be with Brax, or if the visceral reaction I was having was because there was something special about the sniveling little shit.
Maybe both.
I turned down the heat in the car and opened the top buttons of my shirt, way too hot. I had to talk myself down. Stop thinking about Brax, get my mind back on Monet. The whole day had been a string of possible leads leading directly to dead ends on our case. Nothing added up, and the people we were calling “witnesses” hadn’t actually seen anything—they’d only handled the counterfeit cash, bought replica paintings they thought were originals from a third-party dealer, or had stumbled across one of the dead bodies Monet had left. No one had ever seen the guy, or even been in the vicinity of his crimes.
My mind spun around and around with what to do next. We still had leads, but they were sketchy at best, and the longer it took us to get through them, the more likely it was he’d kill again. The longer it took. Driving was good. The thirty-minute trip between my house and the Vanguard Tower was exactly the right amount of time for my creative brain to kick in and deliver some out-of-the-box ideas. I just had to drive, and wait…
I was about three streets from my house, tired as hell, and giving up on any hope of thinking of a big breakthrough, when my phone rang through the car speakers.
“Hello?” I answered without checking the name.
The only people who called me, ever, were Hunter, our supervisor, and my sister, Marianne. Hunter was so zonked from the desk work we’d done all day, he’d have been passed out for sure, so I was either going to be reprimanded by my boss for missing paperwork, or by my sister for not calling her last weekend.
“Hey, um, sorry, I. Shit, sorry.” The familiar voice came through the speakers and my heart stuttered.
“Brax?”
“Hey.” He half-laughed, but the tremble in his voice made my gut clench. He needed help.
“Where are you?” I immediately pulled over, ready to type an address into my GPS.
There was a long silence, and I strained to listen to any background noise to tell me where he was. The swish of tires on a wet road. A house party nearby.
He finally cleared his throat and spoke with less of a tremble. “I could use a ride.”
“Hey, I’m driving right now,” I kept my tone light and reassuring. “You called the right guy.”
He laughed, and then cut it off with a short sigh. “I know I did.”
I inhaled deeply and held it, uneasy about how much his words had made my heart skip. There was a shuffling of the phone, like he was changing ears.
“Give me the address now, Brax. I’ll come get you.” I tried to sound authoritative, but my voice wobbled. Maybe he didn’t though, because he moaned softly and listlessly read the closest street signs, his voice softer and more relaxed.
I sped. Not exactly legal without my lights on. Not that a cop would have had much to say about it if I’d flashed my badge. But I was aware I was pushing regulations to get to Brax. I was worried from the tone of his voice, and when I pulled up beside him at a bus shelter, worry fed a flash of blind rage. Even from my distance and in the dim light of the street lamp, I could see his split lip and the start of a black eye—and not just from the mascara painting his cheeks in a similar pattern to the one I’d seen at his apartment.
He hurried toward the car and stumbled, but I was already out. I rushed over, bundled him under my arm, and steadied him just as rain started to burst from the sky. He was freezing, and I looked behind him to see if he had forgotten his jacket in the bus shelter but it was empty.
I didn’t ask questions. I just got him in the car.
His hands were so shaky he could barely grab the seatbelt, so I stood by his door and buckled it for him, and then swept my eyes over him for any other signs of injury. Or assault. When I got to his face, he flashed me a smile of gratitude, and the split in his lip stretched and began bleeding.
“Ah, shit.” He touched the wound with his fingertips and his eyes widened when he pulled them away, like he’d only