The fresh night air is a shock to my system, making it feel as if everything that transpired inside the building happened a lifetime ago, to someone else.
The sight of Agent Hernandez standing beside the FBI SUV stalls my steps. “You need to stay with Kallum,” I say. “You’re in charge of watching him.”
He squares his thick shoulders. “I need to stay with you, Dr. St. James. I promised I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.” The dismal certainty etched into his expression says more than he’s voicing. He knows what went down in that office.
“Kallum made you promise?”
He shrugs. “I offered.”
I nod slowly. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
When he unlocks the SUV with the key fob, I open the passenger-side door and quickly shove the bagged weapon under the seat. I climb into the cab and reach for the seatbelt.
Hernandez slips in behind the steering wheel, casting a concerned glance my way. “Are you all—?”
“Nothing happened,” I force out to cut him off. “Kallum stopped it.”
A tense moment of silence weighs the air of the interior, but mercifully, the agent cranks the vehicle without pushing the subject.
“I don’t know about you,” I say, trying to suppress the lingering tremble in my voice, “but watching a likely serial killer beat an asshole fed nearly to death makes me crave chocolate and caffeine.”
I peek over to catch a faint smile cross his mouth. As Hernandez drives toward the diner, I pull out my phone and conduct a search for Charles Crosby, the lawyer who harassed me on the witness stand during Kallum’s trial.
Kallum said we embody the violence of the stars.
His words envelop me, evoking both comfort and fear. Kallum embodies the violence of a damn supernova—and Alister better pray I fail at getting him set free.
OceanofPDF.com
INTERLUDE
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KALLUM
The loud clang of the holding cell door unlocking fires through my viscera. My muscles coil tight around my bones.
Then Special Agent Wren Alister enters the room.
Our eyes lock, and a slow, menacing smile spreads across my face.
OceanofPDF.com
12
OceanofPDF.com
OVERMAN
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HALEN
A sickly film settles over Hollow’s Row, cloying and thick, like the ring of syrup left behind on the diner table. There’s a texture to the night, tactile, grainy. It coats my skin, making me feel unsettled, like an itch digging in beneath my flesh.
The storms may have passed, but the deceptive calm holds a dangerous charge in the air.
I’m not sure if I’m prepared for what’s brewing just beneath.
While working the case with Kallum, falling into the beguiling intricacies of his mind, it’s so easy to overlook the unstable current that flows below his cool demeanor. But it’s there, simmering, volatile, a riptide strong enough to drag you under.
A shadow scratches at the sheer, beautiful casing—that explosive part of him that’s always one unhinged heartbeat away from detonating.
Tonight, he lowered the veil, allowing me a brief glimpse of this side of him, a reminder as to the brutality he’s capable of. It’s not as simple as deleting an email to avoid the truth.
And while the sight of Kallum nearly beating Alister to death should disturb me—and, yes, it does—the more frightening realization is how badly I wanted him to do so.
Agent Hernandez sits across from me at the table, two booths away from where Kallum and I were seated the first day he joined the case. I can smell the lemon wedge hooked on the water glass in front of him, and the scent stirs a visceral reaction, an ache that rubs abrasively against my ribs, yet not deep enough to satisfy the itch.
“Watching it won’t make it ring,” Hernandez says, referring to the phone I’ve been staring at absently.
I offer a half-smile, grateful for the interruption to my disturbing thoughts. I’ve left three voicemails for Kallum’s lawyer already. With the ridiculous retainer I’m sure he requires, Charles Crosby should answer his damn phone.
Because, as I glance through the diner window at the parked SUV, keeping a doubly obsessive watch over the vehicle with stolen evidence tucked under the seat, there’s not much time to mount a defense. The lab will report the carving knife missing soon, then the calm illusion will shatter.
Tabitha the waitress approaches with our order, and I flex my hand to chase back the persistent tremble and reach up to accept the to-go cup of coffee. “Thanks,” I say to her.
She says nothing in reply, her features impassive, as she places a plate of breakfast food before the agent. When she steps away, she pauses to look back and catch my gaze.
My cellphone rings. Startled, I break away from her eyes to grab the call. I answer on a shaky breath. “Mr. Crosby, thank you for returning my message.”
“Yes, well,” he says, “I was honestly surprised to hear from you, Miss St. James.”
I rise from the booth and point to the diner entrance, coffee in hand. “I’m stepping out to take this.” Hernandez nods once, not looking up from his dish of eggs and bacon.
Pushing through the diner door, I welcome the cool hit of night air, a soothing balm to my inflamed lungs.
“So tell me,” Crosby says, “what has my client gotten himself into?”
While I launch into the difficult details, I pace the sidewalk, finding the cracks in the concrete a strange comfort. This town’s ghastly framework leeches into its inhabitants, breaking down the structure like the decomposing skeletal remains in the ravine. Kallum saw a work of art in the macabre destruction, and I wonder if that’s any different than how I view crime scenes.
I glance up at the night sky, at the dark circle that seems to rim the pale moon in eerie prelude, and I can hear Kallum whispering in my ear, calling me his moon goddess.
I shake off the phantom pang of his touch. “So, Mr. Crosby. What is your advice?” I say in conclusion.
“Halen, I am very sorry for what happened to you.” Crosby, for once, doesn’t sound patronizing, and I swallow past the ache in my throat. “You will press charges, yes? I can represent you in this matter as well.”
“I…um…” The search for words leaves my voice trailing off. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“On the contrary, my client coming to your aid works in his favor,” he says candidly. “And, of course, this FBI agent needs to be prosecuted.”
Ah, there’s the lawyer I remember. “Fine. Yes, I want to press charges.” I used my kit to collect and bag what evidence I had on my person, like skin cells scraped from beneath my nails. I bagged my clothes, grabbing a change at the hotel, where I managed to take pictures of scratches and fresh marks.
“All right. Good,” he says, and I hear him make a note. “My client has been detained for allegedly assaulting a federal agent. But has he been processed yet?”
I shake my head out of habit. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.”
He scratches out another note. “Okay good. Let’s go over a few details before I arrive in town tomorrow.”
A sudden gust of wind whips strands of my hair across my face. With a frustrated sigh, I set the paper cup on the sidewalk and dig into my pocket to retrieve the hairband. I shoulder my phone as I pull my hair into a low ponytail, my fingers rubbing the hairband in search of the seam…and my movements stall.
“I need you to have someone trusted keep an eye on Kallum,” Crosby is saying. “Just please, don’t let him talk. Mr. Locke has a bad habit of…talking.”
