Chapter 5
FIVE
TWIGGY
The hummingbird is still swinging.
It’s quieter about it now, a slow, lazy arc at the bottom of my Charlie Brown tree, but every time the heater kicks on, the warm air nudges it just enough to make it move.
I’ve been watching it for a while now.
The sky outside my window is the pale gray-blue that means sunrise in Lucy Falls. Streetlights still glow. Frost feathers the edges of the glass. Jack Brady’s cruiser is idling at the curb, exhaust curling up in white puffs.
He’s been out there all night.
The deputy he left on my couch lasted until about three in the morning before we mutually agreed she’d be more useful in her car.
She kept pretending not to notice that I was still sitting at my desk, eyes glued to my monitors, hair sticking up in a static halo from me running my fingers through it.
Now it’s just me, my sad tree, my laptop, and three thousand tabs open in my head.
My scraping bots pulled everything they could on the body at the Falls while I tried very hard not to picture Henry Thurston’s face pressed to my window.
It didn’t work.
I’ve catalogued every flinch, every footprint. The angle of his shoulder. The way he said little girl like it was a pet name and not a threat.
My brain writes things down whether I ask it to or not.
The chat rooms exploded after I dropped his name. Nightjar might be just another handle to them, but when I say Henry Thurston, people listen. Some because they respect my accuracy. Some because they like watching a car crash in real time.
A few might be him.
I haven’t slept. My muscles vibrate with that awful, sourceless energy that comes from too much adrenaline and not enough actual movement.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table with a text.
COTTON: awake?
I stare at it for three seconds before my thumbs catch up.
ME: define “awake”
Her reply is instant.
COTTON: conscious, breathing, able to text me movie quotes
ME: I’ll have what she’s having
COTTON: okay, she’s fine. but also I’m coming over later with food
ME: you really don’t have to—
COTTON: too late just accept the care
I huff out a breath that might be a laugh. It feels weird in my throat.
My stomach growls, offended that I’ve only bribed it with coffee and anxiety since last night. I ignore it and push my chair back from the desk.
Standing makes my head swim. I grab onto the back of the chair until the vertigo steadies.
“You’re so dumb,” I inform myself. “Eat something.”
I shuffle into the kitchen—three steps, a pivot, two more steps, because efficiency—and stare at the fridge like it’s going to offer anything.
I know what’s inside. Half a carton of eggs, two sad yogurt cups that I’m never in the mood for, a bag of baby carrots that have definitely seen better days, and three takeout boxes I don’t trust.
I grab a yogurt and peel it open. It tastes like sour vanilla and regret.
My apartment feels smaller than usual. The white walls loom. Every creak from the hallway makes my shoulders jump.
I hate this. The hypervigilance. The feeling of being prey.
I’m good at mapping monsters. I’m less good at being inside the map.
A light knock at the door makes my heart lunge into my throat.
I freeze, spoon halfway to my mouth, eyes locked on the doorknob.
Another knock. Firmer.
“It’s Brady,” Jack calls. “Open up, Twig.”
Air rushes back into my lungs. My knees almost go out from under me with the semi-relief.
I set the yogurt on the counter, wipe my hands on my leggings, and do the lock routine—deadbolt, chain, cheap doorknob lock—before cracking the door.
Jack Brady fills my doorway in a very different way than the man from last night. Broad shoulders in a sheriff’s Carhartt jacket, stubble dark against his jaw, eyes sharp and tired.
“Morning,” he says.
“That’s optimistic,” I mutter, stepping back to let him in.
He smells like cold air and gas station coffee. He’s holding a to-go cup in one hand and a white paper bag in the other.
“For you,” he says, shoving them at me. “Eat. Drink. Don’t argue.”
I blink at the offerings. “You bribing me with carbs, Sheriff?”
“I am bribing myself with the illusion that you will do what I tell you for once in your life.” He toes the door shut behind him, glances automatically around the room, then checks the window locks like he didn’t already do that six hours ago.
“I do what you tell me all the time,” I lie, opening the bag.
The smell hits me first—grease and sugar and something cinnamon. My stomach actually moans.
“Is this from Karla’s?” I ask, fingers already closing around a still-warm donut. “How, though?”
“She opened early,” he says. “News travels fast when someone finds a body at the Falls.”
My appetite flickers.
“What do you know?” I ask.
He leans a hip against my kitchen counter and pulls a notebook from his jacket pocket. “Adult woman, mid-twenties. Name’s not being released yet, so don’t ask. Hiker found her around six last night, called it in. We got out there, secured the scene. She’d been there a while.”
I swallow a bite of donut that sits heavy in my throat. “How long is a while?”
“Long enough that we’re waiting on the state guys for precise time of death,” he says. “But probably not more than a couple days. Lividity’s consistent with her being on the rocks the whole time. No sign she was moved post-mortem.”
“Clothes?” I ask. “Any…” I gesture vaguely, not wanting to say the word ritual out loud. It sticks in my teeth.
Jack’s jaw tightens. “We’re not going to jump to conclusions.”
“That’s not an answer, Brady.”
He studies me for a moment, eyes as blue as the cold outside. Finally, he exhales.
“Clothes intact,” he says. “From what we can tell so far. No obvious sexual assault. There were some marks, but it’s too early to say if they’re consistent with Thurston’s old work or if we’re looking at someone new.”
“Okay. It was always Adams that did the…” I swallow. “The sexual stuff. Thurston was just interested in the kill. The…”
“Yes. The spectacle of it.”
“You will have taken pictures,” I say. “Of the scene. Of her.”
“Of course.”
“Send them to me.”
“No.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
He snaps his notebook shut. “I know how this goes. You look once and then you don’t sleep and then you dive down a rabbit hole so deep I don’t see you for three days unless I physically drag you out of your apartment.
You just had a serial killer at your window, Twig.
You do not need more images to loop in your head. ”
“I’m already looping plenty,” I snap. “Let me work.”
“You will work,” he says evenly. “With the information I give you, not with things that are going to retraumatize you for fun.”
“It’s not fun.”
“I know.” His voice softens a fraction. “That’s my point.”
He’s not wrong. It pisses me off that he’s not wrong.
“I can handle it,” I say anyway.
“You shouldn’t have to handle it at all,” he replies. “But that ship sailed the day you started sticking your nose in case files when you were nineteen.”
“Fourteen,” I mutter.
He stares. “You’re not helping your case here.”
I bite into the donut hard enough that jelly squirts onto my wrist. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll work with what you give me.”
For now. I smile around the donut.
Jack watches me eat for a second, like he’s making sure I’m not going to choke out of sheer spite.
“Any noise online?” he asks finally. “Other than the usual forum idiots?”
I swallow and set the donut down, wiping my fingers on a napkin.
“Plenty,” I say. “The story hit the local news sites around midnight. The longer they go without saying it’s just an accident, the more people start throwing Thurston’s name around. Especially once I dropped it.”
He scowls. “You just had him at your window and you’re stirring the pot?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” I say, saluting him with my coffee cup. “We need him agitated. Agitated people make mistakes. Quiet ones are harder to find.”
“Agitated people also kill faster,” he says. “In case that escaped your notice.”
“It didn’t.” My chest tightens. “He’s not a ghost, Jack. He’s a man. Men leave trails.”
“And you’re good at finding them.” He nods once. “Which is why I’m not telling you to stop. Just…be smart.”
“That’s my whole brand,” I say. “Miss smarty pants.”
He doesn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth quirks like he wants to and is refusing on principle.
He pushes off the counter. “Brodie called me at stupid o’clock after you talked last night.”
I groan. “Of course he did.”
“He’s losing his mind,” Jack says. “I had to talk him out of driving over here and stuffing you into his trunk and carting you away to Ireland or some shit.”
“I would have hacked the trunk from the inside,” I mutter. “He should know that by now.”
“He does.” Jack rubs a hand over his face. “Which is why he called your other cousin.”
There it is.
My stomach knots. “He told me he was doing that.”
“In the interest of keeping you breathing, I’m not opposed to extra eyes. Or extra guns.”
“‘Extra guns’ is a polite way of saying babysitter.”
He meets my gaze squarely. “You need a babysitter.”
I slam my coffee down, liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. “You were here last night. I locked my doors. I got away from the window. I called you. I didn’t invite him in to make s’mores and trade origin stories.”
“I know.” His tone is calm. Infuriatingly calm. “You did everything right. The problem is, he still found you.”
That little truth lands like a stone in my gut.
“I won’t be alone,” I say. “You’re here. The deputies. Brodie. Cotton. Shy. I’m not some isolated woman on the edge of town. Henry picked the wrong girl this time.”
“He picked the same girl,” Jack says quietly. “That’s what worries me.”
Silence stretches between us. Outside, a truck rumbles past, tires crunching over the frosty street.
“Who is he sending?” I ask finally. “Kael. Who’s my new designated sitter?”
Jack looks past me, through the little gap in my curtains. His gaze snags on something outside and his shoulders shift.
“You know him,” he says. “He came in and helped when Shiloh went missing.”
My pulse stutters. “Atlas?”
He shakes his head.
“Brodie, then?” I demand. “Because Brodie can’t sit on me; he needs to stay with Cotton—”
“Not Brodie,” he cuts in. “Bran Kelly.”
The name hits like a physical thing.
Bran. Great.
Images flash uninvited behind my eyes: a big, silent man in a dark coat standing in Brodie’s living room, taking up more space than physics should allow. Thick shoulders, scarred knuckles, eyes that saw too much and said too little. The way he moved—controlled, precise, dangerous.
“Oh, hell no,” I say.
Jack’s brows climb. “What?”
“I am not letting Kael’s favorite blunt instrument camp out in my apartment,” I say. “I’d rather take my chances with the serial killer.”
“Don’t say shit like that,” Jack snaps, more heat in his voice than he’s shown all morning. “You don’t mean it.”
I do and I don’t. The part of me that hates being watched means it.
“He’s…huge,” I say weakly. “And grumpy. And he looks at people like he’s calculating how many different ways he could break them before breakfast.”
“Good.” Jack crosses his arms. “Maybe Henry Thurston will see him and decide you’re not worth the trouble.”
“It’s very sweet that you think that’s how this works,” I mutter.
“He’ll coordinate with me,” Jack continues. “He answers to Kael, not me, but we’re on the same team. He’ll improve your physical security, sit on you when you get squirrely, and generally make my life easier.”
“He will make my life impossible,” I say. “And tell the asshole he can’t sit on me. I’ll die.”
Jack’s gaze flicks to the front door. He tips his chin toward it. “You can tell him that yourself.”