Slowly, gingerly, I pick up the journal, and a picture falls out.
It’s a picture of my family.I stare at the smiling faces, and chills run through me.Every face has an X over it except one.
Mine.
Rex
I’m beginningto think that giving Inara her own private situation room was a mistake.Ever since Hamish delivered Detective Lacy Collins’s notes, my beautiful wife has been holed up for days, staring at the walls of evidence for hours on end.She goes into the precinct for a few hours each day.Her team of bodyguards reports that she’s visited the most recent crime scenes a few times, although the detail makes it difficult to do the sort of boots-on-the-ground police work she prefers.
I’ve stopped sending Jaeger and Kaiser out with her.I didn’t tell her that St.James was the one who insisted on them being her main bodyguards rather than having a more traditional team.I think he was afraid I’d steal her away.
All that’s changed now.As a Roy, Inara has a security detail a mile deep.Everywhere she goes, she gets media attention, which effectively restricts her movements as much as a cage.
Despite the police’s best efforts, word got out about the connection between the recent murders and the ones in Elyria.The news has run constant stories about the Bondage Killer.
Nadia’s been able to keep Inara out of the news.She’s offered a bigger, better sacrifice: Me.There have been whole news spreads about “the last scion of the Roys.”She even let them cover my threats to the press.
“Rex Roy billionaire shouts threats at press conference,” read the headlines.One publication ran a long article on “the violent history of the Roy family” that included stories about my boot-legging great-grandfather and our warrior ancestors.Because Nadia gave them access to the Roy family records, it actually wasn’t bad.Mostly accurate.I figure I can give it to Inara as an overview if she’s ever curious about the family she married into.
If anything, painting me as a raging monster helps my image.Society allows all sorts of bad behavior from billionaires.Not that I give a damn.My reputation, my money, none of it matters.I only care about Inara.
And she’s fading.
I’ve tried tempting her to leave the room for meals, sleep...a shower.Not even a tray of desserts delivered fresh from Paisanos was enough to get her to eat.
I’ve found her sleeping in the room, slumped over the table as if she’d worked so long her head was too heavy for her to hold up any longer.Each time, I’ve carried her to bed, but she’s restless, tossing and turning.
Lack of sleep and enough food has made her hollow-eyed.Lovely but haunted, a stunning statue worn by time.
I enter the situation room where she’s hunched over the murder book Detective Collins sent her.The room seems too dark for her to read, so I command the lights to brighten.
Inara blinks and straightens but doesn’t look at me.
I stand behind her, trying not to pace.I feel like a sailor’s wife on a widow’s walk, staring out to sea, hoping my loved one will come home.
“How’s it going?”I ask, more to break the silence than anything.
“I’m close, Rex.He’s taunting me.”
“I know.”I settle my hands on her shoulders, massaging them.I feel the same frustration.He’s been here all this time, yet Fraternitas has turned up nothing.Neither has Victor, the silent assassin.
Her muscles are rocks under my hands.“We’ll get him.”
“Did you find Ted?”
“Not yet.”Inara gave me a lead to track down, one that could lead us right to the killer.
Her partner Burgess told her a guy named Ted had delivered the latest evidence to her.When pressed, Burgess described the man as white, middle-aged, and skinny but with a gut.“A real ‘loser’ type, ya know?”
We’ve tracked down every reporter in the city named Theodore, Thaddeus, or just plain Ted and interviewed them.Even the ones that match the description claim that they’ve never seen the journal before.We’ve dug into their lives and studied their digital footprints and journalistic history, but so far, we’ve found nothing.
I tell Inara this, and she sighs.“I guess it was a long shot.”
“Hamish is compiling a line-up of photos.We’ll run it by Burgess and see if he can ID anyone.”
She lets out a bleak laugh.“If he can, it’ll be the first time he’s ever helped on an investigation in his life.”
I hate hearing her sound so defeated.“Do you want me to ruin his life?Drain his bank accounts, destroy his credit?”
