Surviving Brooklyn (Brooklyn Series Book 1) by Elizabeth York Page A

would have to make it a point to have Mark take me over to their houses to apologize.
    “Brooklyn, where did the flowers come from?” Mark asked, pulling me back from my own thoughts.
    “He threw them in the elevator.” I yawned.
    “Was he wearing gloves?” Mark asked in an urgent rush.
    “No, I don’t think so.” I remembered his hands from the coin but could not place if he was wearing gloves or not. I yawned again. I didn’t think coffee would help at this point. I was so exhausted.
    “Brooklyn, I am going to drop you off at the hotel and get you into bed.”
    My eyebrows raised on that statement.
    “Not for that, although I would never say no to that. What I mean is…”
    I was finding humor in the way he tripped over his words because he was worried how I would take them.
    “Brooklyn, you need to get some sleep. I need to go and see if they found anything. Hopefully, he left a print for us to follow. I am putting more officers in and outside your room. One will come and take your statement and one will come to get a description. I will call you and we will do dinner and talk.”
    I realized I had not told him about my phone, and looked down at my feet.
    “What?” Mark asked.
    “I gave my phone to a little kid when you wouldn’t stop calling.”
    Mark laughed a little. I don’t know what was so humorous, but something I had done was funny.
    “What?” I asked.
    “If he tracked you here the same way we did, he will be tracking a little kid for a while.”
    My face fell as I thought about what that might mean for the little kid’s fate. I had never seen the guy before, so thinking he might be related to my dad’s organization might have been wrong. I wanted to find him and stop him before he hurt someone’s child.
    “Brooklyn, I will call Kate and she will bring you a temporary phone. We can work it out while you get some sleep. No reason to look so down,” Mark said as we neared the bottom floor.
    “The kid had my eyes,” I murmured, and Mark’s face fell. He had the same thought I did.
    He pulled out his phone and shouted orders into it to track my phone and get it from the child. I had turned on airplane mode, so maybe it wouldn’t be traceable anymore. Every horrendous thought that could have entered my mind did at that moment. 
    Upon exiting the building, I saw Mark’s Escalade parked out front with the police lights flashing in the front and back. I piled into the passenger seat and waited as he made what seemed like a hundred phone calls. He was so invested in this case. I would have to set aside my broken heart and feelings for Mark, or I would have to step down and let him work with someone else.
    It wouldn’t be fair to continue torturing myself with little sexual escapades that made me fall deeper in love with him. I couldn’t continue to show him how much it hurt that he didn’t see me that way. We needed to be able to hit a rewind button and go back to before I had ever admitted anything.
    By the time we arrived at the hotel, the place was swarming with officers. They were not all in uniform, but the plainclothes detectives were carrying themselves in a demeanor I commonly saw in Mark. My boss was there, talking to Mark.
    The next events flew by in a blur of exhaustion. One officer drew the suspect, another officer took a statement, and even my boss had a few choice words for my behavior, but he still would not let me step down. I climbed in the bed and drifted fast asleep while my boss was lecturing me.

Chapter 8
                            Dreaming
     
    Darkness was all around me. Back in the same eerie hallway looking for the red door. I knew what would happen if I didn’t get to the red door, because it had all happened before.
    Click clack —my heels were making the noise across the white marble floors. Walking through the darkness to find a door, my anxiety levels rose with each step.
    Five doors down in the hallway, I heard a groan. Looking around to