Bay apartment this afternoon.” He crept closer, watching the effect of his words settle in the lines that were appearing on her forehead. “This time, all of the signs are there. Missing coed. No sign of forced entry. The right kind of flowers. Valentine’s hunting again.”
* * *
Mia’s lungs might as well have been encased in cement. She’d known this day would come. What—did she really believe that Valentine had disappeared for good? That he’d relocated and started killing elsewhere? At best she knew he was lying dormant, possibly finding other outlets for his violent urges, and the fact that he was active again should have come as no surprise. Except that Mia still couldn’t breathe.
“I need to sit,” she managed, then spanned her gaze across the sea of tuxedos and gowns.
“Come with me.”
She didn’t object as Gray took charge, not even when he placed one of his large hands on the small of her back to guide her as if they were intimate friends. She was walking in fog, thinking only about the night her sister vanished. Blood in the hall of her apartment. Broken glass in the kitchen. A front door left wide open. A bouquet of wild forget-me-nots tied with a silk ribbon and left beside a smashed photograph of their family. Mia had been the first to see the scene. Then she called her sister’s cell phone, heard it vibrate on the kitchen counter and called the police.
As wrenching as those first few hours had been, the next hours had been worse, and the hours after that worse still. No initial shock could compare to the reality that her sister was missing and probably dead. Nothing in her education had prepared her for that moment. Just like now, when she could draw on no knowledge to slow the frantic stammering of her heart.
Valentine is hunting. Her stomach roiled.
“Here.” Gray leveled the order and gently guided Mia downward onto a leather chair in the lobby of the hotel, far away from the bustle of the event.
“Thank you.” She leaned back against the chair, cradled by the rounded back and sides. “I knew this moment would come...”
“But that doesn’t mean you were ready for it,” Gray finished, settling himself in the matching chair beside her.
“No. It doesn’t.”
He leaned closer, propping his elbows on his knees and folding his hands as if in prayer. They were quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. “I’m very sorry, Mia. This is a big night for you, and it wasn’t my intention to upset you.”
She was glad she was sitting down for this. This arrogant man—he was actually apologizing to her now? Mia didn’t know whether to be touched or outraged at the thought that he believed she was so fragile. “I couldn’t have predicted how I would react to that news,” she replied carefully, weighing her words. “How could you have known?”
He tilted his head at her and then looked back down at his folded hands. “Well, one thing is certain.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re correct about not being the right person for this job. I won’t bother you again. Not about Valentine, anyway.” He patted her knee as he stood. “Stay here until you feel better. Take whatever time you need. I’ll let the organizers know what’s going on.”
“You’ll do no such thing. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
She didn’t appreciate that. “And where are you going now?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? I’m wearing this thing.” He gestured at his tuxedo. “I’ve got front-row seats and dinner at a table with the chief of police, so I’m going back into the ballroom for a couple more hours.”
Something about the tone of his voice tipped her off. “No, you’re not. You’re leaving now, and you’re going to work.”
The double take told her she was right. “Like I said, I’ll be at the dinner.” He turned to leave. “It was nice seeing you again. Thanks for the dance.” Without so much as a glance, Gray proceeded back toward the ballroom and into the crowd they’d just left.
In hindsight, Mia would describe the force that compelled her to follow Gray Bartlett as something outside of herself and very powerful. But in that moment, Mia didn’t think about it. Gray clung to the edges of the room, following the walls until he reached the far exit that would lead to the south side of the building. She didn’t congratulate herself for picking up on his lie. She didn’t think of anything as she was pulled along the current of dinner attendees like a drop of water through a pipe, until she and Gray were deposited into the waning sunlight of that summer evening. He didn’t even notice her until then, when he pulled his sunglasses from somewhere and turned his head and said, “You’re following me.” It wasn’t a question, because he knew the answer.
“I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Gray turned and marched toward the parking lot. Mia quickened her pace, feeling the effort in the pinching of her high heels. “You’re the one who asked me for help. You said you wanted to help me find closure for my sister. Now you tell me that Valentine is killing again, and I’m supposed to sit around and wait?”
Gray halted and sighed heavily, as if he were dealing with a tedious child. “Mia. Would I like to have your insight on the case? Yes. But you have too many other things to sort out. Let the police take care of this one.” He didn’t bother waiting for a response before turning and continuing on his way.
Mia stood frozen in place between a crosswalk and a traffic island decorated with stumps of peonies and a small tree. She couldn’t be so pathetic as to run after him and demand that he allow her to tag along on his investigation. Except Gray Bartlett was her only remaining connection to her sister, and that meant he was going to be as stuck with her as she was with him until this case was closed. This was about finding answers for Lena.
She took a deep breath. “You need me, Lieutenant.” She practically had to shout it. He was nearly twenty yards away.
Mia’s heart skipped with a twinge of hopefulness when she saw him halt again and slowly turn. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, concealed as they were by mirrored sunglasses, but she could tell from the set of his jaw and the angle of his broad shoulders that he was going to hear her out. She walked toward him, attempting to look more confident than she felt at that moment and trying not to catch the thin tips of her heels in one of the many cracks in the pavement.
“You know it’s true. Valentine’s a ghost. He walks through walls, abducts women without leaving a clue and brazenly dumps their bodies for the police to find. If this woman is another victim, that makes five.” She stepped forward, closing in on his personal space. “Five victims. You’re going to have a hard time convincing anyone that you don’t have a serial killer on the loose in Boston.”
“Who says I care about declaring Valentine to be a serial killer?”
He was lying. She saw it in the twitch of his mouth. “Do you want the publicity that goes along with a serial killer, Lieutenant? The frenzy? Do you want to be the one responsible for fixing that problem?” She said it gently, folding her arms across her chest. “You know as well as I that if this is Valentine, the clock is ticking.”
Now
