Page 99

He didn’t ask one.

That made me want to answer anyway.

“I joined the police department after college,” I said. “I thought I would work patrol for a few years and decide what came next.”

“Homicide came next.”

“Eventually.”

“Why?”

I looked at the photograph of the seventh victim.

Her name was Chloe Brennan.

She had been thirty-four years old.

Her sister had reported her missing twelve hours after she disappeared.

“The first murder I worked was a woman everyone had stopped looking for.”

Mace said nothing.

“She lived alone. She didn’t have family nearby. Her employer thought she quit. Her landlord assumed she moved. For three weeks, nobody noticed she was gone.”

“You noticed.”

“Too late.”

“You found her.”

“Too late,” I repeated.

Mace looked at the files.

“You didn’t kill her.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I lifted my gaze.

He was watching me differently now.

Not like the boy I remembered.

Like a man who recognized guilt because he carried his own.

I closed the file.

“You should get some sleep.”

“So should you.”

“I’m working.”

“I’m on watch.”