Brett followed Paige down the hallway to the sleep-drawing room. He wasn’t sure exactly what he thought she was going to show him that triggered her episode this morning, but what he found was much, much worse.

It was Paige.

He swallowed his panic at seeing her features drawn in such striking realism. In the picture she was lying at an awkward angle at the bottom of a set of stairs. Blood dripped from her nose, a piece of jagged wood clenched in one fist, the other curled loosely by her face. Her eyes stared out into nothingness.

She was very obviously dead.

A vile curse slipped from Brett’s lips as he walked closer to the image.

Closer didn’t make him feel any better.

Paige stood in the corner, about as far as she could get from the drawing and still be in the room.

“You okay?” he asked. The last thing she needed was another repeat of her waking coma. Although now he understood why her brain had shut down to such a degree. Her mind had been protecting itself from the most traumatic drawing yet.

“Yeah, I’m just keeping my distance from it.”

Brett didn’t blame her. He wanted to keep his distance from it too. From the picture itself and everything it signified.

He turned and faced Paige. “That,” —he jerked his thumb towards the picture— “is not going to happen. Do you hear me?”

“All the other pictures did.”

“Not all of them. I’m still in hopes that we’re going to find the last lady alive. She isn’t dead or we would’ve identified her like the other women. So, maybe everyone you draw isn’t an actual victim. Maybe they’re just people he thinks about.”

But there could be no doubt Paige was connected with the killer.

“I hope so.”

Brett walked over and wrapped her in his arms. “But you can believe I’m not going to let this guy get to you.”

He felt her nod against his chest, but she didn’t say anything.

“Also, we should take into account that you spent hours looking over your drawings last night. Poring over them in a way you’d never done before.”

“So?” Her voice was small, not combative at all.

“So, maybe that got into your psyche. The fact that we spent time talking about how you should’ve been one of the victims. Maybe this is just your mind’s way of expressing survivor’s guilt.”

“I guess.”

Brett prayed that was true. But the way her mind had completely shut down —trapping Paige in the dark? Brett didn’t think so.

Either way, Paige needed a break from all of this. She’d done what she could and now he needed to shield her from the rest. That he could and would do.

He and Alex, and probably the Feds, would figure out who the killer was. The man didn’t know they were on to him, so didn’t know to be more cautious. Plus, they had time. Another payday wasn’t coming up for over a week.

A phone call from Alex a few minutes later proved Brett wrong.

“We’ve got another victim, Wagner.”

“Is it—?” he didn’t even get the full question out.

“The lady from Paige’s drawings? Unfortunately, yes.”

Brett tried to keep the conversation from Paige, but one glance at her face told him she was aware of what was going on. Shit.

“She was found in Salem. Name’s Denise Rubio. High school science teacher.”

“Was she stabbed?”

Brett could hear the tightness in Alex’s voice. “Yes. Fits the pattern just like we were discussing.”

Brett glanced at Paige again. She’d gone white and was leaning heavily against the wall. He didn’t blame her. This now meant every single woman she’d drawn had ended up dead. He tightened his grip on the phone desperate to find a reason Paige wouldn’t be next on the list.

“How long has Denise Rubio been dead?”

“Coroner says less that twenty-four hours. She already had a crap ton of people looking for her, especially when she didn’t show up for work today.”

“But it’s not a payday.”

“I don’t know why he deviated, man. All I know is that this is definitely the same woman, same position, same brutality as what Paige drew. It’s the same guy.”

Brett knew it. “I’m with Paige right now. I can’t leave her. She’s having some… issues.” There was no way in hell he was leaving her without knowing for sure the blackness wasn’t going to drag her back under.

He felt her hand on his back.

“I’ll be okay,” she whispered.

He wrapped the arm not holding the phone around her, pulling her to him.

“No,” he said simply. He wasn’t leaving her. Not tonight.

“That’s fine,” Alex responded. “We have an appointment with the Salem detectives tomorrow. They were pretty surprised to hear from me since they thought it was just an isolated incident.”

“Ameling is going to skin us alive if we mention this theory to Salem PD.”

“Let’s see how far we can get without mentioning it. Because if we have to bring up Paige’s pictures this is all going to get ugly real fast.”

That was the damn truth. “It’s not an option.”

“It may be our only option, Brett. We can’t keep letting women die. What happens when Paige draws another picture?”

He didn’t want to have this conversation in front of her. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow. I’ll be in first thing.”

“Work with her on alibis. Make sure she knows where she was on the dates of the deaths. It will go a long way if she has to be brought in for questioning again. And tell her to keep that lawyer’s number handy.”

Brett didn’t want Paige anywhere near the station. Her mental state was fragile enough. But he knew there might not be any way around it.

Like it or not, she was their only link to the killer.