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She called Luke, then shared the details of her evening, making him laugh when she described Petra’s reaction to her PG version of a date with Luke. “We’ve never been on a real date, so I had to make that part up.”
“I suppose we’ll have to remedy that,” he said, his voice full of heat.
“I look forward to it, Mr. Dragos. And how was your day? Anything new on Caris or Tasha?”
There wasn’t, and the frustration in his voice made her heart ache.
“Will you come tonight?”
She almost said yes, but she’d brought home a briefcase full of files on other pending matters. “Tomorrow? I should be caught up then.”
“The anticipation will make seeing you then that much sweeter. Sleep well, my love.”
She got into bed with the files, but had only managed to review one when her vision started to blur. She closed her eyes—just for a minute—and woke to the sun streaming in through the balcony door.
With a groan, she sat up and stretched, working out the kinks from falling asleep in such an uncomfortable position. She used the remote to click on the television, then froze when she saw a grave-faced reporter describe Stemmons’s two victims and announce that the police assumed this was the work of escaped killer, Xavier Stemmons, but that authorities had no leads as to the escaped killer’s location.
As the report ended, she heard a tap at her door.
Luke.
But, no. It was daylight.
Frowning, she hurried to the door, only to find that there was no one standing there when she peered through the peephole. She disarmed the system, then opened the door, and found herself looking down at a familiar porcelain-faced doll with red lips and a pink dress. A small sheet of paper was pinned to the doll’s apron, one word scribbled across it:next.
With her blood pounding in her ears, she grabbed a pencil from the table beside the door, then used the eraser end to carefully turn the doll over. Still using the pencil, she lifted up the back of the dress to reveal the doll’s cotton body—and the name written in black marker along the seam.Tasha.
* * *
Sara cringed as Luke hurled what had to be a thousand-year-old piece of pottery against the perfectly painted wall of his Malibu living room, then watched as it shattered into a million pieces. He reached for the companion piece, and she jumped forward. “Luke! No.”
“Goddammit,” he raged. “He will not hurt her…He will not touch her…”
“They’re doing everything they can. A half-dozen agents are scouring my front hall right now hoping to pick up a trail.”
“I need to go there.”
“It’s morning, Luke. You can’t.”
He stalked across the room, hands fisted, his entire body tense with rage and grief. She watched him, her heart aching. “You have nothing else on Caris’s location?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Can I do anything? Can I be your eyes and ears during the day?”
He turned, and the raw emotion she saw on his face made her tremble. “There is one thing,” he said.
“Anything.”
“I will not lose you, too.”
She shook her head, not understanding.
“I want you to stay here,” he said. “With me.”
“In case you forgot, you’re the defendant and I’m the prosecutor.”
“I think we’ve already destroyed whatever walls are supposed to exist between our two roles.”
