“Jesus Christ. This isn’t middle school. I simply don’t want to be filing an assault report against you,” he sighs, loosening his tie. “Thank you for coming when you did.” He swiftly changes the subject when I narrow my eyes. “I thought I was going to be the next murderer in town. She’s like a rash, isn’t she?”
“She’s the black plague,” I scoff. I drop my own purse on one of his chairs, and I’m about to hand him the file when I pause.
There are dark shadows beneath his eyes, the bags so heavy that, if they were real, they’d be the one trip a man makes from the car to the kitchen after a weekly grocery shop. He looks drawn, his beard untrimmed, and even his hair looks like it’s been taken off Big Foot and glued to the top of his head.
I take the few steps across the office to him and lift my hand to his face. I curl my fingers beneath his jaw and rub my thumb across the bottom of his cheek. “You aren’t sleeping, are you?”
He shrugs, making my hand drop. “The case… We have to solve it.”
“You can’t solve it if you’re running on empty. How long have you been here?”
Another shrug. He looks toward the clock on the wall. “Since six? I was hopin’ for some quiet, but then Jessica turned up.”
“You could have sent me a Mayday. I would have rescued you before now.”
“No offense, but from what I hear, you’re the only one up and alive after your night last night.” He smirks, tugging on a lock of my hair. “Amelia passed out on the sofa until Dev carried her up to bed, and I believe Alison passed out in the car. The kids are with your parents.”
“Bek’s still in bed,” I agree. “I tried to call her before I went to the office but got a resounding, ‘Fuck off, you bitch,’ and then she hung up.”
“How are you awake?”
“I’m superhuman. And also very hungover.”
“Did you drive here?”
“Um…”
“Noelle,” he growls.
“I’m not that hungover! Honestly. I happen to be smarter than my friends and had, like, two bottles of water before bed.”
“How far did you drive?”
Oy. I roll my eyes. “To the office and then here.”
That placates him. Just.
“Why did you come here?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I want to talk about the case?” I also want to slap him around the back of the head with the files I brought.
Drake sighs heavily, his icy, blue eyes tired and lifeless. “There’s no point right now. I don’t know many fuckin’ times we’ve trawled the reports and the autopsies and the photos… We even have the semen DNA samples being run through the systems in the surrounding states, but no hits. The hair we pulled from the trunk of Annabelle’s car is hers, and the partial boot print found is just that—partial. And fingerprints? None. Whoever dumped the car wasn’t stupid enough to do so without wiping it clean. Can’t get a damn thing from it. It’s just dead end after dead end after dead fuckin’ end.” He pushes away from me and goes to the window. “It’s like the others but worse. Knowing that we have two people at least killing random girls is, appropriately, fucking hell.”
“I might be able to help you with the randomness.” I grab the files and hold it out. “Here.”
He slowly turns back, his eyes landing on the bright-red folder. “What is that?”
“All the information Carlton could borrow”—I smile, and his lips twitch—“on our three victims and Brook Meyers. He found something that could be either coincidence or the connection we need.”
“What is it?” He takes the folder from me and opens it, pulling out the stapled-together sheets of paper from the clear pockets inside.
“All three victims are Catholic.”
He stills. No—it’s more than a stilling. Or a freezing. It’s as though paralysis takes his body over.
“Say that again.”
I get the feeling I should run. Fast. And far. “All three victims are Catholic,” I repeat again, this time much more gently.
He picks his phone up without looking at me and dials a number. “Noelle, what time are the services today?”
“Uhh, ten thirty and five thirty, I think.”
Drake glances at the clock again. “Nash here, sir. The connection seems to be religion. All victims were Catholic… That was my plan. Who? ... Got it.” His whole body heaves as he sets the phone back in the cradle and turns to look at me. He no longer looks tired. He looks pissed and determined.
And I still think I should run.
“You’re coming with me.”
“Oh, no. I am not going to church!” I protest, stepping away from him. “Nonna will be there. I’ve been avoiding her successfully.”
“I don’t care.”
“She’ll think you secretly proposed and we’re scoping it out for a wedding venue!”
His step falters, indecision flitting across his face before the resolution sets back in. “Nice try. Get your purse. We’re going.” He shoves my purse at me, and I look at my outfit.
“Am I…er…allowed to take a gun into church?”
Drake yanks the door open. “This is Texas. Find someone who won’t have a gun on them in church.”
“Nonna won’t. She’d rather take a wooden spoon as a weapon. She’s deadly enough with that fucker.”
“Noelle? Be quiet.”
“It’s just not as scary when you say it like that,” I sigh, heading for my car.
Drake stops at his truck and hits the unlock button on the key fob. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“Uh, to my car? To drive to the church?” I point at my little Audi.
He shakes his head slowly, every twist of his neck deliberate. “No.” He points at me then his truck. “Your ass. In there. Now.”
Oh, God. This is exactly why I should have listened to my flight instinct, because now, it’s gonna be a fight.
“I can drive myself to church, Drake. My foot isn’t hurting.”
“I don’t give a shit about your damn foot!” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I care that we’re going somewhere where there is potentially a brutal serial killer picking out his next victim. I care that they’ve already carjacked one of their victims before dumping it and her. I care enough not to let you go alone. So either get yourself in my truck or I’m going to get you in it, and it’ll be a hell of a lot rougher if I do it.”
Don’t you just hate it when men make a reasonable argument? Mostly because it doesn’t happen that often—because hello, women, always right—so when they do, it knocks the wind right out of your sails.
This is me right now. Windless. Limp sails. Knocked on my backside.
Because, hell. I can’t argue with that. The man has a real point.
I hate it when he does that. He does it a lot, have a point. We’re gonna need to have a word about that if this relationship is gonna carry on. He can’t keep having all the points.
Drake slaps the hood of his car, and the noise jolts me out of my mind.
“Fine!” I squeak, seeing him move toward me. I dart around him to the passenger’s door. “I’ll get in by myself!”
“Thank you.” He exhales and a little tension escapes his shoulders.
“You’re not going to hold my door open or help me in or any of that shit, are you?” I ask suspiciously, my hand hovering over the door handle.
Drake raises an eyebrow as he walks around the front of the truck. “Noelle, I’m protective, not stupid. If I pulled that as well as this, my life wouldn’t be worth living for at least a week.”
“Oh, okay.” That came out a little too cheerily. Oops. I get into the truck and slam the door behind me. “It restores my faith in the relationship when you follow up your angry-caveman act with that kind of sensibility.”
“Angry-caveman act?”
“Don’t make me act like one, okay? I’ll show you on Halloween. You can be Fred and I’ll be Wilma.”
“Can we get through Halloween in June before we hit the real thing? I don’t even want to think about the horror we’ll face there.”
I slump back in my seat as he turns away from the station. “If you’ve jinxed it, I’m going to kill you.”