Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Zoe’s eyes refocused. Her lungs burned like twin hives of fire. She realized she wasn’t breathing. Simon’s hand clasped around her arm and she drew a breath and then another, until her muscles began to relax.
A click and the door swung open. Aiden appeared in the doorway, shirtless and without his thick glasses.
“Doesn’t he own a shirt?” Simon mumbled under his breath.
“What’s going on?” Aiden squinted, sleep clouding his dark eyes.
“We got another letter from the killer. It’s about Jackie.” Zoe spoke through the unease tingling in her bones.
“Shit.” Aiden let them inside his motel room. “When did you get it?”
“A few hours ago. It wasn’t addressed to Zoe. It was sent to the Seattle office,” Simon replied.
That was odd. But her thoughts were too faint. Idly, she inspected Aiden’s room and the immaculateness of it. While Zoe hadn’t bothered to unpack her suitcase, Aiden had his shirts ironed and hanging in neat rows. He pulled on a hoodie, while Simon lingered at the doorway.
“What do you think?” Zoe handed Aiden the evidence bag with the letter in it.
He read the letter. “It’s different from the last one. Much less poetic and flowery. More direct. Short sentences. I don’t see any hints like with the previous one. Maybe it’s more concealed. I’ll need more time.” He stifled a yawn and then looked at Simon. “Why did you come all the way here?”
Simon suddenly appeared awkward. “I-I had to be in the area for work anyway. Thought I’d hand this over personally.”
“I’m sure you did.” Aiden bristled slightly. It didn’t take a profiler with a doctorate to know that Simon was lying. But Zoe didn’t care, not at this moment, not at this ungodly hour in a town held hostage by the six young people who died almost thirty years ago.
“It says final and last. Final round. Last step,” she recited quietly. “Is Jackie the last victim?”
“That’s what it looks like,” he agreed. “And if we are going by what happened with Annabelle, Jackie might be dead already.”
Lisa couldn’t sleep. There was a slimy feeling under her collarbone. She gave up on counting sheep and climbed out of bed, fastening a robe around herself. Next to her, the bed was empty. It was one in the morning. Where was Jim?
And where was Jackie?
She slid out of the room and heard the faint sound of gunfire. She tiptoed to the guestroom and found the door slightly ajar. A soft, blue glow emanated from inside. Jim was playing a video game, his face enthralled and his thumbs moving with dexterity.
A sharp focus that he lacked in every other sphere of his life.
She ground her teeth and marched away, deciding to do some chores instead to distract herself. Her phone rang.
It was Ethan.
“Why are you up so late?” she asked as she began rifling through the laundry hamper.
“I just can’t sleep with everything going on…” he said. “How’s it going on your end?”
“Fine.” She felt stupid. Always cleaning up after Jim. He stayed home all day. Couldn’t he do the laundry? “You got anything?”
“Remember the break-in at Annabelle Stevens’s house?”
“Yeah…”
“CSU picked up DNA on the window that didn’t match Annabelle or Trevor. We’ll run it through CODIS to see if there’s a match.”
Lisa’s brain fired in all directions. “Why would anyone break into Annabelle’s house? Some crazy person following this story?”
“Or the killer trying to get rid of evidence.”
Lisa considered it when her hand felt something soft in the hamper. She yanked it out without thinking and froze. A scarf. It was red with a blue border. And it definitely wasn’t hers.
Ethan was still babbling on the phone, but it slipped from Lisa’s grip.
She sank to her knees, her hands shaking and her breath tearing in her chest. It was right in front of her—the evidence.
The signs were always there—his disinterest in her fertility treatments, him spending most of his time in front of a screen, always getting himself checked out.
He was having an affair.
Only one bar in Pineview Falls was open at two in the morning. It was one of the town’s three bars, where nothing ever changed but nothing ever went unnoticed either.
Zoe was plopped on a barstool and stuffing fries into her mouth.
Her stomach was queasy and the latest riddle had sent both hot and cold sensations through her body.
She glanced at the handful of patrons hunched over their drinks, their eyes fixed on the game playing from a half-buzzing TV mounted in the corner.
It was the highlights of high school football.
Lakemore’s Sharks playing against the Ravens.
“I never got the appeal of sports.” Simon slid next to her and ordered a whiskey. “It’s too brutal.”
“There’s darts over there. More to your speed,” she said dryly, pointing at the dartboard hanging on the far wall.
He suppressed a smile. “I think sometimes you forget I’m your boss.”
“I think sometimes you forget that,” she said, instantly regretting it.
Silence descended over them—the air thick with the cloying scent of old wood, spilled beer, and a faint trace of cigarette smoke that clung to the walls. The jukebox hummed low in the background, playing some old country song that no one seemed to be enjoying but no one bothered to change.
When Zoe couldn’t take it anymore, she asked, “Why are you here, Simon? And don’t give me your bullshit that you had work in the area this late.”
“I didn’t know where to go.” He drank his whiskey. “Nancy wants to talk.”
“That’s good, right? She wants to get back together with you?” It wasn’t long ago when Nancy had accused Zoe of meddling in her marriage, but her only crime was being in the orbit of a man who still harbored feelings for her.
He took another swig and winced at the bitter taste. “It’s complicated. I love Nancy. I really do, Z. She’s really amazing but…” He paused and bit his lip. “How do you force yourself to fall in love with someone?”
“You didn’t think of that when you married her? Seriously?”
“No.” He traced the rim of the glass with his ring finger. He still wore the wedding band. “I didn’t need to. I was there . Now I’m not. It’s like something wore off.”
“It could just be the seven-year itch. I don’t know why you’ve come to me.”
His eyes searched hers pleading, desperate. “Do you think we made a mistake breaking up all those years ago?”
Zoe’s throat went dry. She blinked, trying to pluck words from the air. Memories of them together burst behind her eyes. “It fizzled out.”
“But we were happy. It’s more than what most people get.”
“You like the idea of us, Simon. Your marriage with Nancy is growing stale and you are glorifying us.”
“Spending all that time with Wesley is making you a shrink too, huh?” He didn’t bother trying to hide his distaste.
“If you don’t like Aiden, why do you put him on cases?”
His smirk didn’t reach his eyes as he rubbed his chin. “I like the guy. He had it rough when his wife died. He used to smile a lot more back then.”
Zoe’s chest tightened. “He’s a widower?”
“He didn’t tell you? Sorry. I figured he had, with all the time you spend together.”
She didn’t know what to think. She thought his emotional map was clean while she had drawn hers with smoke, blood, and tears. “He didn’t. I guess we don’t get that personal.”
“I have to say that’s a relief,” he confessed, his eyes boring into hers. She noticed the whiskey in the glass was almost gone. “I was a little jealous.”
“Simon—”
“I’m separated, Z. Have been for months now.
” There was a beat of silence. Zoe felt the air between them turn electric.
When was the last time Zoe felt wanted? She was happy, bobbing through life like a buoy.
But there was a glaring hole in her otherwise full life.
At the end of the day, she came home to an empty house, drank that glass of wine alone, and slept in an empty bed.
So when Simon closed the distance between them and pulled her into a kiss, she didn’t resist.
His hands came around her waist. Warmth expanded in her belly.
She cupped his face, seeking comfort in the familiarity.
When so much in her life and about her past was an unknown, there was nothing to do but cling to what she knew.
It felt good—the delicious weight of him pressing into her and the scent of whiskey assaulting her nose.
He was filling up her senses, making it easy to forget about everything else.
She ran her hands down his muscular arms, brushing over his hands. Then, she felt it. His wedding band. She tensed. She pulled back and swallowed a hot rush of tears. What the hell did she just do? Did she even like him?
“We can’t do this,” she whispered.
“Z, I’m not with Nancy.”
“You’re still married.”
His arms around her went slack and he held his head low. She stomped out of the bar.