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He leaned in, and before I could react, his lips were on mine, his fingers tight around my neck. I gave him everything I had in that kiss, ending it on a promise that we’d pick it up where we left off.
“Ready?” he asked, lips catching the glow of the streetlamp.
“Let’s do this,” I said. I wasn’t sure what we were about to uncover, but anything we found had to be better than that fucking box with our photos in it. I couldn’t shake that pinprick feeling at the top of my spine as we walked up to the mayor’s front door, as if someone was watching us from behind, lurching from shadow to shadow, just waiting.
We’ve got to find this guy. Whatever it takes.
24
MATTHEW HALE
The mayor answered the door in seconds, as if she were already standing behind it before we even knocked. Her smile was pleasant, but her eyes read as concerned. She was in a pair of black workout pants and a tank top, the sweat marks around her chest telling me that she may have been mid-workout.
“Detectives, it’s a surprise to see you both. Everything okay?”
Jason nodded and matched her smile. “Everything’s fine. We were just hoping to have a chat with Byron. Is he around?”
The concern grew in intensity, and her smile completely faded. Her head cocked as she asked, “Byron?” like she must have misheard.
“Yes,” I said, stepping up. “We think he might have some information about the Pegasus case.” Jason definitely skirted the truth when he said everything was fine, and I didn’t blame him. It wouldn’t help for the mayor to freak the fuck out over finding out her son was somehow linked to a serial killer, whether by mischance or misfortune or something else entirely. It also didn’t help that we just had no idea why the cup was even in there,
“Why would he have any information?” Her mother bear instincts were kicking in. She lifted her shoulders and took a step to the right, almost taking up the entire doorway.
There was no use in being vague right now. “We found something that links your son to the Pegasus, and we need to ask him about it. We’ll explain more inside, but Emma, I can’t stress enough how crucial it is that we talk to him.”
She rubbed a hand over her face, covering her gaping mouth after her jaw fell open with the news. “Okay, okay, come inside.” She retreated from the doorway and shouted for Byron to come downstairs before leading us to her dining room table, the table elegantly set with gold-laced plates and a navy blue silk table runner. Framed pictures sat in a clean row on a three-tiered glass stand. They all contained a different combination of the mayor with her three kids and never-smiling husband, who seemed to have a strong spiritual connection with camo hats, sporting one in nearly every picture.
“Byron!” the mayor shouted again as she took a seat at the head of the table. Outside, an already dark evening was made darker by the distant boom of thunder and the rain-filled clouds that began to roll in.
Byron came down the stairs rubbing at his eyes, wearing a pair of gray gym shorts and a Pokémon T-shirt, his curly hair ruffled from hopping right out of bed. His eyebrows stitched together as he looked at the gathering around the table, recognition slowly pushing past his post-nap grogginess.
“Hi,” he said, slumping down in the chair across from me. “Mom, what is this? An intervention?”
“No, this is serious, Byron.” Her tone cleared away any residual grogginess, Byron’s gaze becoming sharp. “The detectives found something, and they wanted to ask you about it.” I could tell Emma was doing her absolute best not to completely and utterly lose her shit. Her bottom lip trembled as she tugged on the small diamond earring, turning her earlobe a bright red. She was scared, and I didn’t blame her one bit.
I was scared, too. Terrified.
But I swallowed all of that fear and clicked into work mode. There’d be time later to be scared.
“What is it?” Byron asked.
Jason took the reins. “We were able to track down a location we think is being used by the Pegasus. Inside, we found multiple links to prior victims, but we also found a coffee cup, and on it we could see that your name had been written. There could be other Byron Rosewells in Blue Creek, but our first thought was to come to you.”
“A coffee cup? With my name on it?” Byron shook his head, his eyes wide with surprise. He wrung his hands together in his lap, the bottoms of his scuffed Adidas tapping the ground in a symphony of nerves. His nails were chewed down to the quick, but he still bit at his thumb, chewing the skin.
