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I froze the video in the moment before he struck her and zoomed in on his hand. He wore a thick silver ring on the middle finger of his right hand. The ring had some kind of marking or stone, maybe a class ring or something, and he’d spun it so the stone faced the inside of his hand. It had cut her cheek right beneath her eye.

I was going to shove that ring down his goddamn throat. And then I was going to kill him.

I printed out screenshots of the unsub from every angle—another thing the police had failed to do—and added them to the file. I might not have his face, but he stood close enough to Lila that I could estimate his height was 5'10. Caucasian, from the skin tone of his hand. He had a dark freckle between his thumb and index finger. It wasn’t much, but it might be enough to narrow down potential suspects from the West Oakland and Yellowstone attacks.

Now that I had some idea of what I was looking for, I moved on to the security footage from the bar in West Oakland. The camera was angled toward the cash register, so I wasn’t expecting much. Lila told the police that she had gotten to the bar a little after 8 p.m., ordered a vodka tonic about ten minutes later, and was assaulted not long after that. The bar had provided footage from 7:45 to 9 p.m., when the police arrived.

Several people came and went, ordering drinks and flirting with the bartender. Four were white males with the right build to be the unsub, but none of them seemed particularly wary of showing their faces. My gut said none of them were our guy, but I printed them out anyway.

Lila ordered her drink, leaning forward on her elbows to yell her order over the noise of the crowd. She was wearing a gauzy purple top with delicate straps, leaving her shoulders exposed. My chest hurt, watching her laugh with her girlfriends only moments before that motherfucker burned her with his cigarette. I should have been there, kept Lila tucked safely against my side, my arm around her shoulders so he couldn’t touch her. I should have⁠—

A man’s hand appeared on the bar top, cash under his palm. Something glinted, and then the hand disappeared, leaving only the cash.

I rewound the video, then rewatched it in slow motion. There. The man’s hand. A silver ring. A dark freckle above his thumb. It was him.

I leaned back hard in the chair, staring at the image. Lila was right. The attacks weren’t random. She was being targeted. Not that I’d ever doubted her for even a second, but now we had proof.

“Hey.” Mateo leaned into the open doorway and rapped his knuckles on the wall.

I rubbed my bleary eyes and gestured for him to come in. I needed a break from staring at the screen anyway.

He took the seat across from me. “Jay said you have the police reports from Lila’s attacks, but there are some holes.”

I groaned, dragging my hands down my face. “Yeah. A few.”

“Hit me. Give me a hole to plug.” He looked at me expectantly, dark eyes gleaming.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “I’m not going to say it.”

“But you want to.” Mateo pushed his glasses up his nose and tipped his chin, smirking. “Go on. Say it.”

“I’m not going to say it, and I don’t want to say it. It wouldn’t even make sense to say it. Why would she say, give me a hole to plug? She’s the one with a hole. You’re the one with a thing to plug it. I assume.”

Mateo’s gaze went sideways as he considered. “Dammit. You’re right.”

“You can’t toss a that’s what she said joke at every sexual innuendo. It has to be the right sexual innuendo.” I pushed the folder across the desk to him, with the screenshots on top. “I’m still looking at the video from the bar in West Oakland, but the unsub is careful about keeping his face hidden, so I don’t expect to get much more. Right now, this is the best image we have of what he looks like. Medium height, slim build, white. He’s got a freckle on his right hand and sometimes wears this ring. I want to know who in her social circle fits that description. Ex-boyfriends, photography colleagues, social media followers.”

“No problem.” For Mateo, it wasn’t. Most people would need days or weeks to go down all those rabbit holes, but this would be child’s play for Mateo. He pulled the photo closer, head cocking as he studied it. “What’s that on his sweatshirt? Some kind of logo?”

“Nothing I could get a clear look at.”

“It might be enough to find a match. I’ll see what a reverse image search turns up and go from there.”

My gaze fell to the photographs. My neck tingled. I knew that feeling. Fear. Not for myself—for Lila. “It’s not a lot to go on.”

“It’s enough to start. We’ll find him, Seb.”

My gaze met his serious, dark eyes. For once, neither of us was laughing. “We have to. Sooner or later, he’s going to realize she’s missing.”

“You think he knows about you?”

“He might, but he might not. Lila has always kept her personal life away from the camera, and it was a long time ago. My name didn’t turn up when I did a basic internet search on her. But if he digs deep enough, eventually the trail will lead him here.”

And without knowing his face, Lila would be a sitting duck.

“We need to talk.” With Sheriff Sherwood’s manila envelope tucked under my arm, I kicked the cabin door shut behind me, bolted it—a recent development that began the day I brought Lila to the ranch—and unlaced my boots one-handed.

Lila had been draped over the kitchen counter, leaning on her elbows with her chin propped in one hand when I walked in, but now her spine snapped straight, and she stared at me with wide, panicked eyes.