“He’d better.” Kael crosses the room, picks up the little SD card from the camera with two fingers, like it’s something fragile and extremely valuable. “I don’t feel like digging any more holes this week.”
I don’t say that I wouldn’t mind. Holes are simple. Dirt doesn’t talk back.
Kael studies me for a second. His gaze flicks over the blood on my knuckles, the scuff on my jacket where the old guy’s chair caught me when I shoved it.
“You’re bleeding,” he says.
“Not mine.”
“Still.” He nods at my hand. “Get that looked at before you get on the road.”
I blink. “The road?”
“Pack a bag, Kelly.” He slips the SD card into his inner pocket. “You’re going to Lucy Falls.”
“What?
“Follow me.” He gestures, and I follow him into the back room.
It’s cold in Kael’s office, even with the heat on. Always is. He likes his environment like he likes his employees—controlled and sharp around the edges.
“Brodie called me twenty minutes ago,” Kael says, tossing a file onto the desk in front of me. “He said the sheriff in Lucy Falls—Jack Brady—called him ten minutes before that.”
“Someone die?” I ask. It’s not flippant. Just practical. Most calls that ripple through that many people have a body at the end of them.
“He found a body at the Falls.” Kael steeples his fingers. “And thirty minutes after that, Henry Thurston paid a visit to my little cousin.”
My shoulders go tight before I can stop them.
Tallulah.
Not Twiggy, not Tally, not Kael’s hacker genius cousin from Lucy Falls. In this room, on Kael’s tongue, she’s always Tallulah. It makes her sound small. Breakable.
I try to keep my face blank. I’m mostly successful at it. I can’t keep the roughness from my voice, though.
“How bad?” I ask.
“He didn’t get in,” Kael says. “He rattled her door, smiled at her through her window, and ran like the rat he is as soon as the sirens got close. Jack had units on scene, but Thurston knows how to hide.”
“So no injuries?”
“No.” His mouth flattens. “Not physical ones. Brodie says she’s fine.”
Just fine isn’t good enough.
I flip the file open. Black and white photos stare back at me. Crime scene shots from the first Lucy Falls mess. Old news reports. A grainy image of Henry himself, taken outside a courthouse in another state before he skipped town and turned into a rumor.
I’ve read this file before.
When Shiloh was being stalked, when threats started appearing all over Lucy Falls, Kael had me go through every scrap of information we had on Thurston. Patterns, preferences, the signature marks he couldn’t quite help leaving behind.
That case ended bloody, but not with Thurston in cuffs. A girl—Madison something—died. Jason Adams, his foster brother andpartner, was convicted and imprisoned. He’s on death row now. Shiloh lived. Thurston disappeared.
I remember thinking at the time that it felt…unfinished. Like someone had ripped the last chapter out of a book.
Apparently, he’s writing a sequel.
“Why now?” I ask. “Why come back after all this time?”
