The cold shadow of old dread crawled out of the basement of Cloister’s brain. He could feel the heat of that long-ago run, the sweat of it itching under his arms. It wasn’t that he didn’t remember his childhood. One of his therapists told him once that the memories were there, but he didn’t let them out. Just the nightmares and the dread.
“Why take Drew?” Cloister asked. His voice was a rough scrape that made Javi look curiously at him. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “It wasn’t Drew that our killer was grooming, it was Billy. He’s the one who was in contact, and he’s the same age as the killer’s first victim. So why change?”
Javi pulled up another file scraped from Billy’s phone and maximized the window. It was a log of text messages sent the night Drew went missing.
Bri: Don’t want to go to party. Just wanna c u. Can we do that?
Billy: You sure? I haven’t washed in days.
Bri: Don’t care. Are you alone?
Billy: I got, like, no friends.
Bri: U’ve got me. Meet me at the road.
Billy: K!
It was almost funny for a second. The “not washed in days” remark nearly dragged a laugh out of Cloister’s throat. Then the tragedy of it all wrapped back around it, and he didn’t want to laugh anymore.
“Drew wanted to embarrass his brother,” he said. “So he stole his phone.”
“And while Billy was waiting for his Bri at the original meeting place, Drew walked into the trap. And once he turned up, the killer had to adapt,” Javi said. He had restless hands and fidgeted with the keyboard and tapped the end of a pen against the desk. It was a bit distracting. Cloister kept catching himself watching Javi’s hands as though the long fingers—all straight and unscarred—were doing something more erotic than fussing. “Drew wasn’t the one he wanted, but he couldn’t just try again. Not once Drew told his brother that his girlfriend was a man. That could be… bad.”
Cloister could see that. Panic made people stupid, and serial killers probably didn’t react well to pressure. But panic was immediate, powered by that first flood of act-first adrenaline. And they’d found a bloodstain, not a body.
“It might work in his favor,” he said. “If this guy wanted Billy for some specific reason, then maybe hurting Drew won’t do what he needs it to.”
The sudden stillness of Javi’s hands was oddly jarring. He spun the chair to the side and looked up at Cloister with pursed lips and narrowed, thoughtful eyes. You could practically see his brain working behind the shield of short, thick lashes.
“Maybe,” Javi said slowly, drawing the word over his tongue. “And if you’re right, and you didn’t miss the phone during the initial search—”
“I am. We didn’t,” Cloister said.
“I can accept that,” Javi said. “That means that our kidnapper planted the phone. He didn’t need to do that, and he knew it. This isn’t the first time he’s done this. So that means he wanted to frame Billy, and that means he might not be able to let go of his initial plan. He might not be done with Billy yet.”
The speculation was clear. It was Cloister’s turn to narrow his eyes and clench his jaw until he could feel his teeth shift. He wanted to get Drew home. Needed to, if he wanted to sleep anytime soon. Yet he could still see Billy’s pinched face and the fear that stripped the adolescence away to leave the kid underneath exposed. He could see himself there too.
That was what decided it for him. He’d never had much sympathy for himself.
“We’re going to use him as bait,” he said.
The slow smile that crawled over Javi’s face was hard, with sharp edges under the prettiness of his mouth. “Yes,” he said. “We are. Do you think it will work?”
“Maybe,” Cloister admitted. “Will the family agree to let him?”
Javi didn’t hesitate. “They will,” he said. “Billy isn’t exactly in their good books right now, is he? Besides, he won’t be in any real danger. We’ll be there.”
The careless tone put Cloister’s teeth on edge. It was like Javi only saw the solution to a problem, not the boy who’d already taken on too much blame. Was Cloister any better, though? He saw the boy, and he was still willing to go ahead with it.
“And since you already have a connection with Billy,” Javi added, “it will be even easier to convince them to go along with it.”
That was right. Javi was the asshole. Cloister really needed to keep that in mind. Maybe it would stop him worrying about Diggs and his expensive suits.
Chapter Eighteen
DOCTOR GALLOWAYsmelled of carbolic soap and lavender hand cream. She pushed her glasses up onto the top of her head, where her pale hair tangled around the funky pink arms of her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. The small office was dim. The only light came through a narrow window high on the wall, and the light from her computer made her look even paler than usual.
“There’s only so much I can tell you,” she warned. “The poor girl’s been dead a long time.”
