime and gave her statement. Why? Is Evie in trouble?”

“No, she’s not.” Noah walked down another flight before he turned and looked back up. Hunter was watching him, his expression purposefully bland.

“Is everything all right, Detective?” Hunter asked cordially.

“No.” Noah studied Hunter’s near-perfect face. “You knew her, in Chicago.”

“Yes.” The single word was clipped and laced with warning.

“I read about what happened to her four years ago, with that kidnapping and the boy she saved. And what happened two years before that.”

Hunter’s jaw had tightened. “Is there a question in there, Detective?”

Yes, but he’d be damned if he knew what it was. “She has a disposable cell phone in her apartment,” he said and Hunter’s expression smoothed.

“I know. I bought it tonight. I left the charger for my cell back in Chicago and my phone is dead. The prepaid will keep me going until I get home.”

The man’s gray eyes didn’t flicker an iota as he lied. “Look, I know Eve’s going to hack into Shadowland’s system. When she does, can you make sure she calls me?”

Hunter’s lips thinned. “Why, so you can cuff her again?”

“I didn’t do that, and I uncuffed her as soon as I got there. I want her to call me because she doesn’t think she’s in danger. I won’t take the chance that she’s wrong.”

Now Hunter’s eyes flickered, but with worry. “I’ll make sure she calls you.”

“Thanks.” Noah hesitated. “Why did you really come, Hunter?”

“To fix her roof. Evie’s like my kid sister. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for her.”

A sense of relief loosened the knots in his gut. “Thanks. See you around.”

“Detective,” Hunter called after him, “weren’t you wearing a hat when you got here?”

Noah nodded. “I thought I’d come back for it tomorrow.”

Hunter hesitated. “Don’t hurt her,” he said quietly. “She’s been through enough.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Eve let David back in, still feeling unsettled. Angry. She’d tried to be honest but kind to Noah, but he did not respect boundaries. She locked her deadbolt, her frown deepening. “I know I locked my door this afternoon. I can picture it in my mind.”

“You were rattled,” David said. “You still are.”

“Of course I am,” she said irritably. “Two women I recruited to my study are dead.”

He studied her face shrewdly. “And Noah Webster cares for you.”

Eve sighed. “I know. I wish he didn’t. I tried to tell him to go away.”

“Now why would you do a foolish thing like that, Evie?” David asked gently.

“Not gonna happen.” She sat in her chair and grabbed her pasta, now cold.

“Which? You and Webster or you and me talking about you and Webster?”

So what good is it to live in the real world all alone? “Yes. Either. Both.”

He shrugged. “All right. Any of your scripts finding loose bricks in ShadowCo?”

She opened her laptop. “Not yet.”

“Then I’ll make coffee. I guess it’s going to be a long night.” He puttered in the kitchen, then returned holding two cups, and it was then she noticed what looked like a walkie-talkie hanging from his belt. A baby pink walkie-talkie.

“What the hell is that?” she demanded when he put a steaming mug in her hand.

He lifted a dark brow. “Coffee.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, that. What the hell is that?” She pointed to the device.

“Oh, this.” He unclipped it from his belt and turned it toward her, showing her a small screen that was murky and dark. “Baby monitor. This is the receiver.”

He put the receiver on her lamp table, then sat on her old sofa and pulled his laptop from a backpack as if nothing was strange about a grown man having a pink baby monitor when there were no babies in the house. And never would be.

“Why? And where did you get it?”

“It was going to be Dana’s baby shower gift. I’ve had it in my truck for a week.”

Eve studied the receiver, fascinated. “Where’s the camera?”

“It comes with two. One is above your front door and one is outside the building door, downstairs. Wireless, range is almost four hundred feet. Infrared night-vision.”

“Freaking cool. When did you install it?”

“One after I walked Callie to her car and the other just now, after Webster left. I activated the receiver while the coffee brewed. It’s not rocket science.”

“What did Webster say to you?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

“What I already knew. That you don’t think you’re in danger, but he thinks you are.” He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes not leaving hers. “And that he’s interested in you.”

Briefly Eve closed her eyes. “David, please.” He made no apology and she sighed, turning her focus back to the camera. “If I were in danger and some killer did come after me, a baby pink camera would tip him off, don’t you think?” she said and he frowned.

“Give me some credit, Evie. I put the one downstairs where it couldn’t be seen. And if he comes close enough to take the camera out, we’d get his face.” He connected a video cord from his laptop to the receiver. “We’ve got streaming video and an alarm that screeches if either camera is disconnected. Gotta love it.”

“On a baby monitor? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“All for under three hundred bucks. Technology meets parental paranoia,” he said, then shrugged. “And my paranoia, too. I thought it would give Dana a little peace of mind to have the cameras versus the old audio monitor. She has all those foster kids, coming and going. Most are good kids, but all it would take would be one bad one.”

Eve’s throat tightened. He still loves her. What a waste of a life. Of a good heart. “Amazingly thoughtful,” she said roughly. “A little used by the time she gets it, but…”

He didn’t smile. “I’ll get her another. Tomorrow I’ll install something less noticeable for you than a baby pink camera, but it’ll work for tonight. A woman living alone should be careful. A woman living alone who’s tied to two dead women should be terrified.”

Alone pierced like an arrow so that she almost didn’t hear the rest. “I have a gun.”

“Then give it to me. If anyone comes through your door tonight, I want to be ready.”

A chill chased over her skin. “You’re serious.”

“About your safety? Deadly serious. Now drink your coffee before it gets cold.”

Tuesday, February 23, 12:35 a.m.

Noah quietly let himself into his house, considering the way he’d left Eve, and the fine line between pursuit and harassment. He didn’t want to cause her pain, stress, grief, any of those bad things. Just yesterday he’d been all set to protect her from himself. But she’d said she didn’t want to be protected. He wanted to believe her.

She’d said she was broken. That he didn’t want to believe, but understood. He sat down on the edge of his bed. Out of habit he picked up the photo he’d held so many times and remembered how broken he’d felt when he lost Susan and the baby.

He thought about how he’d handled his grief, compared it to how Eve had coped. They really weren’t that different. They’d both hidden, escaping reality, Noah into the bottle, Eve into the virtual world. They’d both set themselves free.

And for what? To work. To protect the innocent. He thought of Eve’s Nemesis avatar. He put the picture back, and got ready for bed, wondering how Eve punished the guilty in her world. She’d told him that some of her red-zone cases had relationships in Shadowland that spanned from the casual one-night stand to marriages.