With a few exceptions, Hartsman being one of the ones who got away,” Reed finished quietly. “Is it part of the reason you hunt him? Your own ego?”
Zach’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It’s not about my ego. It’s about my accountability. I let him get away twenty years ago. And God only knows who he’s been victimizing since.”
Guilt speared Reed. Zach was not an egotistical man and he damn well knew it. Knew him. Trusted him. Zach had been nothing but good to Reed since the day Reed walked inside the door of his house ten years before. Which was part of the reason this hurt. “Shit, I’m sorry. That was a low blow. But I’m still pissed. You should have involved me.”
Zach blew out a breath, using his index finger to rub at his bottom lip. “What good would it have done you?”
“To know that the man who fathered me might be keeping tabs on my life?” He shrugged. “Maybe I’d have watched my back more, at the very least.”
“I never once believed you were in danger, Reed. If I had—”
“You agree these dates”—he tapped at the folder—“combined with your hunches and whatever intel you’ve gathered, probably aren’t just a coincidence, right? Be straight with me.”
Zach paused, looking to the side, appearing torn. “Yes,” he said when he looked back at Reed. “I questioned it.”
“I deserved to know,” Reed said quietly.
“I’m sorry. Maybe it’s habit, protecting you from him. Protecting you from any knowledge of him.”
His anger dissipated. In a way, he understood that. Hadn’t he had a similar thought about protecting Josie and her potential reaction to hard-to-hear details about his job just ten minutes before? Zach was a natural protector, and Josie had only ever put Reed’s well-being before her own. He couldn’t stay angry at them. Still . . . he didn’t want it to happen again.
“You don’t have to protect me anymore. I’m not a kid. I’m a grown man, a good detective. I respect the hell out of your experience, Zach, but I want to be an equal.”
Zach considered him. His expression was slightly sad, though there was a glimmer of . . . respect in his dark gaze. “Okay,” he finally said. “Fair enough.”
Reed sighed. “Okay.”
Zach smiled. “All right.”
“Can I ask you one thing first?”
“Of course.”
“You said, God only knows who he’s been victimizing.” He paused, a rolling in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to his question, but he trudged forward anyway. “Is there any evidence, or any indication that Charles Hartsman has committed more crimes since he got away?”
Zach’s gaze swept over Reed’s face for a moment. “No. None.”
Reed expelled a breath, picking up the folder. “Fill me in.”
Zach stood, picking up the folder and moving to the couch where he sat down. Reed followed, sitting at the other end. “I believe my hunches are right. He was in the U.S. on those dates, and those dates coinciding with particular events in your life is too much of a coincidence. Although there haven’t been any sightings of him reported in years, and definitely not in the United States.”
Reed looked behind Zach, thinking. “Why though?” he asked after a minute. “Why would he have checked up on me? Why show up for the more notable occasions in my life? Why take that risk? What would make that worth it to him?” A psychopath incapable of caring for anyone but himself.
“He has some stake in your life,” Zach said. “I . . . can’t figure out the pathology. Neither Josie nor I are psychiatrists.” His lips tipped slightly, though he appeared troubled too.
“What about this?” Reed asked, fingering a printout that looked as though it’d come from a CPD website.
Zach glanced at it. “That’s a message left on a tipster site under Charles Hartsman’s name.”
Reed frowned. “A lead?”
“No, it’s a message for Charles. Probably a nut, or some crazy fan, you know how that works.”
Reed swept his tongue over his teeth. Yeah, he did know how that worked. How fan communities would spring up in the wake of a serial murderer’s arrest. It was a strange phenomenon he couldn’t make sense of. He picked up the printout and read it: Charlie, I know where Mimi is. She’s my sweet pea, and she did not leave. Contact me. Following that was a phone number with a local area code.
He looked up at Zach. “What does this mean?”
“No idea. Probably nothing. It caught my attention because it was