Chapter 2 #2
He turned off the water, dried himself with the same methodical precision he did everything. Military corners on the towel when he hung it up. Clothes in the hamper, not on the floor. Everything in its place because chaos was the enemy and control was survival.
In the bedroom, he pulled on fresh clothes—dark jeans, black T-shirt, the shoulder holster he wore even off-duty because being armed was as natural as breathing. The Glock settled against his ribs with familiar weight.
Four-forty-five a.m. Three hours and fifteen minutes until the meeting with Harper Sinclair and Captain Holloway.
Silas should sleep. He’d been up for twenty-two hours straight, and exhaustion made mistakes.
But sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant Afghanistan.
The explosion. The screaming. William’s body in pieces.
Johnson calling for his wife with his last breath.
Brown dying quietly, his hand in Silas’s, asking if his daughter would remember him.
She’d been three years old. She wouldn’t remember.
Better to stay awake.
Silas moved to the kitchen, made coffee with ritual precision. French press, exact measurements, water at exactly 200 degrees. The routine was soothing in its predictability. He could control this. The water temperature, the steep time, the pour.
He couldn’t control serial killers or FBI profilers or the fact that his captain was forcing him to work with someone whose judgment he questioned. But he could control his coffee.
While it steeped, Silas pulled out his laptop and opened the case file he’d started building at the scene. Melissa Wagoner. Twenty-four years old. Barista at The Daily Grind. Last seen leaving work at nine p.m. two nights ago.
Killed between ten p.m. and midnight, ME’s preliminary said. Which meant the killer had grabbed her fast, worked quickly, dumped the body in a location he’d scouted ahead of time.
Organized. Methodical. Confident.
Silas pulled up the photos he’d taken of the symbols.
They were precise, almost geometric. Carved with something sharp—scalpel, maybe, or a very sharp knife.
The killer had taken his time despite the time constraints.
He’d positioned the body carefully. Arms at sixty-degree angles.
Legs together. Head tilted slightly left.
There was meaning here. Ritual. Obsession.
Sarah Henderson, Reno, five years ago. Jessica Paul, six weeks later. Pamela Gibson, three months after that.
Harper had rattled off the names like a litany. Like they were burned into her memory the way Williams, Johnson, and Brown were burned into his.
Silas opened a new window, searched for the Nevada cases. Found Harper’s name all over the investigation reports. Lead profiler. She’d worked the case for eight months after the third victim. Built a profile, coordinated with local law enforcement, consulted with symbology experts.
Then the killer had gone dormant and the case had gone cold.
Five years of nothing.
Until now.
Why Blackridge? Why resume killing here, in a small town hours from his original hunting ground? Had he moved? Or had something—someone—drawn him here?
The thought made Silas’s stomach tighten. Harper Sinclair had moved to Blackridge two months ago, according to what he’d heard. Hiding out in some cabin outside town, keeping to herself.
And now her serial killer had shown up.
Coincidence? Or had the bastard followed her?
Silas pulled up everything he could find on Harper.
FBI personnel file was locked, but there were news articles about the Michael Ward case.
The botched operation in Chicago six months ago.
An explosives expert they’d been hunting for three years.
Harper and Ward had tracked him to a warehouse.
Harper had gone in without backup. Ward had followed.
The building had exploded. Ward died. Harper survived with minor injuries.
The official report called it a tragedy—the suspect had rigged the warehouse with explosives they hadn’t detected. No negligence, just bad luck and a smart bomber.
But the unofficial whispers—the ones that circulated through law enforcement channels—were less kind. Harper had ignored protocol. She’d been reckless. She’d gotten her partner killed through arrogance and poor judgment.
Silas had read those whispers and believed them because they fit his worldview. Arrogant agents who thought they knew better than procedure got people killed. He’d seen it happen. Hell, he’d been that arrogant soldier once, and three men had paid the price.
But looking at Harper’s face at the crime scene—the recognition, the fear, the something that looked like grief—he wondered if the whispers were wrong.
Or maybe they were right and she was just good at hiding the guilt.
Either way, he was stuck working with her. Holloway had made that clear. The city council wanted FBI involvement. The case was too high-profile to turn down expert help. And Harper Sinclair, for all her mistakes, was apparently the foremost expert on this particular killer.
You don’t have to trust me, Detective Kane. You just have to work with me.
Her words. Delivered with that sharp smile that suggested she’d dealt with hostile cops before. That she knew how to navigate being unwanted, unwelcome, blamed for things that might not have been entirely her fault.
Silas’s phone buzzed. Text from Holloway: Meeting at 8. Conference B. Try to play nice.
I’ll behave, Silas typed back.
That’s not the same as playing nice.
Best I can offer.
Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Holloway knew him too well to argue.
Silas checked the time. Five-thirty a.m. Two and a half hours until the meeting. He should eat something, but food held no appeal. Should try to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. Should do something productive instead of sitting here drowning in memories and dreading a partnership he didn’t want.
He pulled up the crime scene photos again. Studied the symbols, the positioning, the careful attention to detail. Organized. Methodical. Patient.
Questions he couldn’t answer alone. Harper would have insights from hunting this killer—patterns, behaviors, methodology he couldn’t see from a single scene.
Which meant working with her. Actually listening to her expertise, even if he didn’t trust her judgment.
Silas poured more coffee he didn’t need and watched the sky outside slowly lighten from black to deep blue to the gray of early morning.
Somewhere in Blackridge, a serial killer was planning his next move. And in a few hours, Silas would have to sit across from Harper Sinclair and figure out how to work with someone he didn’t trust to catch a monster who apparently had a very personal interest in her.
The military had trained him for impossible missions. For working with people he didn’t like in situations where failure meant death. He could do this. He could compartmentalize his anger, his memories, his certainty that trusting people was a mistake.
He could work with Harper Sinclair.
He just couldn’t let her close enough to see the cracks. Couldn’t let her past the walls he’d built since Afghanistan. Couldn’t risk caring about whether she lived or died because caring meant vulnerability and vulnerability got people killed.
Williams had trusted him. Johnson had trusted him. Brown had trusted him.
And Silas had failed them all.
He wouldn’t fail again. Which meant keeping Harper Sinclair at arm’s length, no matter how effective she was as a profiler. No matter how much they might need to work together to catch this killer.
No matter what.
Silas finished his coffee, rinsed the cup, set it in the dish drainer. Checked his Glock, his badge, his phone. Grabbed his jacket and keys.
Seven a.m. One hour until the meeting.
Time to face Harper Sinclair and pretend he could be professional. Pretend he didn’t see his dead partner every time he looked at her. Pretend he wasn’t terrified of what it would mean if they actually managed to work together.
Time to lock the emotions away, focus on the mission, and do what he did best—solve cases alone, even when forced to work with a partner.
The drive to Blackridge PD took fifteen minutes. Silas spent them in silence, organizing his thoughts, building the walls higher, preparing for battle.
Because that’s what this was. A battle for control of his case, his investigation, his carefully constructed isolation.
And Silas had survived worse battles than Harper Sinclair.
He parked in his usual spot, climbed out of the truck, and walked into the station with the same controlled precision he did everything.
Ready or not, the partnership was starting.
And Silas was going to make damn sure it stayed professional, distant, and temporary.
No matter what it cost him.