“Like the discovery your department sent me just a few moments ago?” he admonishes, rubbing the back of his neck. “Apparently, your investigation isn’t complete. Unless your updated profile takes into account the markings found beneath the reed grass. Or was I supposed to receive that update from you by telepathy?”

Halen raises her chin defiantly. “It was my department’s discovery,” she says, “so it went through the proper channels—”

“What markings?” I interrupt their exchange. “Why wasn’t I told?”

Alister turns a riled expression on me. “You were in holding, and are not privy to every update. Only the ones I sanction.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” I give him my back, turning toward Halen. When she doesn’t respond, I nod. “Because of the engravings. Turnabout’s fair play, then.”

She expends a lengthy breath. “I’m not that petty to risk lives. As Agent Alister stated, you were in holding, and I had already been removed from the case.”

“You’re no longer removed,” Alister butts in. “I have a team of field agents already en route to the killing fields to start removing the reeds so the markings can be processed properly.” He glares between us, giving us each a stern, reprimanding look. “Forty-eight hours. I want a goddamn real suspect, and you both have forty-eight hours to give me a name.”

Glancing at the floor, Halen battles some internal struggle, then meets Alister’s scowl. “Yes, sir.”

My insides flame with the primal urge to make him bloody. She’s not subservient to him.

As Halen heads for the door, he adds, “Oh, Dr. St. James, one more thing.” She hovers in the doorway. “Since Dr. Verlice has given his notice and has officially quit the unit, you’ve been assigned as Locke’s psychiatrist.”

“Agent Alister, that is not my area of special—”

“Do you not have a doctorate?” He cuts her off, issuing his rhetorical question before he turns toward the desk printer. “Then put it to use. With the urgency of this case and time constraint, as you yourself underscored, we’re utilizing all our resources.”

Alister holds out the printed pages to us, a thin stack in each hand. “So we’re all on the same page, here’s the Bureau’s official lab results.”

Resigned, Halen accepts the report and exits the office, not giving Alister the opportunity to bark another command. I take my copy and curiously look it over.

• Organs and body parts were removed from bodies within forty-eight hours of discovery of the crime scenes. No signs they were stored or frozen. Denotes offender is holding victims in nearby vicinity of the crime scenes.

• No drugs or foreign substances discovered in organ and skin tissues.

• Stag/deer analysis. Inefficient volume provided and/or corrupted saliva in discovery for testing purposes. Casts prepared of teeth imprint to search in databases.

• Hemlock. Confirmed species: Cicuta douglasii . The cicutoxin results in delirium, abdominal pain, nausea, convulsions, vomiting, and severe seizures within less than an hour of ingestion, most often leading to death.

“You got something else to add, Locke?” Alister asks.

I fold the pages and slip them into the inseam of my suit blazer, then I let my facial features rest in their natural, callous state. Alister notices the difference in the shift.

“Why not spotted hemlock, the species of hemlock that killed Socrates?” I ask, reasoning. “Would be more historically accurate and true to the offender’s theme.”

Alister only stares blankly at me. “I’m not a botanist, Locke.”

I nod slowly. “This species of water hemlock? It’s the most poisonous, and one of the most lethal in the world.” In other words, the offender deviated from his narrative for a reason. “I’d be careful who I offend in this town, Alister. After all, the suspect is most likely a local, and the locals are the ones preparing your meals for the time being.”

His face flushes, anger protruding the veins in his neck. “You think you’re smarter than everyone else,” he says, gauging me with narrowed eyes. “I see how you look at her.”

A current of rage simmers in my bloodstream, and I drop all pretense. “I see how you look at her.”

His jaw sets, and he nods slowly. “Get the hell out of my office.”

I hold his incensed gaze with a smug smile. Then I leave, knowing we’re far from done.

I reach the front doors of the building in time to catch Halen’s low ponytail disappearing into the crowd of media camped out in front of the police station. She weaves a path through a throng of reporters, rolling her suitcase behind her.

Carving my way through the crowd, I catch up to her on the sidewalk. “I think I’m in need of a session. I have some issues to work through, Dr. St. James.”

“I’m not your doctor,” she says, picking up her pace. “That would be unethical.”

My dark thoughts are full of how unethical we could be together.

I turn my thumb ring a few times, then: “Your profile didn’t have any mention of The Three Metamorphosis.” I glance over at her, she walks faster. “You didn’t give the locals any of the details.”

“They don’t need all the details. That would only muddle the facts. They just need to know the description of the offender to locate a suspect.”

“Aren’t you curious about this suspect?” I ask, my stride matching hers.

She reaches the paint-chipped door of the hotel, and I open the door for her. She hesitates a moment before walking through. “Devyn is smart and capable,” she says. “If the hermit is their guy, she’ll know what to do.”

“If it is him, he won’t be at the mansion. You know this as well as I do. He’s already descended from his cave, he’s walking in the steps of Zarathustra. There’s only one way to draw him out.”

“I’m not interested in any more of your methods.”

“Because you’re scared to confront the truth of what’s between us.”

Halted at the stairs, Halen stares at the patterned, threadbare carpet. Then she says, “There’s nothing between us,” as she picks up her suitcase and starts up the steps.

I wait until we reach the landing before I challenge her. “The taste of you lingering on my tongue says differently.”

Her beautiful face flushes with the palest hue of pink. “I know your ego won’t allow you to accept this, but you’re not special, Kallum,” she rebounds. “I’ve gotten carried away before while putting myself in the mind frame of an offender. And that’s all last night was.”

“You really do lie so pretty, sweetness.”

Her features draw into a serious expression. “It was your goal to debase me,” she says. “You wanted to see me squirm and to humiliate me. You got what you came here for. I got what I needed to finish the profile. So let’s drop the acts now. We’re working this case for another forty-eight hours, then it’s over.”

“Then you can run. Before that, though, maybe we should check out the markings at the crime scene. The ones you kept from me.”

She turns toward her hotel room “You can do whatever you want, Kallum. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“And where are you going to do that?”

She reaches into her pocket for the key, muttering with a breathy curse she’d already turned it in at the desk.

I lean against the doorframe and hold up the room key I swiped from Stoll. “I have your key right here, roomie.”

She directs a glance down the hall, as if considering her options, a weariness sinking her shoulders. Then she snatches the key from my hand. I enter my room as she enters hers, meeting her in the open, adjourning doorway.

“I prefer to fuck with the lights on,” I say. “What’s your preference?”

Hand braced to the doorknob, she says, “Goodnight, Kallum.”

As she swings the door shut, I catch it, keeping it wedged open with my shoulder. A smile curls my lips. “Sweet dreams, Halen.”

Heated tension gathers in the narrow doorway before I allow her to close the door. I hear the rattle of the chain as she slides the lock into place.