Evelyn's dream of securing a scholarship to America's top ballet school shattered when her mother was brutally murdered during her teenage years. Determined to make a difference, she became a detective, ready to take on the world. Assigned to invest...
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Evelyn sat in the dim cab, her knees bouncing restlessly as though they carried the worry her chest could no longer contain. James's words still echoed in her mind, short, urgent, with a weight she could not ignore. Meet me at my house. I found something. He never called her on a workday. He always waited until her evenings were free. That difference alone gnawed at her. Wilson had let her leave with hardly a thought, his dismissal sharper than any blade. Normally, his indifference would have kindled Evelyn's irritation, but James's strained tone clung to her ribs and drowned everything else out.
Cold air clung to her skin from when she had fled the MC's territory in haste, the weight of Jeremiah's unanswered texts still pressing into her palm. His last message had been soaked in worry, and all she could give him back was a hollow promise: I'll explain later. Her heart ached with the urge to confide in him, but the walls of the clubhouse, with the chief prowling nearby, had not been safe for truth. By the time the clouds cracked open and the sun spilled its weak light across the streets, the cab had drawn up outside James and Emma's apartment complex. Evelyn pressed folded bills into the driver's hand, murmured thanks, and hurried up the steps, her boots beating a rhythm of nerves against the stone. The stairwell caught her breath, multiplying it into echoes that chased her to the third floor. When she stopped before the black door with James's name, her pulse thudded so loudly she feared the neighbors could hear it. Three sharp knocks, her knuckles trembling against the wood. She pulled off her police jacket as nausea curled low in her stomach. The door opened with a sudden swing.
"Come in." James's voice was steady, but his appearance told the story his words hid. He stood a few paces back, hands stuffed in the pocket of his green hoodie, blond hair disheveled as if his fingers had been clawing through it for hours. The sight sliced through Evelyn's chest. He only looked like this when something inside him refused to rest. She stepped inside, the apartment's familiar beauty wrapping around her. White walls broke beneath bold paintings that demanded attention, each one Emma's careful touch. The place smelled sweet, apple and honey candles flickered in corners, warming the copper and white kitchen they moved into.
"Is Emma home?" she asked, needing to fill the silence.
"Not today. I made sure we'd be alone for a while." James's eyes caught hers, shadowed, ringed with exhaustion. His voice tried to rise into casual, but the strain pulled it taut. He turned toward the coffee maker, shoulders set.
"Coffee?" Evelyn nodded. Her throat was too tight to form more. She lowered herself into a chair, the cool wood beneath her thighs grounding her. Papers sprawled across the table caught her gaze. She leaned forward, fingertips brushing the edge of one sheet, her eyes scanning the words that had stolen James's sleep. Each line froze the blood inside her. Names, wounds, patterns. Not wild killings, not reckless hands. She reached for another sheet, heart hammering. The deeper she read, the clearer it became: these were not random murders. They were signatures carved by a professional.
