“Naomi. You have to tell the cops. Call Bishop. Let her know—”
“No. I know it’s the smart thing. I know it’s the logical thing and probably the moral thing, but no. I can’t. And you can’t. Please. There’s too much at stake. Too much that could go wrong.”
“You can’t keep it quiet forever.”
“But I can until I have the answers,” I said. “I swear to God, Ethan, as soon as I know who’s responsible for all of this, I’ll hand everything we have over to the police. But I don’t trust them. They got the wrong man before. And Liv died.”
“You don’t know if Liv’s death is connected.”
“How could it not be?” I paced. He watched me, eyes dark with concern. “Either the person who attacked me is trying to cover his tracks, or dear AJ is out for revenge.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions. You have no reason to think Stahl’s son is after you.”
“That letter—”
“There’s a big difference between wanting answers and wanting revenge,” Ethan pointed out. “There aren’t any threats in that letter. Only questions.”
“I ruined his life.”
“Having a serial killer for a father ruined his life,” Ethan replied.
“Except he wasn’t a serial killer, was he?”
“Don’t go down that road. Stahl murdered those women.”
“You can’t be sure of that. No one can except Stahl, and he’s dead.”
“I’m sure,” Ethan insisted. “And even if he wasn’t, none of this is your fault. You were a child. Nobody protected you. Not the way they should have.”
“Do you believe that? Or do you just want to?”
He guided me toward him, more invitation than insistence. “You need to slow down, Naomi. You need to rest.”
I let him gather me in, his hands shifting to my waist. I leaned my brow against his, letting out a long, shuddering breath. “You keep saying that. But I don’t think I know how to rest,” I said.
“I knew that about you the moment we met,” he said. “We aren’t going to get anywhere spinning wild theories. We need to start at the beginning. Go back to the attack.”
“But the attack wasn’t the beginning,” I said. “Persephone was the beginning.”
He nodded. “We found her. Now it’s time to find out what happened to her. And we will. But first, sleep. You’ll be safe. I’ll be here.” He brushed my hair back from my forehead, the motion delicate. I didn’t want to like Ethan Schreiber. I didn’t want to trust him. But I needed to.
Sometimes, surrender was the kindest thing of all.
* * *
I dreamed I was in my father’s house. I was a child, and something was hunting me. I could hear it breathing behind me. I ran through winding corridors of bulging bags and mildew-rimed boxes, trying to find the door, but they went on and on and on, and the corridors became paths among the trees. I slid beneath the lip of the boulder and tumbled into Persephone’s bony arms, and they wrapped around me tighter and tighter as the wolves outside howled in hunger.
And then I woke, shuddering out of the dream. It took me a moment to remember why I was in Ethan’s room. He was at the desk with his laptop open. No, with my laptop open.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, thrashing my way free of the blankets.
He looked up with a hint of guilt. “I’m tracking your phone. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Oh.” I should have thought of that. Blame it on the head trauma. I wrapped the coverlet around me and stood next to him. He had the Track My Phone page open, but all it showed was a last location—the hotel.
“He must have turned it off. But if he switches it back on, we’ll know where,” Ethan said.
“How did you log in?” I asked. I was hardly a security whiz, but I did have everything password protected.
“Your password for the phone was stored on your browser,” he said. “I guessed your laptop password. Took me a few tries, and I locked myself out twice, but I got it. Artemis—that was your goddess, right?”
“Cass picked it,” I said. “Probably not the most secure.”
“It is in the book,” he acknowledged. “I would have just asked you, but—”
“But you didn’t want to wake me up,” I said. It made sense, but it still made me feel uneasy. An intruder had rifled through my files, and the fact that he was a friend didn’t make it less unsettling. He’d brought all my luggage in, too, leaving it by the wall. I should be grateful for that, too—I shouldn’t have left my expensive gear out in the car overnight. I should be. I wasn’t.
“I’ve been thinking about what we know, and what we don’t,” Ethan said. “I still think that the most useful thing to pursue is Persephone—Jessi Walker.”
“What about Junior?” I asked, shaking off my unease. He was just trying to help.
He sighed. “I can keep looking, but he’s done a pretty thorough job of vanishing,” Ethan said.
“If I could just see a picture of him, I’d know if it was him,” I said.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he assured me. “In the meantime, I think we need to make a rule. No going anywhere alone. He could have killed you.”
“He didn’t, though,” I said. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Did it mean he hadn’t killed Liv? Or was it just because I’d caught him by surprise? Ethan was right. We didn’t know how to find answers about my mystery man, not yet. The questions we knew how to ask were about Jessi. Although I did have one lead.
Oscar.
But talking to Oscar would mean Ethan finding out about the worst decision I’d ever made. It would change things. The disgust I felt at myself—he’d feel that, too.
“You should get yourself cleaned up,” Ethan was saying. “You look—”
I held up a warning finger. “If you ever want me to ill-advisedly hop into bed with you again, you will stop talking,” I said.
“Stunning. Truly stunning,” he course-corrected. I rolled my eyes.
“Very convincing.”
I commandeered the laptop long enough to email my engagement-shoot clients, letting them know I’d had a family emergency and had to reschedule. Then I showered, cleaning tenderly around my various injuries. I was moving like a geriatric patient, shuffling and hunching, and the hot water did little to ease my tightly wound muscles, but I at least looked less like an accident victim by the time I emerged from the shower. As I dried off, Ethan’s muffled voice filtered in. He was talking to someone.
“… longer than I expected. No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just doing some research.” Who was he talking to? “No, you don’t want to know, because it always upsets you. No. No. Yes. Mom—”
I relaxed a bit and then scolded myself. Who did I think he would be talking to? My initial reaction had been suspicion, but that didn’t make any sense. If he was talking to someone nefarious he wouldn’t take the call while I was a cheap hollow-core door away.
I stepped out, drying my hair, and he gave me an apologetic look as he continued talking. “It’s my job. I like it. I know you don’t get it, but I really don’t want to have this conversation with you right now. I promise you I am fine. I’ll come visit soon. Okay. Give my love to George and the girls. Love you, Mom. Bye.” He hung up and sagged.