“That is the kind of stupid I warned you not to do.” When I feel a thread more composed, I turn to look at her. She’s banked against the wall, arms shielding her face. “Oh, stop it. You’re not some scared damsel. Get the fuck up.”
She lowers her hands slowly. Then, with a defiant lift of her chin, gets to her feet. “I’m still a part of the police force. They’re my family. I have people, friends who are looking for me. They’ll realize I’m missing, and when they look into—”
“What?” I snap, stomping toward her. “Your car? Your phone? No one is missing you, Mak.”
She blinks. “What do you mean?”
I bring my hand away from my head and look at the blood. “Your car is parked at your apartment building. Wiped clean. Your phone – that you used to dial 9-1-1”—according to the call log—“is off. SIM card destroyed. Even if the police did trace the call, putting you at the scene of Myer’s shooting, and even if they do grow suspicious enough to get access to your loft, all they’ll find is a planner with your vacation days clearly marked.”
“You’re sick,” she says.
A slow smile forms. It’s such a stupid insult. “Sick people don’t rationalize, Mak. Your training obviously didn’t delve into psych one-oh-one.” I leave her for a moment as I gather the bags from just outside the door. Then I toss them in the middle of the cellar.
Makenna stands still, her hair in wild, tangled disarray. The shirt I gave her—my shirt—hangs off one shoulder. The chain still connected to the cuff wrapping her ankle. The confused draw of her eyebrows the only movement as she stairs at the bags.
“What are those?” she asks, her voice so timid I barely hear her.
I remove my leather jacket and let it drop on the other side of the bags. One is the trash bag I took from her apartment, the other is a canvas tote I loaded with her clothes, toothbrush, and other toiletry shit. “You’re staying a while.” I nudge the tote with my boot. “You’ll need to shower so you don’t stink up my place. And this—” I point to the trash bag “—is your files. You’re an investigator. You’re a detective—”
“Was—” she cuts in.
I huff a derisive breath. “For your sake, you better have been a damn good one.”
She rubs her arms. Either from the chilly air or the nervous thought of me going through her apartment. Maybe both.
“What do you want from me, Easton?”
It’s the first time she’s said my name. Called me something other than monster.
I dig out the heart necklace from my pocket and hold it up. “I’m trying to convince myself that you’re ignorant. Otherwise, I can avow, you’d already be dead.”
I kneel down and rummage through the trash bag, locating the file on Jennifer Myer. With a firm flick, I send it across the floor to her. “You were already on to a lead. Keep going.”
She doesn’t touch the file. Just stares at it, as if it belongs to someone else, or another lifetime. “I’m not doing anything until you give me answers.”
The answers I have for her, I’m not sure she can handle. I look at the necklace, my chest threatening to cave in. “Royce Hudson gave you this,” I say, an accusation. “You worked Major Crimes. You know what a trophy is.”
When I flick my gaze to her, the pale appall sheeting her face causes me to miss an intake of air. She shakes her head. “You know who I am, then.”
“I know exactly who you are.”
“You’re crazy. You’re…a twisted piece of shit. I watched you kill my partner, and now…. What? You say the most atrocious thing to disgrace his memory? What did you do with him? Where is his body?”
Her dark eyes are smoldering coal, burning right through me. She remembers that night. She remembers me. That’s why she held a gun on Keller, and why she wants me dead.
She’s been hunting me.
When I say nothing, she grabs her head, fingers splaying through her messy strands. “You killed him. You stole him from me. For nothing!” She cries out and launches herself in my direction. “Tell me what you did with him—”
She’s a wild animal as she climbs my back, nails clawing at my face and neck. She goes for the knife strapped to my leg, and I stand, taking her with me. I grasp behind me to grab the chain. I use it to pull her body around so I can reach her arm. I try not to break her as I haul her off and set her in front of me.
She’s broken enough.
“Calm down.” I hold her arms at her sides as she fights. But soon, exhaustion takes her and she gives up, body deflated. “Breathe.”
She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. Her whole body convulses as a spasm racks her muscles. “I’m going to be sick,” she warns.
I release her, and she bends over. Dry heaves tear at her system and she gags. Only nothing comes out. She’s dehydrated and weak. Whatever she had left, she used to fight.