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Were they finished now? And if they weren’t, how would they strike out at us next?
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Dexter
With each new revelation, the puzzle that this case had become only expanded, all the pieces reshuffling in my grasp before I could place them and categorize them. I needed some level of structure—something to allow me to confidently connect at least two of the chaotic fragments, but the information we accumulated seemed to become more varied rather than less with each new development. It was getting harder to believe those fragments would ever fit together.
And now the concrete manifestation of an awful lot of those fragments had been destroyed in a burst of fire.
I stared at the room full of blackened furniture and ash, my mind spinning in a way that felt uncomfortably aimless. The sodden remains of our office stared back at me without giving a single answer. On autopilot, I forced myself to raise my hand and snap some pictures. I captured every corner and crevice of the darkened room, scanning it over with my eyes and camera simultaneously while looking for any clues.
Since we’d formed the Vigil, I’d always been confident in my ability to connect the dots and find the bigger picture even if the other guys couldn’t. Now… now I wasn’t sure how I’d manage it. This case might have pushed me beyond my abilities.
Madelyn eased over to me through the wreckage and shot me a small smile. “Always documenting everything.”
I shrugged. “It can’t hurt. We’ve found new details looking back through the photos before.”
“That’s true—we have. I won’t stop you. I just know this has got to be hard for all of you. You’ve been working out of this place for a while.”
She let out a breath that was shaky enough to tell me that she was awfully unsettled by what had happened even if she’d used this space much less than the rest of us. Then she raised her hand as if to rub my arm the way she’d touched Logan reassuringly earlier, but hesitated before her fingers reached me. Unsurprising, given the way I normally reacted to physical contact. The way I’d reacted just a couple of hours ago when she’d first come up to me outside the library.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t mind with you. As long as I know it’s you.”
Her smile softened a little, and she let her hand rest on my arm.
It was strange how much sensation flowed from that one small touch. Warmth bloomed over my skin all the way to my chest, making my heart skip a beat. A tingle raced through my nerves alongside it.
The emotions this woman stirred up in me were a puzzle too, but one I didn’t mind anywhere near as much. I wasn’t sure how to navigate the new territory I’d uncovered with her, but at least it seemed to be leading someplace good.
I’d never felt this comfortable with any other woman. Never been this drawn to anyone, this curious to discover how much I could makeherfeel. I’d had a couple of brief encounters during my first year at college, classmates who’d found me intriguing, but it’d been obvious they just got off on the idea of hooking up with someone unusual and didn’t care all that much about me personally beyond that.
Madelyn treated me like my reactions were no less normal than anyone else’s. Like she saw all ofme,not as a puzzle but as a person worth caring about. A person whose company she actually enjoyed. Which was good, because the more time I spent with her, the more of her company I wanted to keep. She held her own with us so well in spite of being new to this kind of situation, but there was a sweetness to her at the same time that appealed to me in averydifferent way from my appreciation for either of my friends.
The pull toward her was exhilarating but also unnerving. I had no idea where it would lead me. But most of me was dying to find out.
Across from us, Slade shook his head and kicked at some of the mess with the toe of his shoe. “Well, this office is a steaming pile of horse shit if I’d ever seen one.”
Logan stepped out into the main library room and squinted toward the ceiling. “The security camera aimed this way might still have been functioning,” he said tersely. “We should see about getting access to the footage. It’s a long shot given how careful these people have been so far, but there’s a chance we’ll spot something useful.”
Madelyn squared her shoulders as if preparing for battle, but I couldn’t help noticing how tight her jaw had gotten. She was holding herself together, but this was another attack on her as well as us, and one that she was worried she’d instigated with her questions. Though none of us had been prepared to face this kind of pushback, she had been least of all.
“Why don’t you two look into that, and I’ll take Madelyn back to our apartment,” I said before I could second-guess the impulse. “We can re-group there.”
Logan’s forehead furrowed for a second before his gaze settled on Madelyn. He must have noticed the same signs that I had, because he nodded.
Madelyn raised her chin with visible effort. “I’m fine. If there’s some way I can help—”
“There isn’t,” Logan said, firmly but kindly. “It’ll be up to me to get in and I only need one person as lookout. All the rest of our materials related to the case are back at the apartment, so that’s the best place for us to go over what we still have later.”
She hesitated but then dipped her head in acceptance. I brushed my fingers against her elbow to guide her out of the room.
We were just stepping out from the maintenance door when one minor problem occurred to me. “I don’t have a car. But we could—”
“It’s fine,” Madelyn said easily. “I’ll drive. You’ll just have to give me directions. I’ve only been there once, and I was kind of distracted at the time.”
“Of course.”
There was something strange about getting into the passenger seat of the car we’d found for her. Maybe because so often when I’d been heading anywhere in the past few weeks, it’d been with Logan in the driver’s seat.
