He stepped closer to the board, drawn to the city map pinned beside the photographs. Colored markers dotted the grid—harbor, underpass, rooftops, alleys—each one a quiet wound in the sprawl of Calgrave. His brows knitted. From a distance, the placements seemed scattered, arbitrary, the sort of chaos a killer hid behind. But the longer he stared, the more something in his hindbrain stirred. Not logic.Recognition.
He lifted a finger, tracing the air above the map without touching it. “Rick…”
He felt rather than saw Rick watching him, unblinking, waiting.
Ash slid the pen from Rick’s grasp and began sketching between the points, letting the lines pull themselves out ofhim. A curve here. A crooked pivot there. Two slanted strokes converging where the river bent. The shape wasn’t perfect, not yet, but the geometry was undeniable. “It’s not random,” he murmured. “He’s placing them. Each one… it lines up. Look,” he tapped the rough outline. “It’s the same symbol he leaves at the scenes. The bodies are making it.”
Rick stepped in close enough that Ash felt the warmth of him at his shoulder. His breath hitched as the truth hit. Six points forming an incomplete sigil; one gap left, one final stroke waiting to be carved. “So the bastard’s building his ritual right into the city.”
Ash swallowed, staring at the map. “And he only needs one more to finish it.”
The room seemed to contract around him, the air thinning as if the walls themselves leaned closer. Rain hammered the windows with a furious insistence, each drop a nail in a coffin he suddenly felt himself standing inside.
Suddenly, the door banged open hard enough to rattle the glass. A thickset man barreled in, thundercloud in a suit, cigar smoldering as he jabbed it toward Rick. “Slade!” His voice exploded. “Mind tellin’ me why one of my top men’s laid up in a hospital with his skull split open?”
Rick leaned forward, jaw knotted, palms braced on the desk as though he needed the wood to anchor him. “Captain… we were tailing a possible suspect. Off the record. There was a misunderstanding—”
“A misunderstanding?” The Captain’s laugh was sharp, ugly. He paced a tight line across the cramped office, belly straining his vest, cigar waving like a conductor’s baton. “A misunderstanding is when a broad slaps you for gettin’ fresh. Not when my detective ends up on ice for five goddamn weeks! No wonder this case is colder than a morgue slab if this is how you’re runnin’ it!”
Ash stood in the corner, half-drowned in shadow, content to watch the sparks fly. A low laugh slipped out before he could stop it. It was only a breath against the quiet, but it was enough to finally draw the captain’s glare.
“And what the fuck is this?” He stomped closer, smoke puffing hot between his teeth. “Who let this fox in here?”
Rick flinched. “Sir, this is Ash Hunter. He’s… he’s an advisor on the case.”
“Advisor?” The man barked the word, spittle catching the light. “Didn’t you have him in cuffs last week? And now he’s lounging in your nest? What’s next—sending the Sculptor a goddamn dinner invite?”
The heat in the room swelled. Rick stood stiff, jaw tight, caught in the blast of it. Ash felt the current ripple through him, the wolf beneath straining at its leash. He, on the other hand, let it roll past like rain off glass. He eased away from the wall with a languid stretch, sliding one hand into his pocket, the other tracing the line of the desk as he moved. When he spoke, his tone was honey poured over barbed wire.
“I’m only here to help, Captain. You’ve got a killer loose in your city. Seems to me you could use all the help you can get.”
The captain’s fury faltered mid-stride. His gaze snagged on Ash, stuck a beat too long. Smoke curled forgotten from the cigar as his jaw worked without sound. Some of the thunder drained out of him, his shoulders dropping a notch. He muttered something indecipherable, then jabbed the cigar at Rick instead. “You better get me results. Fast. Or so help me, you’ll be pounding pavement ‘til your shoes dissolve.”
He spun on his heel, storming out in a trail of fume, door slamming behind him.
The silence he left behind rang louder than his shouting. Rick stood there, nostrils flaring, knuckles white against the edge of the desk. He studied Ash with narrowed eyes, suspicion shadingthe edges, but the set of his shoulders had eased by a fraction. Respect; reluctant, but there.
Ash only lifted his brows, smirk flickering, the picture of innocence with his fists in his pockets. “Don’t be so impressed. It doesn’t work on everyone.”
Rick frowned, watching him too closely. “No?”
Ash strolled past Rick with unhurried grace, crossing to the rain-streaked window. He rested his hands on the sill, eyes on the blurred city beyond, his voice low and almost careless when he spoke. “Only the ones with a crack already in them. A weakness. A want.” He left it hanging there, a suggestion more than a confession, before looking back with a gaze that didn’t quite give itself away, the weight of the unsaid hanging between them like smoke.
Chapter Forty
(10:38 p.m.)
The station at night was a different beast. The usual clamor had drained into something leaner, more skeletal; phones bleating out in lonely bursts, the shuffle of a few uniforms haunting the bullpen like ghosts working overtime. A hive that never truly slept, only changed its tone.
Rick’s office, with its blinds half-drawn and its air stale from smoke and coffee gone cold, felt carved out of that darkness. He’d turned off the overhead light when it started to hurt his eyes. Only a desk lamp now glared on the litter of takeout cartons and case files. The weight of his holster dragged harder after six hours on duty, suspenders gnawing at his shoulders.
On the couch opposite him, Ash sprawled like he owned the night. Long limbs, head tipped into the lamp’s glow, lashes cutting shadows across his cheeks. A picture of easy decadence, as though even exhaustion bent to his style. Leave it to him to turn police overtime into a magazine spread.
Rick forkedlo meininto his mouth, chewing without appetite, when Ash’s head lifted toward the blinds, eyes scanning the figures moving outside. “What?” Rick asked, chopsticks hovering.
Ash let his gaze drift across the bullpen for another second, tracking something unseen, then shook his head. “Thought…” He cut himself short, gave a little shrug, almost a smirk. “It’s nothing.”
Rick let it go, though he kept watching him. The kid was a live wire, tuned to currents other men never caught. Could the stress be getting to him? Rick felt his own chest tighten, ashallow ache, the sense of something circling just outside the light. He focused on the food again, though the noodles tasted of cardboard. His thoughts swirled back to that afternoon, the steam-heavy bathroom, Ash’s lips against his, skin slippery, the ghost of it now gone sour with distance. That had been hours ago. Too damn long. The stretch of time chipped at him, made his cock twitch in frustration. Or maybe it was the moon, still swollen tonight, tugging at him, heat under the skin.
