“How does it feel targeted?” I asked as I moved to get coffee started. I had a paper cup gut at the moment, but I’d been drinking sludge for most of my career. One more cup was not going to kill me no matter who made it.
She didn’t answer right away.
Mallory leaned back against the counter, arms folded, gaze unfocused—not on me, not on the kitchen, but somewhere several steps removed, searching for the thread to tug in her story.
“The kind of poison,” she said slowly, “will tell you if it was a proximity of over time or a single, dramatic act. It will tell you if Masters was a target of convenience or a target of overcorrection.”
I poured water into the coffee maker and watched it fill, the sound grounding in a way nothing else was.
“His targets aren’t new to him,” I told her. “There’s too much research that goes into them. This guy might have slipped his net—maybe he was out sick. Maybe he was on vacation…”
“Maybe he was responsible for something that someone else got blamed for.” She made a face.
I turned, leaning back against the opposite counter. The kitchen was small enough that the distance between us seemed charged and stayed that way. It separated and connected us no matter where we stood.
“We have a lot of potentials and what ifs and speculation,” I said. “Let the M.E. do their job and let the tox report do the talking.”
“Except, we know that Masters is one of his victims,” she countered immediately. “He left the ledger. He wanted you to know what you were looking at. He wanted hisprocessexamined.”
She pushed off the counter and crossed the space between us abruptly.
“I don’t know when he picked Masters and if he’s fixing an earlier mistake, or simply eliminating another target creatively, but what I do know is that he’sresponding,”she continued. “Not just performing business as usual or escalating blindly. Responding tous.”
“To you,” I corrected.
Her eyes snapped to mine. “You don’t get to pretend you’re not part of this anymore.”
“Don’t I?”
“No,” she snapped. Heat licked over me from the blaze in her eyes. “You already said he wants me to give him your name.”
“As the person leashing you,” I murmured the reminder and not at all turned off by the image of Mallory in a collar and a leash. I wouldn’t be opposed to her on her knees either, but that wasn’t the current topic of discussion.
“Yes, as the person ‘leashing,’ me,” she said the word with such utter disgust and a roll of her eyes I had to smile. Mallory McBryan was a bottle rocket ready to explode sparkling with fire everywhere.
“If that’s not it,” I said, holding her gaze, “then tell me what I’m missing.”
She exhaled slowly. “Poison changes the clock. It stretches the timeline backward. It means this crime began?—”
“Could have,” I corrected her and she glared at me. “Look, if you want to own the timeline, you also have to own what we don’t know. That poison could have been delivered and killed the man in three seconds. We don’t know the poison yet so we don’t know the clock.”
A huff of utter frustration escaped her on a low groan. “Fine. It means this particular crimecould havehappened days—maybe weeks—before the body dropped today.”
“And?” I prompted because yes, this I was already aware of.
“And it means themessagemight not have been only the one he delivered with the death,” she said. “It might have been illustrated in how long it took the man to die.”
I stared at her. “Explain.”
“Poison is quiet,” she went on. “Invisible. You don’t know you’re dying until it’s too late. It’s all about the killer’s control without any spectacle. It’s… almost micromanagement.”
“Depending on the type of poison, yes. Some are absolutely brutal and swift acting. You’re dead before the first symptom appears.” If we were going to wage this debate, we would do it with facts not just speculation.
“Sure,” she said, chin lifted in a haughty manner even as her nostrils flared. “It’s about breaking the leash before you have even finished yanking it.”
I took a step closer before I realized I’d moved. She didn’t retreat.
“You think this is about me,” I said.
