Marcus leaned against the car.“So what now?Because that felt like our strongest lead.”
Kate exhaled, long and tired.“Now?Now we admit we’re stuck.”
“Stalled,” Marcus corrected grimly.
She nodded.“Stalled.”
They stood there a moment, both staring at nothing, both feeling the same cold truth settling in: they had no viable suspect, no clear pattern, no path forward.
Somewhere out there, they felt sure, the killer was eyeing up his next victim.
And they were no closer to stopping him.
*
Kate let her head rest against the wall and let out a long, slow breath.The room smelled of industrial detergent and Marcus’s cologne.He’d been in and out earlier, swapping notes, discussing tomorrow’s priorities.Even the air felt like it still remembered him.
She wished it didn’t.
She wished the whole night didn't.
The bed springs groaned when she sat.A miserable, lumpy mattress, blanket like sandpaper, pillows that had the collective softness of three dinner rolls.She’d stayed in worse—God knew the Bureau’s per diem often assumed agents were made of titanium—but tonight it scraped at her nerves.
Everything scraped at her nerves.
Through the too-thin wall, Marcus’s voice lifted in muffled cadence—warm, affectionate, unguarded.Cheryl.Of course he was calling Cheryl.Ordinarily Kate would have found some part of that sweet.Tonight it made her stomach twist.
“Yeah, babe,” she thought she heard him say, his voice maddeningly soft.“Miss you too.Mmhmm… I know.Me either.”
Kate closed her eyes.
Christ.She really didn't want to hear this.
She turned the TV on for noise, then immediately shut it off again—some saccharine laugh track bleeding through the static like poison.She stood, paced, sat again.The floorboards creaked like old joints.
Dinner replayed in her mind—if one could call it dinner.Soggy burger bun, watery ketchup packet, limp fries.She’d eaten exactly four bites before abandoning the rest.Between that and the emails waiting in her inbox, she felt hollow and wired all at once, like a marionette whose strings had gotten tangled.
She pressed the heel of her palm to her brow.
Marcus murmured something soft through the wall.Kate’s jaw clenched.
She wasn’t jealous.
She wasn't.
She was just… tired.Alone.And aware, suddenly and viciously, how long it had been since anyone had said her name with anything approaching affection.
Fine.A bath.
A bath would drown the noise.Literally.The fan in motel bathrooms could smother a small jet engine.
She stood, already peeling off her blazer, and padded toward the bathroom—just as her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
GABE.
She froze.
He only called her this late when he’d discovered something.Something he thought was important.Something he couldn’t possibly hold until morning.
