As soon as Richie showed up, I’d left the house. We hadn’t had the talk Andy wanted to the night before, but I’d wanted to get my head straight before I tried to explain everything. Andy had argued, wanting to come with me today, but it was just a few errands and a stop to pick up the information I’d put in a request for. Unfortunately, the head of the squad had retired a few months before.

I stared across a desk littered with empty, crushed paper coffee cups. The detective in the cheap suit and greasy combover was trying to bust my balls about chain of command. I never thought I’d throw out Green’s name as a backup. He had told me whatever I needed, and I didn’t know how important these files were, but my gut said I had to look at them.

Finally, the files were given to me after a big show of signing a bullshit form. I barely made it into the hallway of the basement of the precinct where Cold Case was located before I dropped the file box on a chair. According to the search parameters, a list of fifty cases came up. I was sure a serial murderer with that many kills would’ve come under scrutiny, but I had to go through each one. I didn’t know how I felt about this leading back to Mikey, and possibly Finn.

I respected Finn, even as a criminal he had a code about what he would and wouldn’t allow.

As I thumbed through the files in the box the beat of my heart picked up, and I could hear it echoing in my ears. The thrill of the hunt was back. That adrenaline rush I lived with for years. I couldn’t deny that I was addicted to it, and this aspect of my work is what I’d missed the most.

Even as I felt myself succumb to the old spell there was one thing troubling me. I wasn’t happy about the plan Andy came up with, but I couldn’t disagree with the validity of it. Chasing shadows would only get us so far. We needed something bold that would draw the deadly partners out of the dark. The disorder of their new pattern proved they were on the edge, but I still didn’t understand what that had to do with me.

Yeah, I had enemies, no cop made it through their career without collecting a few. I just wasn’t all that comfortable with setting Andy up as bait. He wasn’t a client. What he was, I wasn’t quite sure. We’d become so mired in the case and the unpredictability of it that he and I hadn’t discussed it.

I put the top back on the box so that I could get home to Andy. The sting had to be planned down to the smallest detail and because it was Andy, I was even more cautious. I’d made a few stops before I’d headed to the precinct. I wondered what he’d say about the vest I’d bought for him.

The one thing I didn’t want to do was make Andy more fearful than he already was, and I needed to give him his life back. We hadn’t discussed what would happen after the case was over, but I didn’t want to let him go. The case, Andy, the what-ifs, all the unknowns were a fucked-up maelstrom of madness, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I returned to my car and stowed the box in the trunk.

Every decision I made as I drove back home was colored by what I thought was best for Andy. I pulled into the garage and hit the remote to close the door. I pushed a weary sigh through my compressed lips and got out of my car. I retrieved the box and bags, then headed inside.

When I walked through the back door, I smiled at the sight of Andy and the welcoming look on his beautiful face. I set everything on the table and leaned in to kiss him. His lips gave perfectly under mine.

“Hey, did you get everything you needed?” Andy asked as he wrapped his arms around my waist.

I rubbed his back and nodded. “I’m going to send Richie home. I know I kinda left you in the dark so we’re going to talk.”

“Okay.”

I hated that I caused the nervousness in his voice I gave him one more kiss and then headed to the living room to find Richie staring at the boards.

“Hey, man.”

“You know, all the shit I’ve done and seen…shit like this, I just can’t get my head around it.”

“Your humanity is showing.”

“Fuck you, Clancy. You and your man good?” Richie asked as he stood.

“Yeah, tell Bradford that we’ll get together tomorrow and get a plan in place.”

I’d put off the talk with Bradford that morning only because I knew he would agree with Andy’s idea. Yeah, I was more cautious than my former boss, but I’d lived under the weight of different rules since I became a cop. Sometimes I bent them, and I’d admit that. Yet I tried leave my old life behind.

“I know this…I know that kid in their means something to you, but we gotta do it. He ain’t like us, he shouldn’t live looking over his shoulder.”

Richie slapped me on the back and then left without giving me a chance to respond. I’d always had a poker face. No one could ever tell what I was thinking. Richie had known me too long for secrets to exist between us.

“Richie looked funny when he left.”

I turned at the sound of Andy’s voice.

“I know you have a lot of questions, and I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about with who Mikey is?”

As Andy took a seat on the couch, I closed the distance to lower onto the coffee table. I curved my hands around the back of his calves.

I took a minute to gather my thoughts. “Just a small-town kid in a bad situation. Coming to the city to find a better life.”

“Were you involved with him?”

“No. I just had a bit of a soft spot for him. Daniels liked to give me shit over the extra attention I paid some of the street kids. Said it looked bad with me being gay. I didn’t announce that shit at work, but I sure as fuck didn’t hide it. That’s not important now.

“Mikey eventually got off the street and joined a service. It was safer for everyone, or so he’d assured me. And like I said, Mikey called me when a date went wrong. It took some doing but I got him to file a report, but after that I sent him home. I wanted so much to close that case.”

“Ray, I’m sure you did everything you could. But why—”

He paused like he was trying to figure out how to phrase the question, but I sensed what he wanted to know.

“Most serials escalate over time, and Mikey was pretty carved up, but he survived. I think Mikey was the first, or at least an early victim. Our killer hadn’t reached the point where he got off on the kill yet. Side by side, these kids could be siblings. When I called the Cold Case squad I asked them to look for cases that fit Mikey’s and the current ones. I need to know when he’d escalated from torture to murder. The kids that he’s picking, they’re street smart and know how to handle their own.”

“What would any of this have to do with you?”

“I don’t know, baby, I really don’t. I picked up all the files and I’m going to go through them, see how many of them have me as the lead. In no way can I figure out how someone could hate me so much they’d take it out on innocents. And it’s fucking killing me.”

I lowered my chin to my chest and inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly as I tried to calm myself. The guilt was too much, and I didn’t know what to do with it. All I could do was find these fuckers and get them off the streets.

“This isn’t your fault.”

I didn’t look up and kept my gaze focused on Andy’s lap. I tested the soft texture of his well-worn jeans under the rough pads of my fingers. I needed something to ground me and bring me back to the Ray I used to be—the one I understood.

“No matter how much I tell myself that, it doesn’t bring those kids back.”

“What about using me as bait?”

“Fuck, I don’t want to do that. I promised to keep you safe and putting you in danger doesn’t sit right with me. But the rational part of me knows that we have to do something big to draw them out.”

“You’ll be there to watch me; I trust you.”

Andy sounded so sure of me, and I hoped I didn’t fail him. His soft hands cupped my cheeks and gently forced me to look into his blue eyes.

“Ray, I trust you. We’ll get through this and when it’s all through, we can go back to life as normal. I need my life back. My job. My friends. I need to be normal again.”

“I know, I know, I understand and there’s nothing else I want for you, but—Andy…”

Everything I wanted to say sounded idiotic.

Andy bent over and rested his arms on my knees. “Just say it.”

“When we find them, and I mean when, what happens with us? What the hell is going on?”