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Her eyes meet mine, and I try again to decipher what’s going on in her head. It’s like she’s waged a war with herself, but she’s not telling why. I almost want to ditch this day and just spend it in bed with her, wishing I could offer her the same escape she’s so often given me.
“Go,” she says on a sigh as she stands, straightening her red shirt. She’s worn red almost every day since we’ve been here. Or maybe it has been every day.
“Why so much red?” I ask her, fingering the hem of her shirt as she stands.
“I just tossed a bunch of clothes in my bag. Apparently I picked stuff from my red section.”
She flashes a smile, rolling her eyes.
“You have a red section?”
“I have a massive closet. Has to be organized somehow.”
She skips out of the room, and I stand, running a hand through my hair. I don’t even have time to take a shower to wake me up, since my phone won’t shut the hell up.
As I leave the cabin, I glance down, catching a glimpse of Lana as she disappears inside our temporary headquarters.
Leonard is waiting for me when I get outside.
“Problems?” he asks, his eyes on the far cabin where Lana and Hadley are inside.
“Lisa.”
He snorts and gets in, and I start pulling out.
“Lisa looked pleased with herself when she left.”
“She’s a pain in the ass.” Quickly, I also tell him the details of the wonderful fucking morning I’ve already had.
“What’d Lana do?”
“Smiled at her and made a snide remark, but there was no bite to her tone. It was actually sort of weird. There was no aggression. Almost any other woman would have flown off the handle if my ex stalked in and stirred shit like Lisa did. Then again, Lana always surprises me with her reactions.”
“Takes a lot control to not react in the heat of the moment,” Leonard says, though it sounds like he’s saying it more to himself than me. “Can I ask you something?”
I shrug.
“How do you really feel about our killer? If you found out her identity today and heard her out, would you really be able to lock her away, knowing there’d never be any justice without her?”
My brow furrows. “Justice isn’t torturing and killing a bunch of people, Leonard.”
“Pretend you’re not FBI for just a minute. Pretend you’re a person who has witnessed the worst in humanity, and seen good in the monsters.”
“I’m not following,” I tell him as we pull up to the street that is blocked off. Cars are everywhere, so we’re forced to park at the rear.
“My sister’s best friend, Katie, once dated a drug dealer,” he says randomly, and I twist in my seat, arching an eyebrow at him.
He stares me in the eye as he continues. “He never sold to kids, always held his distance from the drug life when he was home, and if any of his guys sold to a kid, their bodies would be found floating in the river, minus their heads, hands, and feet.”
“Awesome choice in men,” I say, confused.
He rolls his eyes. “At first glance, anyone would say that. But not one kid in his city could get their hands on drugs. No outsiders would even sell to a kid from that city for fear of what he’d do to them. But Katie? He never touched her. In fact, he fucking worshiped her, treated her like a queen, and every day he came home to her, swearing she saved him from his demons.”
“Where are you going with this?” I ask, still confused.
“Katie was oblivious to what he did for a living, even though most of the city knew. She was always safe. The cops turned their heads, simply because if you get one dealer behind bars, another one pops up, and this guy wouldn’t deal to kids. Better the devil you know and all that.”
He blows out a heavy breath.
