Free Gridlock: A Ryan Lock Novel by Sean Black

of Kevin’s room, he wished she had just told him about her brother from the get-go. He guessed, however, that to live the life she did, Raven had built defense upon defense around herself, and didn’t see the need to explain or justify her decisions. The stalker’s intrusion must have made things doubly difficult.
    Lock closed the door softly on Superman, and walked into Raven’s bedroom. Here, the style was decidedly feminine. The bed was a California King with crisp white Egyptian sheets. In fact, pretty much everything in the room was white, including the walk-in wardrobe next to the en-suite. With a change to the wardrobe’s door, it would make an ideal panic room, even though there was barely space for Raven, Kevin and whichever bodyguard was on duty at the time. But it would only have to hold them safely for an hour at most. Even if the stalker was in the house, an hour was more than enough time for the LAPD SWAT team to move in and take him out.
    Pulling out his cell phone, Lock made a call, arranging for someone to come round and replace the door.
    He took another look around the closet. All of her clothes were arranged neatly on hangers or in drawers, and many items still had the plastic dry-cleaner wrappings covering them. Replacing the door would be a messy business. Some of this stuff would have to be moved into another room.
    Lock heard footsteps behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Raven come into the bedroom.
    ‘Kevin seems to be hitting it off with your partner,’ she said.
    Lock smiled. Everyone got on with Ty. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to need to clear this closet out so we can make it into a panic room.’
    Raven looked nervous. ‘I thought I was paying you guys so it wouldn’t come to that.’
    ‘We already know that your stalker is violent and determined. We need to plan for every eventuality.’
    Raven hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.
    ‘You want to help me clear it? Maybe move it into a spare room?’ he asked her.
    ‘Sure.’
    Stepping past him into the closet, she scooped up a half-dozen outfits from the rail and dumped them on her bed. ‘I kind of need to go through this stuff anyway. Get rid of some of it.’
    She stepped back into the closet, then looked away from the rail, where she’d just removed a bunch of clothes, to Lock. ‘Is this someone’s idea of a joke?’ she asked, her violet eyes cloudy, her face taut with fear.
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘I’m talking about this,’ she said.
    Lock noticed that her voice was shaking, as she passed him a short black designer dress. A note was pinned to the front. Neatly etched in printed letters was a short message.
I thought you’d look nice in this.
     

12
     
    The cops were back. Not in the same numbers that they’d been when Raven had discovered Cindy Canyon’s body in the trunk of her car – a dress with a handwritten note didn’t have quite the same pulling power as a headless corpse – but they were back just the same. A forensic tech removed the dress and note for further examination while a couple of detectives spoke to Raven in her bedroom. Lock let them get on with it.
    Feeling uneasy, he went downstairs to check on Ty and Kevin. The discovery of the dress took things to a whole new level. For starters it meant that someone had been inside the house. Worse, there was no sign of a previous break-in, and no evidence of their presence, apart from the dress and the note. The police had already checked the doors for signs of someone picking the lock, but there were none of the telltale scratch marks left by an amateur. If that method had been used it had been used by someone who knew what they were doing.
    Ty glanced at Lock from the couch.
    ‘How’s everything upstairs?’
    ‘All good,’ Lock said, aware of Kevin’s presence.
    Ty clapped a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. ‘See? I told you, K-Lo, nothing to worry about.’
    Kevin retreated into his TV show. It was impossible to know how much