“Serra has been tapping people for information he couldn’t obtain through legal channels, if you get my drift.” Max paused, letting the implication settle. “Someone I know personally provided him with her financials. Bank records, transaction history, the whole picture.”
“Please tell me that you’re going to get that person fired.”
“I’m handling it.”
Alex wanted to push the issue, but he trusted Max. He rubbed the back of his neck in irritation.
“You’re saying that Serra’s been stalking her,” Alex reiterated, doing his best to focus on the main subject matter.
“I’m saying he’s been conducting surveillance. Whether it crosses into stalking territory from a legal standpoint is a gray area, but from where I’m sitting, it’s close enough that the distinction doesn’t matter much.” Max cleared his throat. “He’s been interviewing people in Kinsley’s life under false pretenses. Her neighbors, people at her gym, the owner of that coffee shop she goes to every morning. It’s like he’s building a profile on her, Alex. The kind of profile you build when you’re trying to understand someone’s patterns. Their habits. Their vulnerabilities.”
“How the hell would you know all of this?”
“You don’t want me to answer that question.” Max steered the conversation forward without apology. “But here’s what I think you need to understand. I’m not convinced it’s Kinsleyherself that Serra is obsessed with. I think it’s the killer who got off on a technicality. Calvin Gantz.”
“Gantz?” Alex’s voice dropped, and he leaned forward in his chair, pressing the phone harder against his ear.
“Isn’t that the guy Kinsley’s father got acquitted? The one who walked because of prosecutorial misconduct?”
“Yeah,” Alex murmured in response. “What does Serra want with Gantz? The man disappeared. Nobody’s seen or heard from him in almost two years.”
“That’s exactly the point.” Max’s voice took on a harder edge, the kind of tone he used when he was done delivering information and had moved into delivering warnings. “Serra covered the Gantz trial as a journalist. He wrote multiple pieces on the case, the acquittal, the public outrage. And when Gantz vanished, Serra didn’t move on to the next story the way most reporters would. He kept digging. Kept pulling threads. And somewhere along the line, those threads led him to your partner.”
Alex sat very still in his chair, the bullpen noise around him receding into something distant and irrelevant.
“Are you ready for this?” Max asked. “As of last Friday, Serra signed a six-month lease on an apartment in downtown Fallbrook. Two blocks from the police station.”
Alex didn’t respond immediately. He stared at the break room doorway where Kinsley had disappeared, where she was probably refilling coffee mugs and laughing with Izzy, unaware of just how deep an obsession Serra had with her.
“Alex? You still there?”
“I’m here.” Alex’s jaw tightened, thinking maybe it was time to have a one-on-one conversation with Beck Serra. “Send me everything you’ve got, Max.”
28
Kinsley Aspen
July
Monday, 7:23 pm
Kinsley took the turnoff onto what used to be Stribling Road just as the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon. The wooden sign at the entrance was new, the edges sanded smooth and sealed against the weather. She’d driven past this property a hundred times over the years without giving it much thought, just another stretch of faded dairy land that had been aging quietly since Old Man Stribling stopped being able to keep up with it. Now, as her Jeep rolled down the long gravel driveway, she understood what Dylan must have experienced the first time he’d stood at this entrance and decided to make it his.
The driveway stretched for nearly a quarter mile, cutting through fields that showed the first evidence of her brother’s work. Fresh fence posts stood at regular intervals along the eastern boundary, their wood still pale and unweathered. Dylan had always been a dreamer, the kind of person who drifted fromone enthusiasm to the next, never quite settling into any of them long enough to build something permanent. Their mother used to say he had the attention span of a hummingbird and the ambition of a hawk, which meant he wanted everything and couldn’t stay still long enough to get it.
But this was different.
This was permanent.
The farmhouse emerged as she rounded a gentle curve, its white clapboard siding gleaming softly in the amber light. Several of the black shutters hung at odd angles, others chipped and faded from years of neglect, and the roof bore signs of age, sagging slightly in the middle. The wraparound porch, while inviting in its bones, had patches where the paint had begun to peel, revealing weathered wood beneath that would need sanding and sealing before winter. Dylan had plans for every square inch of this place, and those plans would unfold in their own time, measured in seasons rather than weeks, the way farm life demanded.
It was what lay beyond the house that caused Kinsley’s breath to catch.
A lake.
Large and private, surrounded on three sides by dense woods that would hide it from any neighboring property or passing road. The surface glittered in the fading sunlight like hammered copper, perfectly still, reflecting the sky above in shades of gold and pink that seemed too vivid to be real. It was beautiful in a way that made her chest tighten, beautiful in the way that certain landscapes are beautiful when you understand what they’re hiding.
She pulled her Jeep to a stop near the porch and cut the engine. For a long moment, she sat there with her hands resting on the steering wheel, staring at that water. The lake was maybe three hundred yards from the house, close enough to see clearlybut far enough that it existed in its own space, separate from the daily rhythms of the farm.
