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I let out a quiet breath, half listening again. She was still going.

“And at first it was normal,” she continued. “Well. As normal as death files can be. But then there were these notes—specific notes—and I don’t think anyone else thought it was weird, which is probably more concerning⁠—”

Something in her tone changed again and my attention shifted back to her fully, my gaze sliding over as she frowned slightly, clearly still turning it over in her head.

“There were a few where it said they were missing all their teeth,” she said, glancing up at me as if to gauge my reaction. “And then others where their eyes were gone. Not all of them, but enough that it felt…” She trailed off, searching for the word. “Patterned,” she finished.

Something inside me went very still. My stride didn’t change, but everything in me narrowed, my focus snapping into place with cold, practiced precision.

People missing teeth and eyes… Of course she’d found those. Ryder didn’t exactly leave subtle work behind, and although most of the time I burned or dissolved the bodies, occasionally I didn’t. That was part of the thrill sometimes, leaving evidence but knowing you would never get caught.

My gaze flicked ahead, scanning the empty stretch of road out of habit more than need, my mind already moving three steps ahead of the conversation. Apparently she hadn’t noticed Jett’s work. For now.

Beside me, she kept talking, her voice threading back in as if nothing had shifted. “I mean, I know serial killers have MOs and everything, but there wasn’t a connection between the people,” she said. “Their crimes were all different. It didn’t make any sense.”

No, it wouldn’t. Because the actual crimes of most of the people we’d murdered hadn’t been discovered yet. I wasn’t tearing eyeballs out of people who stole candy bars.

I glanced down at her, taking in the faint crease between her brows. An unwelcome tension worked its way through me, unwelcome and harder to ignore the longer I watched her think. This would be a problem for the rest of our lives. The longer she stayed, the harder it would be to keep her from seeing what lived underneath everything else I’d built here. What I was.

Right now, she just thought she’d found a mystery.

I’d have to work for the rest of my life to make sure she never found out she was walking beside it.

CHAPTER 35

SIENNA

Iwas at The Hollow, celebrating something again…only this time, it was me.

Hattie was already on her third shot, perched on a barstool like she’d been born there, while her elbow knocked into mine with conspiratorial enthusiasm. “To Sienna Blake,” she announced, sloshing tequila dangerously close to the rim. “Who can’t waitress, can’t spray flowers, but can absolutely conquer a courtroom.”

“I object,” I shot back, lifting my glass with a smirk. “I also conquered Dot’s pie…twice, thank you very much. And I’m pretty sure that deserves its own medal.”

Sterling crowded in closer at my side, one arm draped possessively along the bar behind me, his fingers brushing my shoulder as if he couldn’t help touching me even here. The hard ridges of his abs pressed against my arm, and the pride blazing in his eyes hit me straight in the chest.

“She was fucking incredible,” he said, like it wasn’t up for debate. Like he’d fight anyone who said otherwise.

“You weren’t even there,” I muttered as my cheeks heated under his stare, that unfamiliar ache blooming in my throat because…having a man who was happy for me? Who seemed as if he wanted me to succeed…it still felt too good to be real.

I still couldn’t believe I’d aced the interview.

I hadn’t done just fine. Or good enough. I’d walked out of that office with my head high and my hands steady, like muscle memory had kicked in and reminded me who I used to be. Who I still was, apparently, even after everything.

Delaney, the town lawyer, had leaned back in her chair with her eyebrows raised, her pen forgotten in her hand while I talked through motions and filings and my strategy when arguing in court. I’d watched recognition dawn in her eyes, and her gaze had shifted from polite curiosity to interest to something like relief.

“You actually know what you’re doing,” she’d said at one point.

Yes. Yes, I did.

Law was the one thing I’d never failed at. I liked the rules. The logic. The way problems bent if you applied the right pressure in the right places. I knew how to do this. I knew how to be this.

Hattie narrowed her eyes at Sterling, squinting dramatically. “Blink twice if you’re just biased because you’re obsessed with her.”

He didn’t even blink once. He just stared Hattie down with that intense gaze of his, his hand sliding from the bar to the small of my back, his fingers splaying wide in a claim right there in front of everyone.

From Ryder’s other side, a scruffy head popped into view.

Harvey leaned in, his jaw clicking as he squinted at us before he lifted his beer with a pleased little chortle. “Happy birthday!”