Chapter 10: Welcome, Neighbor

She walked, calm, all the way to the gazebo. Tapped Sullivan on the shoulder from behind.

He jumped, turned, looked her up and down, and bit into his apple again.

"Sloane. Pace yourself when you're at my house. Don't be so dramatic."

She brushed dust off the hem of her skirt. Rolled her eyes. "What's the news?"

"Hadley's here. Come meet her."

He set the half-eaten apple down on the stone bench. The smile dropped off his face.

She slipped her arm through his without another word.

"You're in a hurry."

"You paid me to make a problem go away. I make the problem go away."

He shook his head and led her back toward the front of the house.

They were barely back inside when a small body launched at her at hip-height. Sloane jolted and ducked behind Sullivan.

The girl came up laughing, one hand pressed to her side, the other to her mouth. She was bent over giggling.

Sullivan's arm hooked back behind him to steady Sloane against his lower back. When he saw who'd ambushed them, his brow dropped, the mood at the back of his eyes shifted darker, and his voice came out flat.

"Hadley. Cut it out. Behave."

Sloane took the girl in. Late teens. White silk V-neck dress with eyelet trim, the kind of thing they sold in expensive boutiques in Wicker Park. The neckline was demure but fitted, and on her it read sweet — full-cheeked, doe-eyed, a slip of a body that hadn't fully filled out yet. Pale gloss on her lips. A girl who hadn't yet discovered what damage looked like.

Hadley straightened up, still grinning, and let her hand rest on Sullivan's bicep to brace herself. As she leaned, the V of her neckline dipped and a soft pale curve of breast peeked out at the edge.

Sullivan looked. Then he looked away, fast. The temperature around him dropped twenty degrees.

She'd hit a nerve.

"Hadley." Sullivan's voice was the kind of quiet that meant trouble. "I said, stop."

Sloane felt the static in the air and almost shivered.

This man, when he was angry, was a problem.

Hadley straightened all the way up, drew her hand back from his arm. She rubbed the bridge of her nose with one knuckle. Looked at the floor.

"God, can't even take a joke." She muttered it under her breath.

Sullivan's hands fisted at his sides. He didn't speak. He just stared at her until she dropped her eyes.

Sloane watched the exchange and thought: he is going to pay for this for years.

She stepped forward and smiled at Hadley. "You must be Hadley."

Hadley turned toward her like Sullivan didn't exist. The grin came right back. The sweetness came right back. "Hi, Sloane."

Sloane reached into her clutch and pulled out a small velvet box. She pressed it into Hadley's palms.

"It's our first time meeting. Just something little. Go buy yourself something pretty."

Hadley took the box with both hands, careful, and ducked her head. "Thank you, Sloane."

Sullivan stood next to them and didn't say a word for the entire exchange. Sloane shot him a sideways look and thought, you absolute idiot, you brought all this on yourself.

With Hadley met, Sloane's job for the day was done. She got through the meal at the long table with the elders, smiled at all the right moments, said all the right things, drank one polite glass of champagne and let the rest sit.

By the time Sullivan dropped her at the curb in front of her brownstone, the wine was sitting under her temples and her thoughts were soft at the edges. He asked if she wanted him to walk her up. She shook her head and started up the stoop without answering.

She got to her door, took one long breath, dropped her clutch on the floor, and reached into her bag for her keys.

That was when she heard it. A voice. Through the wall.

Coming from the unit next to hers.

She paused. Frowned. The unit next door had been empty for the entire week she'd lived here. Maybe new tenants had moved in.

She unlocked her door, stepped out of her heels in the entry, and went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

She was only in Chicago short-term. Sullivan had offered to buy her a place; she'd refused. He'd compromised by leasing this two-bedroom converted brownstone walk-up in Lincoln Park as her temporary base.

The water cleared her head a little. She fired off a quick iMessage to Sullivan telling him to get home safely, then walked into the bathroom and stood under the shower until her brain quieted.

Bed felt like the best thing that had ever existed when she finally crawled into it. The world was beautiful. The world was —

A sound came through the wall above her head.

A moan.

Then another moan.

Sloane's bedroom shared a wall with the bedroom of the unit next door. The wall was old and thin — these brownstones were a hundred years old, the partitions paper-thin, that was the noise issue everyone in Lincoln Park complained about. She could hear everything.

She tried to ignore it. She figured whatever this was would be done soon. It was not done soon. She lay there for forty solid minutes listening not to a lullaby but to some woman's increasingly desperate cries through plaster.

She finally rolled over, threw the covers off, got up, padded out of her apartment, and crossed the landing.

She knocked.

Nothing. She knocked again. Nothing. She was about to switch to a fist when —

The door cracked open.

She blinked.

Holden was standing there. Hair wet. Drops sliding down his collarbone and disappearing into the white terrycloth robe he had loosely tied at his waist. One hand on the door, one hand holding the front of the robe closed. His face was doing exactly nothing.

He was backlit by the yellow lamp behind him. She was in shadow. He looked down at her, expression flat.

Her brain went — empty.

Why was he here.

He was the one who'd just been —

He was the one in there with —