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Roy continued. “Corrine was clean after she came back home. Their dad was gone by then. They got him into some nursing home. Corrine got a new boyfriend. One she was pretty serious about. They showed me a picture. It was Eli. But they only knew him as Shep. He hooked up with Corrine about seven years ago. It was bad. All the classics. He kept tabs on her. Got jealous of her other relationships. Cut her off from friends. Then family. He paid for her drug habit for a while. But her sister said she was terrified of what he’d do if she tried to end it. She did whatever he said.”

“Including using her to hurt Lock,” I said.

“The brother and sister had no idea she’d been involved with you, Lock. They thought she went to the police five years ago about Shep. Not long after, she came home beaten pretty badly. She promised her siblings she was done with him for good. From what we can piece together, she must have told him she wasn’t gonna go through with whatever he had planned for you. We’ll never know how she got Eli to leave her alone until now. Maybe she threatened to expose him to you. But she got clean and started pulling her life together. Then, about a year ago, she started going to visit her father in the nursing home. He’s got dementia now. Her brother and sister only recently found out she was seeing him again. They were furious. They went no contact with him years ago for their own mental health. Her sister thinks seeing their dad was the start of Corrine’s downward spiral. She confronted Corrine about it. Corrine lied to her about going to visit him. The sister found my card in Corrine’s purse. She was really afraid all this ancient history was going to mess with Corrine’s head. She was right.

“We found some disturbing items in her apartment. She had a drawer with printouts of just about every mention of Lock in the press over the last five years. She had your wedding announcement. A picture of the two of you from your wedding. Mina, your face was crossed out. There were things on her phone,” Roy said. “Pictures of Lock. Pictures of you, Mina. And there was a series of texts from Eli that started not long after she first came to see us with TRACE.”

“He was trying to control her again,” Lock said.

“He started tormenting her. The coroner’s report says she had scars and healed bone fractures consistent with past physical abuse. Some of the injuries happened when she was a child. But her brother and sister think Eli inflicted a lot of it. There were scars they’d never seen before. She was not pregnant, by the way. I thought you’d want to know that too. Eli was also holding her father’s care over her head, it seems. We traced a large payment to cover her dad’s bill back to Eli. One of his texts to her alluded to it.”

It was hard to hear. There were so many things I wished I’d done differently relating to Corrine.

“We can’t find any evidence she knew Eli was the one who killed all those girls. I don’t suppose it matters anymore whether she did or didn’t. Eli still claims he never put her up to tormenting either of you. He was saving that for himself. It could be a lie. I’m leaning toward it being true. Everything else he told you was.”

“What do you mean?” Lock asked.

“We found Lara Pasko and Jade Darby where he said they would be. Two of the other women he claimed to have killed as well.”

“God help them,” I said. “What about Lara’s sister? Amy was so sure Palicki was the man she saw with Lara.”

“She was just wrong. Maybe you were right. Maybe Detective McCallister influenced her without realizing it. All charges have been dropped against Palicki. Last I heard, he got on a bus to Florida. Said he never wants to step foot in this state again.”

“I can’t blame him,” I said.

“Your tox screen came back, Lock. Doc found ketamine and Rohypnol in your system. You were right that she probably spiked your drink. You were lucky. She could have killed you. Anyway, I thought you should hear all that from me directly. And also, that there won’t be any charges filed against either of you.”

“I should hope not!” Lock shouted.

Roy stood. He put his mug on Lock’s desk. “You should both have come to me. It shouldn’t have ended like this. I could have brought Corrine in for questioning. She trusted me.”

“She manipulated you,” I said. “Just like the rest of us. I asked you to bring her in, Roy. Do you need a reminder of how that went over?”

“Look,” he said. “Whatever you two do behind closed doors is your business. But you impeded TRACE, Mina. You had information about your husband directly related to these cases and you said nothing.”

I rose to face him. “I said everything. But you and Mark wanted to practically put me on a psych hold. And you’re right. I had information about my husband. But none of it was a crime. I didn’t know until I knew. You want to stand there and try to convince me you’d have done a single bloody thing differently if this were Tonya we were talking about?”

He took a breath and opened his mouth as if he were going to shout something in my face. Instead, he clamped shut.

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

“Are we done here, Detective?” Lock asked. He came around the desk. Though Roy was taller, Lock somehow seemed larger, more ominous.

Roy frowned and then shook his head. “We’re done. All I can say is you two deserve each other.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He marched to the foyer and let himself out.

“I know what you did, Mina,” Lock said. He sat on the desk and took my arms, gently positioning me between his legs. “You tried to protect me from something you think I did. No one’s ever done that for me before. Protected me. Given me the benefit of the doubt.”

“Until I didn’t,” I said.

“Shh. It’s over. You’re alive. You’re with me. This house could burn down around us. Everyone on the planet could turn against us. I don’t care. None of it matters. This is all that does. You. Me. I love you. Forever. Never doubt that again.”

I felt tears coming. “I won’t,” I said. “Not ever.”

When he kissed me, the world fell away. He was wrong about one thing though. There was one more thing that mattered.

“Come with me,” I said. Lock raised a sinful brow as I led him back to the bedroom. Oh, there would be plenty of time for that particular sin. My body heated at the mere thought of what he could do to me.