It also takes me seven days in Houston to find the little girl, who wasn’t kidnapped at all. Her parents were trying to get more from a rich grandparent. Returning home with a sense of accomplishment, and no contact with anyone at the Austin PD but Chuck, I’m also returning to the news that my apartment has been sold and the closing will be in three weeks. The time to hunt for a house is now. Therefore, my first day back in Austin is spent house hunting, which, not intentionally, leads me to a cute little white two-story stand-alone home not far from Wade’s house.
It’s near nine when I finally finish up at the grocery store and head home, where Wade will soon join me to discuss my future over takeout food. While I wait for his arrival, I open a bottle of red wine, fill a glass, and I’m not sure why, but I find myself drawn to the computer by the door connected to my security camera. I disconnect it and carry it with me to the couch to offer it a quick perusal, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps because this is the first time in a week that I’m back home and in the aftermath of all things The Poet.
I’m just pulling up last week’s feed when there’s a knock on my door, which wouldn’t be possible if the apartment had installed coded entry panels as promised, but they have not. With the computer disconnected from the door, I check out my visitor the old-school way. “Who is it?”
“Evan.”
Evan? What the heck. I open the door to find him dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and on the surface, he appears relaxed and casual. But there is nothing relaxed about the hard lines of his face and jaw right now. “Why are you here and how do you even know where I live?”
“The chief gave me your address.”
“The chief? What the heck is going on, Evan?”
“Can I come in?”
I remain planted in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
“You need to let me inside. It’s important.”
I don’t trust him. I don’t like him. I want to get rid of him, which is why I back up to allow him the space he needs to enter, but not much more. He steps into my apartment and shuts the door. I plant my feet again and fold my arms in front of me.
“He’s back,” he says.
I go still and force a breath before I ask, “Who’s back?”
“The Poet.”
“I’m not a part of that investigation anymore, but the last time I checked, he was missing half his head. He’s dead.”
“Newman wasn’t The Poet.”
A ball of tension knots my belly. “And you know this how?”
“Because he’s not just back, he’s asking for you.”
I blink at this craziness. “What are you talking about?”
He offers me his phone, and I stare down at a photo of a gloved hand holding a piece of paper. On that paper is a quote from the poet Robert Hayden:
Naked, he lies in the blinded room
Chain-smoking, cradled by drugs, by jazz
as never by any lover’s cradling flesh.
The word “jazz” sets my heart racing.
“Clearly that message was left for you,” Evan says.
My gaze jerks to his. “This was after Newman died?”
“Tonight. The crime scene is active right now. We want you to take a look. Now. Right now.”
The Poet wasn’t Newman. Or at least he wasn’t working alone. God, I knew. On some level, I knew, but I was off my game, riding a wave of my father’s sins that made me hate him even as I grieved him. “I’m not with the department anymore. I’m not a part of this.”
“You don’t have a choice but to be a part of this,” he counters.
“I absolutely have a choice.”
“The Poet asked for you. How many more is he going to kill before you answer?”
“That’s a shitty thing to say and you know it.”
“It’s the truth.”
My teeth grind on the real truth. “I thought he was Newman. Why would anyone trust me to help now?”
“You weren’t wrong about Newman. He has sick-as-fuck child porn on his computer. He beat his wife. He would have eventually abused his children. You hyper-focused because you sensed his evil.”
But not that familiar evil. I should have known Newman wasn’t him. If I could turn back time—
“The chief wants you to come back, even as a consultant.”
“The chief didn’t even ask me to stay the day I left.”
“Does it matter?” He flips through the photos on his phone and shows me a picture of a naked young woman tied to a chair. “She even looks like you. He’s coming for you unless you get him first. I’ll support you this time. We all will.”
She looks like me.
I’m reminded of the day Lang said the same of Becky Smith, and that ended up meaning nothing, absolutely nothing. But The Poet is another bag of snakes. He is obsessed with me. He will come for me. And I can’t be the lesser me of the last few months to survive and take him down.
The door opens and Wade walks in, still wearing his work suit for the day, delicious scents coming off the takeout bag in his hand. “Why are you here, Evan?” He glances at me. “What’s going on?”
I lift my chin toward Evan’s phone. Evan flips a screen on his device and then hands it to Wade. “Two back-to-back photos,” he instructs.
Wade glances at the first photo, swipes with his thumb, and then eyes me. “The Poet wasn’t Newman.”
“But she wasn’t wrong about Newman,” Evan quickly says again. “We had plenty of reasons to lock him away, and I suspect he killed himself because he knew we were onto him.”
I offer up a hard rejection. “He didn’t kill himself. I tried to tell the captain that and he wouldn’t listen.”
Wade sets the takeout bag on the coffee table, and the three of us form a circle of conversation. “Did The Poet kill him?” he asks.
“The Poet isn’t messy, and Newman died messily,” I say. “That said, if he did it, he broke form. And I’m not saying he didn’t. He’s smart. If he broke form, he had a reason. As for why he might have killed Newman, if he did? Either he was taking attention The Poet wanted himself, or Newman was part of an agenda we don’t understand.”
“What we all understand is that he’s obsessed with you,” Evan says. “We want you back and you need to come back and finish what The Poet started.”
“I’ll make this easy for everyone,” Wade interjects. “I’m claiming jurisdiction. And, since Sam is now on contract with the FBI, I’m placing Sam in charge of the case.” He glances at me. “If you want the case.”