I shudder.
“You’ve been busy.”He says it with a note of judgment, like it’s all my fault that we have a serial killer circling Wichita and other crimes that just won’t quit.
I set down my pen, keeping my expression neutral.“Just doing my job.”
“I pulled an old file of yours.”He sets the folder on my desk.His fingers rest on top casually.“You remember the Durley homicide?”
My throat goes dry.“Barely.”
Vincent’s smile is thin.“You used a rare chemical adhesive to lift trace evidence from a gun.Specialized stuff.Lab-only.Had to request it special from the feds.”He pauses.“Same one we just found this morning on that severed hand.”
He opens the folder, revealing photos of a different crime scene and my report.The highlighted word jumps out like a brand burned into paper.
Adhesive No.412-L
Vincent watches me with those flat, empty eyes.The ones that have seen everything and felt nothing.
“Interesting coincidence,” he says softly.
My mind races.“If you’re implying I cut off Farley’s hand, I didn’t.”
Obviously I can’t explain the connection without revealing James.Without revealing Sera.Without unraveling every thread I’ve been trying to keep separate.
“I’m not implying anything.I’m just being thorough.I’ll run it up to the lab.Get confirmation on the chemical composition.Cross-reference it with every case file in the county.”He pauses.“Just to be sure.What do you think?”
“Whatever’s necessary.”
“I think it is,” Vincent says, eyeing me closely.
The silence stretches.
Finally, Vincent picks up the folder and taps it twice against my desk.
“You know what the difference is between a good cop and a dirty one, Eddie?”His voice drops to a murmur.“Nothing but the story people believe about them.”
He turns and walks away, his footsteps measured and unhurried down the hallway.
I sit frozen, staring at the space where he stood.
James didn’t just plant evidence.He tied me to it.Whether he meant to or not doesn’t matter, although I don’t think he did on purpose.
Regardless, the trap is set, and I’m standing in the center of it.
Chapter 8
Entity
Thewrongnessseepsthroughmy walls like rot.
Not the usual decay, but the slow breaking-down of mortar and memory.This is fresh.Acidic.It burns where it touches, leaving char marks on the foundations of my domain.
Failure.
The human males reek of it.
I feel the detective’s first—his fear is a new flavor, sharp and vinegary, nothing like his usual controlled burn.It crackles through the air molecules, makes the copper wiring in the walls hum with displaced currents.He’s afraid of losing what little he has.Of being exposed.Of becoming the thing he’s spent years hunting.
And he saw.
