“So, why was your day so bad?” Atticus asked, his gaze cutting to Jericho before returning to the ceiling.
“My sister died.” It was weird to say that out loud.
“I’m sorry,” Atticus said, not sounding particularly sorry but trying to school his features into something that resembled regret. “How did she die? Is that okay to ask?”
Jericho shook his head, still trying to wrap his head around the answer. “Multisystem organ failure.”
Atticus nodded. “Was she sick for a long time?”
Jericho shrugged. “I don’t know. She disappeared eight years ago.”
There was a very long pause before Atticus asked, “And they just called you out of the blue to tell you she died? Were you listed as her next of kin?”
“It’s not like that. I don’t know what the fuck is happening. My mother is too sick to deal with all of this. Mercy disappeared when she was seventeen. When she went missing, they said she ran away from home to do drugs. My parents believed it because they always believed the worst about her and she did do drugs. But my brother and I didn’t believe it. She wasn’t that far gone on drugs, not yet. And she wouldn’t have just disappeared without telling Felix and me, since she knew we’d never rat her out to our parents. Then today, out of the blue, they pulled her out of the bay, looking completely healthy on the outside—minus the…bloating—but inside, she was a disaster. They have no answers for me. They say they’re investigating but what is there to investigate, really?”
Atticus nodded. “That’s a lot. I can see why you don’t want to be alone.”
Jericho frowned. “You can?”
“I imagine that you’re running every conceivable scenario in your head, trying to figure out how your sister went from teen runaway to a slab in the morgue. That’s what I would be doing.”
“She was only twenty-five,” Jericho said, the pain hitting him like a tidal wave, forcing him to hold his ground until it passed again.
Atticus frowned. “Multi-system organ failure in a twenty-five-year-old isn’t that common.”
“They said something called sepsis caused it. Complications from a kidney transplant. There was a very fresh incision.”
“Your sister received a kidney?”
He shook his head. “She apparently donated a kidney and there were…complications.”
Atticus sat up a bit, turning his body towards him. “Transplants are highly regulated. When a patient receives a kidney or donates a kidney, there’s a paper trail for miles. You can get a baby easier than you can get a kidney. There are weeks of physicals and blood work, weeks of post op care, medications, and follow visits. There’s no way they would just let a girl who just donated a kidney wander out of the hospital.”
“The detective on the case is my ex, and he doesn’t seem all that interested in following up on it. His bosses don’t, anyway. To them, she’s just a drug addict who got herself into some trouble.”
“I have people. I’ll look into it for you.”
“You have people?” Jericho asked, a faint smile forming and then sliding away just as quickly.
“I told you, I’m a professional. I have a whole team.”
Jericho sat up. “Cut the shit. You’re a doctor and a murderer? Nobody becomes a dual MD-PhD and moonlights as a contract killer. What’s your game?”
“You do when you’re a psychopath raised by a man with an agenda. Being an upstanding member of society is what allows me to get rid of people who have forfeited their right to be on this side of the firmament. I was…raised for this.”
“Being a serial killer is your birthright?” Jericho asked.
Atticus scoffed. “I don’t consider myself to be a serial killer. They have signatures, rituals, fetishes. I’m just doing a job. I don’t even like it. My brother, August, he fucking loves it. The twins, too. For the rest of us, it’s just…work.”
Jericho blinked at him. “So, you were serious in the cabin when you said you killed with your brothers. That wasn’t some kind of, like, metaphorical thing? Your whole family kills people?”
Atticus shook his head. “No. My dad keeps his hands clean. He’s like the foreman; he organizes the jobs. We’re the grunts. My brother’s fiancé is shadowing him, learning the ropes.”
“Like an intern?” Jericho mused.
Atticus nodded. “We have a computer whiz, but we don’t even know what she looks like. My other brother—the one who likes to kill people—his husband is psychic and a former FBI agent so we use him when we need quick intel.” He stopped talking abruptly before saying, “I’m sorry. It’s tacky to talk about this after you telling me you just lost your sister. My father would be very upset with my lack of manners.”
Jericho knitted his brows together. “Wouldn’t your father be upset that you just blabbed some huge family secret to a guy who you’ve known for five minutes?”
