Chapter Seven
Rheda
Sean tears his helmet off first. Sweat darkens at his temples.
“Nothing,” he mutters, breaking the silence. “Absolutely fucking nothing.”
Peter doesn’t respond immediately. He moves to the button near the glass and presses it. There’s a sharp beep, before the glass turns black, and the criminal vanishes out of sight.
He moves to the monitor without another word, shaking the mouse until the monitor flickers to life. Footage flashes on the screen. He rewinds. He plays it back, like he’s confirming something he already suspects.
“He didn’t even blink,” Mike says, voice low. He leans back against the counter, arms folded.
“Not once,” he says quietly. “Not once.”
Peter finally looks at me. “Why didn’t he react?”
I take a breath before answering, less to steady myself than to buy time.
“It’s doing something for him.” I say at last.
“But why?”
I hesitate just long enough to be aware of the gap.
“I can give you theories,” I say finally. “But no conclusions. Not from one session. Not from...nothing.”
“What are you saying, Miss Ainsley?”
“I don’t know,” I say. Heat crawls up my neck. “Not yet anyway. I need more time. Maybe I should talk to him myself.”
The second it leaves my mouth, I want it back.
“You think you can do better?” His ears go red. “Go on, Miss Ainsley. Tell me what I should have done instead.”
My body locks, mouth opening then closing again. I hadn’t thought this far.
“I—” The word catches. I swallow it, try again. “I didn’t mean— I just—”
Nothing comes out clean. My grip tightens around the pen. I tap it once against the page before I can stop myself, the sound too loud in the quiet.
“Sorry,” I manage. “It’s just I’m not used to sitting back and taking notes. I’m usually more...involved.”
He pins me with his eyes. “You’re not meeting him. You better get used to observing from a distance or we’ll have no use for you here.”
My chest drops so violently it feels like a weight.
Sean lets out a low sound that might be agreement. Peter drags a hand down his face.
“You did fine,” He says, already turning away, as if fine is the same thing as finished. The words land strangely. I’m not sure why. Maybe because they feel premature, or because they feel undeserved.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You observed. You got absence,” he replies. His eyes flick to the screen. “I need that written down.”
No one looks at me. Not once. The room closes in on itself, quieter, tighter, like something has been decided without needing to be said.
My cheeks burn.
Peter picks up his own notes, glances at the time on the corner of the monitor, then looks at me again. “That’s enough for today. We’ll go through any notes tomorrow.”
Sean blows into his coffee and takes a sip like it’s medicine. He watches me and gives a small smile.
I blink hard. “Are you sure you don’t need me? We’ve literally just started. I’m really okay to—”
“Get some sleep, Rheda. Be useful in the morning.”
I want to protest, but his tone is so final that I do not answer back. I manage a small nod.
He doesn’t even look up at me, instead pausing the footage before rewinding it once more. The screen shows Deogal sitting perfectly still, exactly as we left him, as if nothing we said mattered.
My throat tightens and I lift a hand to my collarbone, fingers brushing the red bow at my neck. The fabric sits smoothly. Nothing is wrong with it. And yet it suddenly feels an inch too tight. The sensation lingers like a pressure that hasn’t quite finished leaving.
Nobody stops me as I move toward the door. The men around me continue their quiet, frustrated motions—coffee, monitors, muttered curses.
I step into the corridor outside.
The lights hum overhead as I walk away, and the sound follows me longer than it should. It seeps under my skin and settles behind my eyes. It throbs until I can’t tell if it’s the building, or something in me keeping in time with it.
By the time I reach the second corner, I already know I am going to think about him the second I am alone, and part of me allows it.
MY FRONT DOOR STICKS again.
I shoulder it open harder than necessary and step inside, rain clinging cold to the back of my neck. The door slams behind me hard enough to echo through the flat, and my body jolts before I can stop it.
Silence rushes in afterwards.
The flat is dark and stale with disuse, carrying the faint smell of old coffee and paper. No voices through the walls. No movement overhead. Just rain ticking softly against the windows.
I kick my shoes off crooked by the door.
The kitchen light hurts my eyes when I switch it on. My hand reaches automatically for a wine glass before I properly think about it. Dust clings faintly to the rim. I wipe it away with my thumb.
I don’t drink normally. I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck inside four bright walls, head pounding, stomach twisting, for god knows how many countless hours, being forced to interview someone when my hangover is just as brutal as the crime.
But tonight my nerves feel wrong beneath my skin.
I find an old bottle of wine shoved in the back of the cupboard and pour far too much into the glass. The wine catches the overhead light strangely, dark red folding into black whenever it moves.
I take it with me into the bathroom and turn the taps on full. Steam fogs the mirror almost immediately until my reflection softens into blurred red hair and pale skin. My blouse sticks to my back when I peel it off. I don’t realise how badly my shoulders ache until the fabric drags across them.
The bath fills quickly. I lower myself into it too fast and hiss sharply when the heat bites. For one brief, humiliating second, my mind flashes to the interrogation room, to something else too intense. Too hot.
I sink deeper anyway.
Bubbles slide lazily across my chest and shoulders as the heat slowly loosens the tension trapped inside my muscles. I lose myself in the scent of honey and...
I check the label on the bottle.
Sandalwood.
Honey and sandalwood.
At the same time, my thoughts snag violently on something unbidden. The dark curls hanging over Deogal’s face.
I tense instantly.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter under my breath. I take a long sip of wine like it might wash the thought out of me.
But it doesn’t, and I hate that his face comes to mind perfectly formed like I’ve already memorised every inch of it.
It’s the symmetry, I tell myself. The clean structure of him, high cheekbones that catch the light too easily, and a mouth that looks carved rather than grown.
Heat spreads through me before I can stop it, low and immediate.
I shift lower beneath the water, but it doesn’t help because now I can’t stop thinking about the way he looked sitting in that chair. He wasn’t afraid or angry. He was patient, like none of them in the room mattered enough to earn a reaction from him.
I move too quickly, like the motion alone might be enough to shake him loose from my head. Water surges over the edge of the bath, spilling onto the floor in a sudden, violent rush. The sound snaps through the room, and for a second, it works.
My thoughts scatter but then silence follows.
And—
Tap.
The sound cuts through me.
My body locks.
I stare toward the bathroom window, pulse suddenly thick beneath my ribs.
Nothing moves.
Steam drifts slowly across the glass.
Don’t be stupid. The thought comes too quickly. Old building. Pipes. Wood shifting in the walls.
I reach for my drink, fingers steadier than I feel, and take a slow sip—
Tap. Tap.
Smaller this time, precise, like pebbles. Too light to be force, too deliberate to be random.
For one horrible second, I expect to see him standing there. The thought hits hard enough to make my stomach twist. Then the wind rises sharply outside and a tree branch scrapes against the pane with a long dragging sigh before knocking lightly against the glass once more.
I exhale too fast.
A branch.
Of course.
Embarrassment burns hot behind my ribs, but it doesn’t settle the feeling properly. Because something still feels wrong.
The water should still be running.
I frown.
I don’t remember turning the tap off.
I reach for it slowly. The metal groans beneath my hand before water bursts from it again, hotter now, almost unbearable against my skin. Steam thickens rapidly around me, blurring the room until everything softens at the edges.
I lean my head back against the porcelain and close my eyes for just a second.
The heat presses heavily against my body. My limbs loosen.
Just a few more minutes.
Just until the quiet settles properly again.
Just until sleep takes me faster this time.