Page 27 of The Quiet Witness

“Last I heard he’s doing good! Settling in well.” Mick motioned with a hand to the house. “What was all that racket about?”

“Oh that.” Lucien waved his injured hand around, deep red sinking through the paper. “I picked up another stray. He’s got actual bark and bite!”

Mick snickered. “I heard you tend to help animals off the streets. I thought they were rumors though! Thought the shelter would keep you busy enough!”

The boy handed him a letter. Evans, his last name painted the letter in familiar swirling writing. “I’ll get out of your hair, sir! My mum won’t believe I know where you live!”

Lucien’s finger raised in front of his mouth. “Shhh, do I need to worry about stalkers?”

Mick’s cheeks paled. “Oh no, sir, of course not!”

He sent the kid a wink. “Just teasing you lad. I know you’ll guard my address with your life right?”

Mick mock saluted before dashing off the steps.

Problem solved.

One of them that is. He shut the door with an ankle, the parchment stiff between his fingers.

At this rate, the poison could still finish the deed for him.

His bet was that Kate hadn’t even noticed it herself yet. Fear masking the bodily sensations she was facing. The hand bracing against a chair to get up, the rubbing over her legs for circulation, her heart must be pounding. Fighting what he had given all six of them.

Five dead. One living. An anomaly.

If only she knew.

So the waiting game it was. Even though he should have finished it when she went still in his hold on Christmas. The thrashing mere seconds before, even her nails had been a final declaration of no. She wouldn’t admit defeat…

It would have been so easy. Much easier than the shitstorm he would find himself in if they found out. But he had loosened his grip, watched as the color flushed her cheeks once more.

There were those who had crossed certain lines. Lines that Lucien felt were drawn into the sand. Those, he sometimes liked to take his time with. Children and animals, on the other hand. Off the hook. Fixing his transgression with Kate could prove difficult though. She had survived the hit. Not knowing why could make the possibility of ending her life… that much more inhumane.

That goddamned promise would be… complicating things.

A word is a word after all.

Same went for the DNA that hid beneath her fingers. If it had been anyone else, he would have simply… deleted that trace. God knew he had his ways for that. But desecrating her in that way. If anything, he admired the strength behind her ice blue eyes, the defiance running through her veins.

If his artistic side won out on a particular moonlit night, he’d say she was like the black rose he’d given her, beautiful but dangerous, lively but raised in darkness. And prickly like the thorn that had dug into her fingers. Very prickly.

Good thing he’d learned to deal with pain a long, long time ago. If he hadn’t, the black rose might have escaped during their first encounter.

Striding over to the music installation, he turned the knob down. The voices of the artists now floating through the house. Like the ghosts of his past whispering to him. It was better than silence.

His feet padded over the hallway, stopping at her door. Taking a deep breath, he schooled his expression into one of neutrality before pushing the handle down.

Katherine sat on the bed, legs curled up against her chin. Looking for all her strength, all her defiance, like a woman close to giving up. But those eyes… gleamed in the evening light.

He ignored the silent stab in his heart. Choosing to lean against the doorway. Kate lifted her head, her dark brown hair falling past her shoulders. Sending him a look that would make any lesser man shift in place.

“Ghost. Free.” His trusted companion glanced between him and Kate. Tail thumping on the floor in sync with his heart.

Sorry, buddy.

Shooting his loyal dog a silent wink, Ghost left the room, his tail dragging behind him.

He understood. Ghost had been on a highway to becoming friends with the girl he would have to kill at some point. Animals, they carried more empathy than humans. More than Lucien harbored in his heart.