She softened instantly.“Gabe.Thank you.Really.I’m glad you told me.I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Even though she was one hundred percent certain this was nothing more than Gabe enthusiastically free-associating himself into a folklore wormhole.
They said goodnight.
She hung up.
Silence closed in around her—except she wasn’t truly alone.Gabe might be away with the pixies, but something in his spiralling logic struck a chord.
Cox’s voice, from memory:This particular case will be close to your heart.
Her meeting with him had been days ago, but suddenly it felt like he was sitting in the motel chair opposite her, fingers steepled, eyes bright with knowing.
She shook the thought off.
Ridiculous.
Cox knew nothing.
He had nothing.He had no hold on her anymore.That spell was broken.
And he had no hold over this killer, either.He’d as good as said that himself.And this killer, his style was personal, unique.It bore precious few signs of coming from Cox’s stable.
Except…
Cox didn’t always tell the truth.
But even when Cox lied, Cox didn’t say things by accident.
And the worst part was—
She didn’t quite trust her own certainty anymore.
Her father’s hospital.
St.Drogo's.In Chicago, where she'd spent the first eighteen years of her life.
Close to her heart.
No.That was just stoned logic, clutching at coincidence.
No.She refused to let that lodge anywhere deeper than irritation.
Kate stood, snapped off the lamp, and headed for the bathroom.
Steam.Heat.Silence.
Blessed silence.
But even under the spray of water, even with the fan drowning out Marcus’s muffled sweetness on the other side of the wall, the unease burrowed its way inside her ribs.
Because she knew—
she thought?
