The line is quiet until: “Hol.”
I blink slowly, hearing all that’s said in just the single syllable of my name, beneath the somber tone of Darby’s voice.
“Hol, are you with him right now?”
I swallow, steeling myself for the lie. “Yes.”
His heavy exhale sounds across the line, some combination of relief and frustration. “I need you to stay where you are,” he instructs. “I’m going to be the one…” He trails off, leaving a tense beat of hesitation. “This is done. It’s over. But I’m going to be the one to bring you in and conduct the interview, all right.”
My gaze wanders past the cliffside, out over the rocky outcroppings and rolling ocean in search of the horizon. It’s a faint, misty line. Nearly indistinguishable as the gray waters blend with the steel sky.
“How?” I ask, but I don’t really need Darby to detail the way he found me. If he had a starting location, it would then be simple enough to gain access to business and university registries. Run names through an anagram generator until there’s a hit.
Time is always against me.
He was never supposed to have a starting location. Which means?—
“There was another victim,” he says, releasing a tense breath. “Two, actually. Roughly an hour and a half away from you. At first, I wasn’t convinced it was the same perpetrator. But I just had a gut feeling.”
There’s another tentative pause, and I know he’s keeping me talking, keeping me on the line—because I know these tactics. I even know his next move. My gaze falls over the long stretch of pier in the distance. With a sudden flutter, my pulse spikes. Destination decided, I’m moving before Darby gets to his next bullet point.
“Look,” he says, and now I’m the one letting him fill the silence as I keep him talking, just long enough to pull a trace on my movement. “I’m not sure I want to know. I don’t want to ask, but…”
As I round the telescope, I come to a halt and swoop down, my hand closing around the steel handle of the umbrella. I stand and test its solid heft. Heavy enough to cause some damage should I need a weapon.
A pang lances my chest at the thought of having to use Orion’s own umbrella against him—but the disturbed look I saw amid the current of his eyes leaves me little choice.
I’ll come back for you.
That’s my fear.
“The victims were found mutilated,” Darby says, disrupting my thoughts. “Dug up by an animal from where the bodies had been recently buried. It was obvious the scene was tampered with, masking the MO. Which is not like our guy.”
I can sense his aversion, can hear his disgust. And while his mortification should bother me more, I’m already descending the spiral staircase, heart thundering with each defiant step. Adrenaline winds my veins as I grip the umbrella at my side.
Before I escape the observatory, I quickly search the main control room, finding the key hanging from a chain along a panel. I push through the heavy arched doors, inhaling a deep breath of mist-laden air. A gust of wind bites into my sweat-slicked skin. Urgency propels me across the damp grounds, my heart thrashing against my ribs, struggling to keep pace as I race toward the trail ahead.
“Hollyn, tell me it wasn’t you.” Darby’s voice breaks through the line. “Fucking hell, tell me you weren’t the one who bashed in the skulls.”
My steps falter. One missed foot placement, and my heart slips a beat. My grip tightens around the handle, palm burning against the cold steel as I push forward.
Maybe I’m the one with the distorted reality, and I was always intended to be his victim. Maybe Orion sees the truth of me—the defective, callused organ I’ve carried since the moment I clawed back to this life.
Darby isn’t wrong to question me. It’s his job. He can’t overlook the evidence, or ignore all he knows about the woman with a bad heart. The fact it’s hardened and wrong. He can’t discount his instincts, honed by his many years in intelligence.
Once it was safe to leave Orion the other night, I went to Blue Hills—and found two bodies instead of one. It didn’t fit the pattern, but I told myself I could’ve been wrong, or that Orion’s dissociative spiral was triggered by an intruder, resulting in the utter carnage I saw there.
But either way, after everything, I couldn’t let him be discovered.
I used a rock to cave in the skulls he left behind in his fugue state. I bashed them until the remains were unrecognizable. I buried the bodies. I concealed the scene. Hid his kills. Destroyed all evidence.
The Gothic iron gate swings inward with a creak. The wind lashes my clothes as I grasp the railing and hurry down the steps. “You’re good, Darby,” I say, my feet hitting the weathered planks of thepier. “The best. But even you couldn’t have gotten this close without inside help.”
There had to be some informant.
“That’s fair,” he mutters, sounding distracted. “I just wish you could’ve trusted me.”
“I always have.”
