London

Two months ago, I watched officials dig up the bodies.

Nine decomposed young women were exhumed from the lifeless garden and surrounding corn field behind my house.

I watched the machinery roll in, the metal claw tear into the earth. My backyard became mounds of dry dirt; the land having died long ago. I remember coughing, choking on the dusty air. There was some part of me that felt shame, wondering if I was breathing in particles of dead girls.

Then I led Agent Nelson and the forensics crew into the basement, where I secretly discovered a plucked clover. And the shame evaporated.

I knew that Grayson had been there to remove any incriminating evidence of me from the basement. What little they might discover would only corroborate my story. My father’s blood still stained the cement. The story that cellar told matched my own.

I realized that’s why Grayson wanted the details of my crime. Having me go over and over what transpired back then. I presumed it was for his own gratification—but he also needed to know what to remove from the scene so I wouldn’t be implicated.

Grayson and I…we were apart, but we were working in tandem. Our moves choreographed and calculated, the rest of the world unable to follow our lead. We were above them. We were apart, but it was the closest I ever felt to another person.

I stare at the house. Rotten and decaying. The windows shuttered with planks nailed to chipped siding. I cross my arms, deciding my childhood home looks far more abandoned than when I was last here. Then, the yard was crawling with forensic techs and law enforcement. Federal agents infested the tiny farmhouse like the termites I see fluttering around the exterior.

Yellow crime scene tape marks off the front yard, stretching the perimeter. In the back, empty graves scatter the field. No one will fill them in.

Lydia Prescott doesn’t belong here. Not the way London Noble does.

I fought the connection so hard, for so long, but the blood soaking this earth stains my bones. Swims in my marrow. It’s a part of me just as much as Grayson.

We’re connected.

I feel Agent Nelson’s presence before he’s close enough to speak.

“You always know where to find me,” I say, keeping my gaze on the house.

“There’s no reason to stay here,” he says, expertly dodging my accusation. “The state isn’t releasing Mia. Not yet.”

I wrap my arms tighter around my midsection. The tall pines cast a dark, looming shadow across the house, their branches stretching across the sky like spindly spider legs. Just like when I was a child.

“What are you looking for, London?”

Nelson still refers to me by that name. It’s similar enough, isn’t it? Lydia/London. I can see how Malcolm might’ve chosen it. He always told me that my mother named me after her favorite soap opera before she died.

For the first time, I wonder who’s buried in the unmarked grave in the Mize cemetery that I used to visit.

I never had a mother.

“Nothing,” I finally respond as I turn away from the house. I meet Nelson’s squinted gaze. “Let’s go.”

We make a slow progression toward our vehicles. His standard FBI-issued SUV, and my rental sedan. What was I looking for? An answer? A clue? Another piece of the puzzle?

Grayson won’t return here.

He’s a master puzzler, and he’s already figured out every secret kept at this place. There’s nothing more to tell, or uncover.

“I had blond hair as a kid,” I say suddenly.

The agent sends me a guarded look. “I think everyone does. Don’t they?”

I think back on my dyed-blond hair. Platinum blond. I had believed that I wanted it—that I begged my father for it. But like most of my memories, this one is skewed. “Yes, but mine was very blond. He dyed my hair up until I was twelve. I guess by that point, he figured no one would recognize me.”

Thirteen is the age of accountability. I don’t recall Malcolm ever having been religious, but this has also become an abstract belief by society in general. Simply meaning a person becomes of age to grasp right and wrong.

Like the tree of knowledge that bore the forbidden fruit, the man who raised me was preparing to offer me an awareness that would transform me from a child into a woman in his eyes. He’d grown too attached to the little girl with blond hair. It wasn’t an emotional attachment; Malcolm wasn’t capable of forming a parental bond. It was an association of familiarity. A psychopath can learn this behavior in order to employ it.

Especially on their victims.

Lydia is forming this familiarity—this bond—with a sister she never knew. Lydia could love Mia. Lydia would’ve been capable of the deepest love.

She doesn’t belong here.

Nelson walks me to the rental and braces his hand on the roof over the driver-side door. “It’s not your fault.”

I look up at him. Moving into his shadow to block the setting sun, I lean against the car door. “Why do you assume I think it is?”

“I’ve worked more cases than I know how to count, London. And almost always, in this type of circumstance, the victim believes they should’ve known. They go over the details of their past, trying to understand how they could’ve been so blind, when the horrid truth is suddenly so clear.”

I shake my head. “That’s not what I’m doing.” Not entirely. On some level, I knew—I had to have known. What I’m trying to understand is why I waited so long to do anything about it.

Could I have saved Lydia before it was too late?

Nelson brushes my hair over my shoulder. He uses this move often. Then he usually leaves, but not today. Maybe it’s being isolated so far away from civilization, or the fact that we’re so near the place of my turmoil, but he grasps my neck. Runs his thumb across my bottom lip, his gaze following the slow perusal over my mouth.

Then he leans in.

“Agent,” I say, my tone severe as I call him by title to trigger his professionalism.

I turn my head just as he makes an attempt to kiss me, and I glimpse the flash of hurt on his face before I’m again staring at the house.

He exhales audibly as he releases me and steps away. “That was inappropriate.” He acknowledges his action, but doesn’t apologize for it.

“Yes, it was,” I agree. This charade can only go so far.

I’m supposed to be gathering information from him, using his resources to discover the identity of the copycat killer. Instead, I’ve gotten derailed, lost. Wrapped up in my own side story and pain.

If Nelson proves to be of no use for my objective, then it’s time to foster a new connection with someone more valuable.

His eyes nail me with an incensed glare. Nelson—like most men—doesn’t take rejection well. Within seconds, hurt morphs into anger. I’ve wounded him.

“I should go,” I say, but he doesn’t move. He continues to barricade me from the car.

“So I’ve been imagining it,” he says. He works open his suit button, mounting his hands on his hips. “I’m perceptive, being it’s part of my job. And I’ve perceived your interest, London. Or is that just your way of diverting me?”

When his adrenaline drops, and he’s had time to reflect, he’ll feel remorse for his actions—or at least he should. That remorse will transform into guilt, and guilt will further cloud his observations of me. Saying or doing anything in this moment to further provoke him will only make him feel justified later.

I say nothing and dig out my keys from my pocket. I try to move around him. His hands form steely bands around my biceps, holding me in place.

Alarm flares within me. “Let me go.”

After a brief standoff, he removes his hands. He turns around and pushes a hand into his hair. “I’m sorry. I thought… I don’t know.”

I loosen my grip on the keys. I had fisted the key ring, three keys braced between the slats of my fingers to form a weapon. If Nelson noticed, he doesn’t let on. I insert the one for the car and open the door. “This has been a strenuous case,” I say. “With the recent murders in Maine, I can’t imagine the pressure you’re under. I apologize if I’ve misled you in any way.”

His light chuckle forces my spine straight.

“Don’t shrink me.” He refastens his suit jacket. “I’m a man, too. Not just a federal agent.”

I get inside the car, safely removing myself from his proximity. “Your fixation with me is a direct result of your obsession to catch Grayson.”

I start to pull the door shut, but he catches it before it latches. “What did you say?”

My pulse thunders in my ears. “Your perceived feelings for me are a correlation of—”

“You called him Grayson.”

I did, and there’s no backpedalling. I stare into Agent Nelson’s sharp gaze and wonder whom has been deceiving whom. Was his advance a moment ago true desire, or a rehearsed method to lower my defenses? Either way, the damage is done.

“He was my patient,” I clarify. “And I was shaken…just now.” The explanation is weak, resorting to demure, skittish female versus oppressive male. But it seems to work.

Nelson’s expression softens. “I’m sorry,” he says again, then sighs heavily. “You’re right. It’s the case. And that fucking Foster.” He frowns. “Sorry.”

“No need,” I say, allowing him to use the excuse I provided to restore his ego.

“He’s constantly getting in the way. I think it was Foster who leaked the DNA evidence to the press.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “From your observations, do you consider him unhinged? Your assessment could help secure a restraining order to get Foster off my crime scenes.”

Truthfully, in this moment, I find both men to be bordering obsession and possibly unhinged in their pursuit of Grayson. But I say, “It’s difficult to evaluate someone properly with only sporadic encounters, agent.”

He nods, but he’s not finished. “And Sullivan is escalating. The murders have been spaced out until now, similar in nature. If he’s devolving so close…” He trails off, then looks at me. “He’s too close to you.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t in danger.”

He measures his response. “Let me take you back.”

This is the first time he’s spoken to me extensively about the killings in Rockland. The agent could be concerned for me, worried that Grayson will make an attempt to see me…or worse. Or he’s getting anxious. Knowing I’m his only real link to Grayson and not wanting me out of his sight for precisely that reason.

I grip the steering wheel with one hand, my other clamped around the door handle. “My plane leaves in less than an hour. I think it’s best for our professional relationship if I get on that plane.”

His gaze goes to the spot where he glimpsed the bruise on my neck before. “Has Sullivan tried to make contact with you?”

My features purse in bewilderment. “If he had, you’d have been the first to know.”

He studies me for a moment and then nods. “I’ll make sure your detail is at the airport for your arrival.”

“Thank you, Agent Nelson.”

He shuts the car door, watches me drive away. I glance in the rearview mirror to see him standing with his arms crossed, a formidable silhouette against the grim backdrop of my past.

I could’ve lied to him. I could’ve spouted my typical excuse, using my patients as the reason I need to get back to my practice quickly. I probably should have, allowing his ego to mend further.

But it’s time Agent Nelson and I stop all pretense.

He never asked me directly about the rape examination after I was taken to the hospital. The results were put in my file, and I’m sure he read those results.

The test was inconclusive. Proving that I’d neither been coerced by Grayson during my abduction, nor that I hadn’t.

At the time, I thought the agent simply deduced that, based on Grayson’s MO, a violation against a victim like that was extremely outside his methods. It was highly unlikely, and so the exam therefor gave credence to my statement where I affirmed my abductor had not sexually violated me.

But then, there are times like now, where I wonder if Nelson questions the results—wondering if my slip of the tongue in saying Grayson’s name with such familiarity reveals a shared intimacy with my patient. Not coerced in the least.

I turn onto the airport exit off the highway.

The truth is, I’m a doctor. That exam was botched right from the start. It’s not difficult to do if you know how. Unfortunately, Agent Nelson is intelligent enough to come to this conclusion.