Bright sun was poring through the half open blinds and I starred at the sunny beams dreamily for a moment, before abruptly jerking upright in the bed.
How late had I slept? I glanced at the clock. It was after eleven! The captain is going to kill me! I reached for my phone, which is when I saw the plain white card with a single phone number laying on top of it.
So it hadn't all been a dream. My strange encounter with a murder suspect had really happened last night. He wasn't the murderer, I knew that, but he was involved in some way. I needed to find out how.
The sun showed more writing on the card and I turned it over and read in a bold cursive script, 'PS, if you need a safe place to run to for shelter go to this address. The door locks automatically so don't freak out when it does. Again, a onetime only use.' The address was listed below.
I got up feeling very much like a new person, although my cheek was sore, as well as my rib cage, where I'd taken an elbow. I went to the bathroom and lit a match to burn the card, having already memorized its contents.
He'd said I was a good cop. I wasn't so sure, seeing as how I was currently destroying evidence. I watched the cursive writing on the back burn to ash in the sink. Then it hit me. He hadn't mentioned anything about a safe house last night, just a phone number. Which meant what?
I walked past my bed to the open living room beyond. The pillow at the one end of my couch had a dent in it! He'd come back, why? One of my kitchen chairs was missing and I glanced over at the door to see it sitting beside it ready for use. He hadn't wanted me to be here alone without the chair in place!
My stomach rumbled reminding me of how long it had been since I had really eaten something. I went to my small kitchen. The first thing I noticed were the dirty dishes in my sink. He had eaten breakfast in my apartment!
I opened the refrigerator; there was a glass of orange juice already poured sitting on the top rack with a sticky note on it that had an arrow pointing toward the stove. I picked up the glass and cautiously opened the stove. A small oven dish sat there. I pulled it out. He'd made some kind of a breakfast egg quiche it looked like. It was still warm.