Maggie watched Reid and Ezra leave with a pit in her stomach, the boy following Reid like a lost puppy, his head hung low. Owen hadn’t gleaned anything of use. The kid had mowed through half a pizza, but he hadn’t said a word.
Owen hugged her and asked her if she needed to talk, but she was too jittery to have a real conversation. He smelled of garlic, which was at once delectable and disgusting like the sexiest man alive telling you to smile more. Owen left ahead of her with a wave and a promise to see her in the morning—he’d bring Bavarian cream donuts. Excellent. But she was still uneasy when she locked her office for the night and made her way to the car.
The parking lot felt smaller than usual, the air vibrating. The evening had eyes. They bore into her back and raised the hairs on her spine. She glanced over her shoulder, scanning the walkway that surrounded the lot, then the adjacent building, but all was as it should be. Hazy dark and silent apart from the whoosh of chilly March breeze.
The Sebring convertible’s door slammed like an exclamation point on her sentence of an evening. The bobblehead on her dash—the same place Kevin used to keep his—jiggled his head at her trepidation. Beaker from The Muppet Show. He felt like a safer, smarter partner than Kevin’s Ernie, who had probably nodded his approval while Kevin drove his car into the river. Over the last six months, the toys had felt more critical than ever before—provided more comfort than it seemed they should.
Especially since she’d stopped going to that club.
She started the car with a sigh—they had a murderer to catch. How long did they have before he struck again? The previous killings had taken place months apart, but with this recent change in M.O., she wasn’t sure he’d maintain his timeline. The suspect would not be satisfied with the way things went down at the Darren house. Leaving Ezra alive… that would eat at him. Good thing the boy was staying with a cop. Ezra would be protected at Reid’s.
Maggie pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, squinting as a truck raced up to her back bumper and flooded her interior with halogen. Very subtle, jerk. She was in no mood for shenanigans. Her flesh was itchy, hives hidden deep beneath the dermis in a place she couldn’t scratch. All the experience she had with serial killers, with men who took life, and very few killed indiscriminately. There was a connection between the victims. He had a way to choose these families. He needed a place to… notice them. Investigate them. He had to ensure they met his ideal.
She frowned in the rearview and took her foot off the gas, slowing below the speed limit. The dolt behind her flashed his brights. She hit the brake, fifteen miles below the speed limit. He flashed again. Twenty.
All the killer really had to do was hang out in a different kid-friendly restaurant in a new county every week until he spotted his next targets. And his pattern of swapping out jurisdictions so the cases weren’t connected until now… that was sneaky. This killer was smart—he was patient.
It was a bad combination.
With a long bleat of the horn, the truck behind her turned off down a side street. The resulting darkness soothed a pressure in her chest that she’d barely noticed before, but it was not enough to make her feel calm. Or sane.
Maggie accelerated to ten miles over the speed limit—okay, twenty—rubbed at her stiff neck, then scratched her arm. Keyed up; too tense. Maybe she’d try yoga. A little meditation. Or…
She could go to the club.
Her fingers tightened around the wheel. She could already smell the cinnamon mingling with salt and musk—the heady vanilla and ginger aroma of the candles. And the leather… so much leather. She could feel it on her flesh, wrapped around her calves, covering her face, and the man…
No, Maggie. No.
It was one thing to embrace anonymous sex, but it was quite another to put the features of someone you knew on your faceless partner. The masks made that a little too easy, many of them covering the face from forehead to chin. To think Owen had been the one to tip her off to the club’s existence. He’d heard about it from his ex-wife, and the fact that she knew about such a scandalous place was probably one reason they’d ended up divorced.
She could call Alex, maybe. Alex wasn’t much for deep conversation; tears made her uncomfortable. They could go throw some axes at their usual place, and…
Axes. An image from the file flashed across her brain: the girl in her bedroom, the blood in her hair, the deep gouges from the blade. No, ax throwing wouldn’t be relaxing. Not at all.
Her phone rang as if it had been waiting for just this moment to interrupt—she jumped. Anonymous number. To answer, or not to answer? That is the question. Talking to a telemarketer was surely better than obsessing. And she was so damn good at obsessing. The Oligarch of Overthinking, that was her. Maggie pulled the cell to her ear.
“I hear my brother’s on your jock again,” Tristan announced before she could say hello.
She frowned. What does that even mean? “The way you’re on my jock?” Did she have a jock? No, right?
“I can help, you know. With this whole family killing thing you guys are working on.”
“If your brother wanted your assistance, he’d have called you.” But it was true… he might be able to help. He had access to more information than their small-town police department. Tristan Simms had made his money in technology, security—maybe data mining. She still wasn’t completely sure what he did, but if she needed information on someone, he could get it. A master of privacy invasion. She was morally and ethically opposed to the things he stood for, yet she couldn’t get him out of her head when she wanted to. Which was why he’d called from an anonymous number. So she’d pick up.
Tristan sniffed. “I’m starting to get a little jealous that you’ll talk to him but not to me.”
The fact that jealousy is on the table at all is exactly why I can’t talk to you. “He’s not my patient.”
“Neither am I.”
But he had been—too recently. Her mother had been disbarred and was still on a tether for her mistakes. Her father had caught a bullet in the rib after he’d called police about a suicidal patient. She did not intend to complete the trifecta of bad professional decisions. “I’m hanging up now, Mr. Simms. And don’t call me anonymously again, understand? It makes you look shifty.”
He chuckled. “Talk to you later, Doctor.”
She swung a right into her neighborhood, the cell clutched so tightly that her knuckles ached. At least three times a week, she got a call from Tristan or received some random present. First, the little bowed box that held the paperweight she now kept on her desk; soon after, she got a delivery of corned beef sandwiches—her favorite. Most recently, the package had contained a ticket to a Weird Al concert in Louisiana and an airplane ticket to New Orleans. She’d ignored every present, had not offered a single text acknowledgement, and she’d only kept the paperweight because she knew he’d never see it. Tristan had once made a habit of tracking her phone—he was still playing games. Like always.
You like a good game though, don’t you, Maggie?
Her face went hot. She shoved the thought aside and jerked the wheel to turn into her father’s driveway—her home until her own house was rebuilt. The phone rang again. Goddamnit, Tristan.
But she paused as she turned the cell over. The number was not Tristan’s, was not anonymous, and she recognized it—Dad. Her heart rate accelerated, throbbing in her temples. A nighttime call from the retirement village was rarely a good sign, especially now that her father was a single step from full-time nursing home status.
“Maggie Connolly?” A light female voice that was probably lovely in other circumstances, but the words were edged in something sharp—anxiety. “This is Jess at—”
“Is my father okay?”
“You’d better come down,” the woman said. “There’s been an incident.”
“Incident” was the most noncommittal phrase she could imagine, and it rang crass and angry against her eardrum. Did he have a heart attack? Another stroke? Had he been standing on a table singing show tunes and slipped? “What does that mean? What happened?”
“He was… attacked.” The nurse’s voice came out strained.
“Attacked? By—”
“We don’t know yet. The police are on their way.” Commotion rose in the background, then a rustling like the nurse had dropped the phone. But when she spoke again, her tone was clear—urgent. “Please hurry.”