CHAPTER ONE
Sunday afternoons at Catherine Valentine’s townhouse had a rhythm, a ceremonial dance of habit and affection. It began with the chopping of herbs, the clink of the good china coming down from the high shelves.
Kate liked that sound — the domestic hubbub of her mother’s kitchen, augmented by the gentle, wheezing-snoring sounds of Sapir and Whorf, Professor Valentine's twin red setters, sleeping off their beach walk.
Even after she’d moved back to her own apartment downtown, Kate had promised herself that Sundays would stay sacred.
No field reports, no crime-scene calls, no work laptop on the table.
Just her mom and the dogs, smells of damp fur and roasting meat, and the stubbornly reassuring notion that some things in life could be normal.
“You didn’t invite him, did you?”
The question came not long after the first glass of white wine. Catherine tossed it in casually, with that deceptively mild tone that had made generations of undergraduates confess the holes in their theses.
Kate glanced up from the chopping board. “Who?”
“Michael, obviously.”
Kate sighed. “Mom…”
"Well, you said he was free today. That he wasn't working, it seemed logical."
“Logical doesn’t mean appropriate.”
Catherine pursed her lips, the international maternal gesture of censure. “I don’t see what would be inappropriate about inviting a nice man to Sunday lunch. You’ve been on, what, three dates now?”
“Four,” Kate corrected automatically, then regretted it.
Her mother’s eyebrows lifted. “Four? That sounds promising.”
“It’s not,” Kate said, chopping faster. The parsley began to look like confetti. “And before you start planning grandchildren, let me clarify that the last date ended with him telling me about a bookstore conference in Chicago and how little time he’s got for anything except work.”
“So?”
‘So if that’s not a barn-door-sized hint that he’s not interested, then I don’t know what is.”
Catherine reached for the olive oil and poured a thin stream into the pan. “I’ll tell you what I know. On the basis of once being married to a man, observing many examples of the species throughout my career, and being an expert in psycho-sociolinguistics…”
Kate sensed a lesson pending. No point fighting it. “Go on.”
“They don’t hint.”
“Who don’t?”
“Women hint. Men aren’t capable of it.”
“You can’t say that.”
"You sound like my undergrads. They sit in my lectures, itching for a reason to cancel me." She ground pepper, slightly angrily, into the oil in the pan. "Of course, men know how to hint. But it's not how they roll.”
“Oh, Mother…”
Dr. Valentine loved to pepper her speech with fresh slang harvested from her students. They made Kate cringe, as only a daughter could.
“You might work in law enforcement, Kitty, but that doesn’t mean you can police my verbs.”
“Sorry.”
“If he had wanted you to know he’s not interested, then he would have said exactly that. Too many women waste far too much time trying to work out what a man’s thinking. So…”
“So what?”
“He wasn’t hinting. So what are you going to do next?”
Kate put down the knife. “Mom… Mike’s nice. He’s thoughtful. Interesting. I like him. But… I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s going anywhere. So I’ve decided to do nothing.”
Catherine turned from the stove, wooden spoon in hand. “Nothing?”
“If he wants to see me, he’ll make the move.”
Her mother gave her the look — that mixture of fondness and pity that only a parent could deliver. “What if he’s in his mom’s kitchen right now, saying exactly the same thing?”
“His mom lives in Aruba.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Well, then it’s not meant to be.”
“What does Marcus think?”
“Marcus has only just come back to work. My non-existent love-life isn’t really on his radar.”
This was both true and not-true. Her investigative partner Marcus had returned to work just over three weeks ago, after being badly injured in a car crash at the close of their last major case. However, on his very first day back, he’d asked Kate if she had ‘done it with the bookstore guy yet’.
Catherine stirred the sauce thoughtfully. “But surely,” she said finally, “Waiting for him to make the move has gone out of style. In 2026—”
“—it’s the same as whenever,” Kate interrupted. “If Mike wants something, he’ll find a way to get it. That applies to relationships and criminal confessions.”
“You really do see everything through an FBI lens, don’t you?”
“Occupational hazard.”
They worked in companionable quiet for a while — Kate slicing tomatoes, Catherine basting the roast chicken. Outside, the low winter sunlight slanted through the kitchen window, painting warm gold over the spice jars and the potted basil that was dying a slow, ugly death.
Kate’s phone buzzed once on the countertop. She ignored it.
Catherine noticed. “Work?”
“Winters never texts. It’ll be a software update I don’t need, or a federal bulletin that doesn’t concern me. Last week, I got woken up at three a.m. because some guy bought a top-of-the-range hunting scope with a stack of fake fifties in Eureka, California. Anyway, Sundays are ours, remember?”
Catherine smiled again, this time genuinely. “Yes. Ours. I like that. Even if you’re depriving me of your dishy neighbor.”
“Dishy?”
“Ok. Hot.”
“Mother, please don’t say hot.”
“If you stop calling me ‘mother’.”
“Deal. Anyway, you’ve only met Mike twice.”
“Three times.”
“Yes, I’m forgetting the time you ambushed him outside Whole Foods and forced him to come to dinner.”
“You said you had fun.”
“We did. But I don’t really know him. Not after, like, four dates.”
“I knew your Dad was a keeper after one,” Catherine said lightly, then caught herself. The air changed, just slightly.
They went quiet again. The word Dad had a gravitational pull neither of them could quite resist, though both had learned to orbit it carefully.
Catherine broke the silence by busying herself with the oven timer. “So,” she said briskly. “How’s therapy?”
Kate gave a short laugh. “That’s quite the segue.”
“I’m your mother, darling. I’m allowed.”
“It’s fine.”
“Fine,” Catherine repeated. “You always say that. But you never elaborate.”
“Because there’s nothing to elaborate on.”
“Kate.”
Her mother’s tone — gentle, but anchored — had the effect it always did. Kate found herself exhaling, laying down the knife again. “It’s… it’s like work,” she admitted. “It’s hard work. I usually leave feeling worse than when I went in.”
“Which means it’s working,” Catherine said, not unkindly. “You’ve never been one for easy fixes.”
“You sound like my therapist.”
“She sounds like me, you mean.”
“Deep.”
They shared a small, wry smile.
Catherine went back to stirring. “Does she still have you keeping that dream journal?”
Kate made a face. “Unfortunately.”
“And?”
“And it’s nonsense.”
“Humor me.”
Kate sighed. “They’re always the same. I’m in this room with no windows. There’s a door, but I can’t open it. Sometimes I can hear someone outside. A man. I know who it is, but I never see him.”
“Elijah Cox,” Catherine said quietly.
Kate didn’t answer.
Her mother set down the spoon, wiped her hands, and turned to face her. “You don’t have to pretend with me, sweetheart. I know he still gets into your head.”
Kate hesitated. “It’s been months now. Not a single sighting. No messages, no copycats, no digital trail. It’s like he vanished.”
“Maybe he did,” Catherine said gently. “You said yourself he was quite ill when he escaped. Sepsis, internal bleeding—”
“He had enough strength to fight me.”
“But that last fight could have exhausted him. Fatally. There’s every likelihood that he didn’t make it.”
Kate shook her head. “No. He’s out there.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know him. He doesn’t disappear. He hides. He plans.”
Catherine poured herself another inch of wine and leaned against the counter. “Or maybe you’ve given him too much power in your mind. You’ve let him become larger than life.”
“That’s the problem,” Kate said, almost under her breath. “He is larger than life. He’s not just a man. He’s a contagion. People still quote him online. They dissect his philosophy — it doesn’t even deserve that name, but they dissect it, pore over it like it’s scripture.”
“And yet,” Catherine said quietly, “you’re the one who’s been dissecting him the longest.”
Kate met her mother’s eyes. “It’s my job.”
“It’s your burden.”
Silence stretched between them again, broken only by the hiss of oil in the pan.
Catherine crossed to the window, staring out at the narrow garden beyond, bare and bleak. “You know,” she said, “for the first couple of years after Dad —after it… happened, I still thought… some part of me still thought he was coming home. I even kept the porch light on.”
Kate looked up sharply. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Dad was killed. We buried him. Cox has disappeared. So they’re not comparable. You’re describing your inability to process death.”
Her mother blinked rapidly; a sign that she’d been hurt, or riled. Kate had successfully done both throughout her teens, and it seemed she still had the knack. “My inability?”
“I didn’t mean it like a criticism. All humans struggle to understand death, especially if it’s sudden.
But there’s no evidence Cox has died. Just about the only thing we do know about him is that he's very successful at staying in the shadows.
Staying in the shadows and manipulating people to help him do that. "
“All I know is this, Kitty.” Her mother touched her lightly on the arm. “In the end, I made a conscious effort to recognise that your father was gone. Not even that. To behave like he was gone, so that eventually, my brain got the message. You know, like CBT. I had to.”
“I know,” Kate interrupted, wondering why she kept sounding so sharp.
She’d been 23 when her father died. And she couldn’t bear to remember how spectacularly she’d fallen apart.
She still felt ashamed, not because of the grief, but because she’d been so utterly absorbed in it.
At the funeral service, the priest had said she was ‘a tower of strength’ to her mother.
But he was lying. She had made everything harder for her mom.
And no amount of recognition or apology could change that.
Kate let out a long breath. “You think I’m obsessing.”
“I think you’re human.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
Catherine turned back, eyes soft. “Then what do you think you are?”
“Where Cox is concerned, I’m a professional.”
“Professionals are human too.”
The timer pinged before either could say more. Catherine moved briskly to the oven, grateful for the interruption. The smell of roast chicken filled the room, rich and comforting.
“Will you mash the potatoes?” she asked, her tone deliberately light.
“Sure.”
They worked in silence again, each retreating into the familiar ritual of food and movement. For all their differences, they were alike in that — both believed that order, in small things, could hold chaos at bay.
After a while, Catherine spoke again. “You know,” she said, “I do think you’re right about one thing.”
“Only one?”
“About Sundays. Keeping them sacred. There’s a lot to be said for boundaries.”
Kate smiled faintly. “Therapist-approved.”
They plated the food, set the table, and opened another bottle of wine. The dining room, with its soft lamplight and framed maps of Europe, felt like an oasis — the sort of place where no danger could intrude.
For a while, it worked.
They talked about Catherine’s students, about the upcoming faculty retreat in Vermont, about Kate’s neighbor’s cat, who had taken to sunbathing on her fire escape.
Only once did the conversation stray back to work, when Catherine asked, “So how is Marcus?”
“Back to his old self, almost. I mean, he’s not, of course, he nearly died in that crash. But he’s dealing with it in his own way.”
“That sounds ominous.”
Kate chuckled, set her knife and fork down. “He’s focussing on getting his fitness back. And so, of course, everyone around him’s saying that he’s avoiding the real healing work that he needs to do, that he needs to see the shrink, yadda-yadda.”
“I’m surprised at you putting it that way.”
“I’m not convinced therapy is for everyone. Marcus is an intelligent guy, and he’s not cut off from his feelings. But he’s focussing on something that he knows he can do. I think that makes him feel in control, and in turn, that’s good for his mental health. It doesn’t matter what Cheryl says.”
“Cheryl’s the girlfriend you don’t like?”
“She’s his fiancée. Again. Now.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Kate frowned. “I don’t dislike her. We talked a lot in the hospital. She’s sweet and she obviously loves him. I just don’t think they make each other happy. It’s always drama.”
“And it would be different with you?”
“Mom.”
Catherine laughed softly. “I’m teasing.”
By dessert, the mood had lifted. Catherine served apple tart with cream, and Kate found herself laughing at mother’s story about a disastrous conference dinner in Oxford. For a little while, the darkness receded.
But later, when the plates were cleared and the wine was gone, Catherine said quietly, “Promise me something. If you ever feel that man—Cox—is getting inside your head again, you’ll tell someone. Your therapist. Marcus. Me.”
Kate’s jaw tightened. “He’s not inside my head.”
“I worry that he is.”
Kate looked away. “Then that’s your problem.”
Catherine sighed. “It always will be.”
Kate stood, collecting plates. “I should go. Early start tomorrow.”
Her mother didn’t stop her. But as Kate reached the door, Catherine said softly, “I know you have a feeling, Kate. I just hope that’s all it is.”
Kate paused, hand on the doorknob. “What if it isn’t?”
“Then we’ll face it. Together.”
Kate turned, met her mother’s eyes, and nodded once.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt.
Outside, the night had grown cold. The streetlights threw long, pale stripes across the pavement. As she walked toward her car, Kate felt the familiar weight settle over her — not fear exactly, but vigilance.
She thought of her dream again. The locked door. The voice outside.
She knew who it was.
And she knew, with a clarity that chilled her, that one day soon, he would stop knocking.
He would open the door.