Unbreakable

Chapter Six - Trouble

As soon as I stepped into Nathan's office I could sense that this was something big. He was standing behind his desk hunched over with his fists wound into tight balls on the paperwork he had spread about the desk. His jacket thrown onto the ground, the white long sleeve shirt he's wearing was rolled up at the sleeves to his elbows. His suspenders no longer on his shoulders, they hung below his waist. His hair was a disheveled mess, eyebrows furrowed and his jaw was clenched with such strength he could've broken a tooth. His eyes lifted to meet mine but he never moved.

"What happened?" Was the only thing I could force myself to say. A small gasp and jump escaped me as he slid his fist across his desk, throwing all the paperwork to the ground. I subconsciously took a step back watching him come out from behind the desk making strides towards me.

"I received a death threat tonight. It was in front of my hotel door when I arrived!" He shouted through gritted teeth. The palms of his hands nearly bloody from his nails digging into them from the fists he was maintaining. Not having control of my own body I threw myself at him, tightly embracing him to try to pull him out of the blind rage he was swirling into head first.

"Why would someone send you a death threat?" I mumbled into his neck still refusing to let him go.

With a firm grip he pulled me away from him, placing both his hands on either of my shoulders to capture my full attention. His face still burning with rage as he spoke. "It wasn't for me, the death threat was against you."

My eyes went blurry as all the color drained from my face, it felt like the room was spinning and if Nathan let me go I was going to collapse. My legs shaking trying to hold myself up. I tried to speak but only a slight squeak came out of my mouth as I tried to comprehend what he just said to me. The death threat was for me. With shaky legs I made my way to sit on the chair, my breathing was short and ragged as he handed me an envelope that contained the note and pictures of me since we arrived in town.

"You should've never came back here. You'll never find me, but I'll find you. If you know what's good for you, you'll be on the first flight out of here in the morning. Or you'll be going back in a body bag."

"I had a feeling someone was following me tonight, this just confirms it." I mumbled while going through countless photos of me inside the envelope, all seemingly taken from a distance. Whoever this was, was trying to scare me into leaving. They clearly don't know me very well because this wasn't going to scare me off, if anything it was going to motivate me. With a deep breath I stood, steadying my shaky legs and reaching Nathan's gaze. "It seems like we have a new development in our case, lets get to work." A confident smile creeping up my lips, Nathan simply nodded knowing there was no sense in arguing with me when I made my mind up.

We worked into the late hours of the night. Running any prints we could find on the envelope and its contents. I made a list of people who knew I was back in town, people I've had issues with in this town in the past, and anyone else I could think of that might've had hidden motives. Nathan took all the names and put them onto a separate investigation board. We started running the names on the board, looking for anything that could be a possible red flag. We checked camera footage of the hotel to try to see if we could identify anyone who came in around the time the note was dropped off. Unfortunately we saw a hooded figure walk in but they bee lined for the emergency stairs which had no camera coverage. We made it through a third of the list of names on the board before we had to call it a night, the adrenaline had worn off and we were both walking, talking empty shells at that point.

"We can't go back to the hotel, whoever this is knows we were staying there." Nathan explained through bloodshot eyes. He was right, we weren't safe there anymore. We needed a new plan, something that wouldn't draw a bunch of attention to ourselves.