Page 43

“I had a younger brother. Joey.” I set it back on my plate. “He died five years ago, just before his twenty-first birthday.”

Usually, this is where people start asking how he died, whether we had any warning, or if I knew what he was thinking about doing. I’ve answered those questions more times than I want to remember, and every one of them gives me another reason to wonder what I missed while Joey was still alive. Alessia doesn’t ask any of them.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Her voice is gentle. “What was he like?”

I look at her. “What?”

“Joey. Tell me about him.”

For a second, I don’t know how to answer. People ask about Joey’s death all the time. I can’t remember the last time someone who never knew him asked me about his life.

“He was amazing. Funny and ridiculously smart.” A memory of him as a kid slips in before I can stop it, and I smile. “Mom used to say she had twins five years apart. He followed me everywhere when we were little. Drove me fucking crazy sometimes, but if anyone else messed with him, I was ready to commit murder.”

Alessia laughs softly. “He sounds wonderful.”

“He was.” For once, I can think about Joey without the last part of his life swallowing everything that came before it.

Alessia leaves it there. She doesn’t ask how he died or make me talk about anything I haven’t offered. Instead, she starts telling me stories about raising four boys, though from how often Declan shows up, she might as well have raised five.

That makes me look across the table at Duncan. “Where’s Declan’s mother?”

“She’s been out of the picture since Declan was five.”

Duncan answers without hesitation, but there’s nothing behind the words. No anger or sadness, not even the discomfort I’d expect when someone talks about the mother of his child. His expression gives me nothing either. Whatever happened with Declan’s mother, I’m obviously not getting that story tonight.

After dinner, I expect us to head back to the family room or leave. Instead, Alessia loops her arm through mine again and leads me down a long hallway. Duncan follows with Kieran, neither of them explaining where we’re going.

The doorway we pass through gets my attention immediately. Jesus. That thing has to be five inches thick.

I take a closer look at the room. Bookshelves cover the walls, packed with novels, family photographs, and the kind of childhood art projects most parents eventually throw away, but Alessia apparently kept for decades. The space looks more like a private family room than anything designed for security. Then Kieran closes that massive fucking door behind us.

The heavy latch clicks into place, and I immediately tense. After five years of making damn sure nobody could connect me to what I do, being locked inside a room with three Murphys isn’t exactly comforting.

“What’s going on?”

“We need to talk.” Kieran takes one of the chairs.

If this is round two over the pictures, I’m done. “I already told you I had nothing to do with those photographs.”

“This isn’t about the photographs.”

“Then what is it about?”

Kieran studies me before answering. “Your hobby.”

I’ve been careful. I research every target under layers of protection, and I’ve never left anything behind that could lead back to me. Bruce has been gone for months, and the police haven’t knocked on my door. There shouldn’t be a connection.

Duncan is watching Kieran now instead of me. He didn’t know this was coming.

“We found your apartment,” Alessia says. “The one under Joey’s name.”

Fuck.

Every file is there. Names, photographs, research, years of monsters whose faces I kept because destroying everything felt too much like erasing the only proof that I’d stopped them. The police could build half their case just by walking through the fucking door.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Deny everything. They can know whatever the hell they think they know. I’m not handing them the rest.