Ryan studied me for another moment before nodding.
“You usually do, boss.”
Usually.
The word echoed in my head long after I walked away.
Usually, I was the one asking the questions.
Usually, I was the one in control.
Jailbait had managed to take both away from me in a single night, and I had every intention of making him regret it.
By the time I clocked out, the sun hung low enough to throw long shadows across the parking lot.
I drove home on autopilot. The radio stayed off. The silence was loud enough to get itchy, and my jaw ached.
Allen’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, which left too many questions I couldn’t handle, most of them about why I hadn’t come home the night before.
I wasn’t in the mood to explain the hole I’d punched in motel drywall, or why I’d barely texted him since Friday night.
The house greeted me with the same stillness it always had, and the comfort of the silence made me feel a bit more at ease.
I dropped my keys in the fish bowl by the door, and they clattered against the wood, echoing through the empty house.
“Home sweet fucking home.”
No answer, which made me weirdly manic.
It was the hum of the refrigerator that greeted me, along with the unread message from Allen on my cell.
I shrugged off my jacket and wandered into the spare bedroom that I’d claimed years before.
Most people would’ve called it an office, maybe, and Allen called it my war room.
The walls had disappeared beneath photographs.
Maps.
Timelines.
Victim profiles.
Missing persons flyers.
Red string.
Sticky notes.
Too many goddamn faces.
Twenty-three men.
Twenty-three families were still waiting for a phone call that never came.
My eyes drifted from picture to picture before landing where they always did.
My brother.
