I’d thought it would. Hoped, perhaps, in some naive corner of myself, that having her in my life would fill whatever void drove me to do the things I did. That connection—real, human connection—might cure me of the compulsion that had defined me for so long.
But the itch remained. Persistent. Waiting.
The harsh glare of the magnifying lamp created a small island of light around me. Before me lay a nineteenth-century copy ofÉtude médico-légale sur l’empoisonnement,its spine cracked, pages foxed and brittle with age. I’d been working on it in stolen hours ever since I found it.
The familiar ritual should have soothed me—the precise application of wheat paste along a torn page, the careful realignment of the binding, the smell of old paper and leather. It usually brought peace, a meditation of sorts. But tonight, my hands moved mechanically while my mind churned elsewhere, circling the same thoughts.
It had been quite a while since I’d last heard from my friend. Months, actually.
It was as if they had vanished from the face of the earth, dissolved into whatever shadows they had spawned from. There were no new crime scenes bearing their signature, no new letter waiting for me at my doorstep.
The Baker case seemed to be their last footprint. A right mess, that was. The killer had gotten sloppy, or perhaps unlucky—the distinction hardly mattered when the result was the same. They’d cut themselves. Had left evidence behind. I managed to make the right samples disappear, but not before taking a small portion for my own analysis.
I’d run it through every database I could access without raising flags. Nothing. My friend was still a ghost, but now a ghost who’d made a critical error. Who would know I had that blood sample, aware that I could identify them if we ever crossed paths.
I returned to the delicate work of separating a damaged page from its neighbor, using a bone folder to ease apart fibers that had fused over decades. The paper resisted, and I applied more wheat paste, watching the translucent adhesive darken the aged paper.
I heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open, soft footsteps descending the wooden steps. My hand slipped slightly, and a small droplet of paste splattered across the protective cloth.
Arms slid around my waist from behind, her body warm against my back. I knew her gait by now, could have identified her in complete darkness by the rhythm of her walk alone.
“What are you doing up so late?” Shay asked, her voice soft and drowsy.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“And you snuck downstairs to work on your book,” she said, pressing her cheek against my shoulder blade. “You are such a geek.”
The words sounded fond, however.
“Were you a bully in high school, Detective?” I asked.
“Of course I wasn’t.” She laughed, and I could feel it against my back, the vibrations traveling through my body. “And anyway, I happen to like geeks.”
She shifted against me, and I felt the light press of her lips against my cheek. “Do you want me to make you some tea?”
This situation was nothing new to her. She had gotten usedto me being awake at odd hours of the night.
“No, thank you. Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll be right behind you.”
Shay hummed noncommittally and leaned closer, her eyes tracking over my workstation—the scattered tools, the partially restored pages weighted down with glass blocks, the meticulous notes I’d made about paper composition and binding techniques.
“Am I still not completely awake yet, or is that not English?”
“It’s French.”
Her eyebrows rose, genuine surprise flickering across her features. “You know French?”
I hummed in affirmation, turning a page with careful fingers.
“Why didn’t I know that about you?” She was fully awake now, mischief sparking in her eyes. “French is the language of passion, isn’t it? Come on, lover boy, talk dirty to me.”
I turned around completely, abandoning the restoration work to face her fully. She stood there in one of my old t-shirts, her hair mussed from sleep, feet bare against the cold concrete floor.
“Tu es la plus belle chose que j’ai jamais vue. Je pense à toi constamment, même quand je devrais me concentrer sur autre chose.”
She stared at me, something shifting in her expression. “You know I was joking,” she said slowly, her voice taking on a different quality, “but this is kind of starting to do it for me.”
I placed a finger under her chin, tilting her face up, and claimed her mouth with mine. I tasted toothpaste, felt the sleep-warm softness of her body as she pressed against me.
