London

The hum of the fish tank fills my office. The lack of noise from the waiting room makes the typically undetected sound loud in the too-quiet room. I recline in my chair, close my eyes, letting the drone soothe my mind. The patients are gone. The day through.

After an intense afternoon, I’ve successfully escaped the officer detail Agent Nelson sent to receive me at the airport. The two FBI agents he has escort me on occasion. The ones I know are always watching. They have gone from trying to be politely inconspicuous, to downright unavoidable. Hovering in the building lobby, near the reception desk. One even tried to camp out inside my office today.

Thankfully, the agents were called to Rockland for a more urgent matter than protecting me. Apparently, the FBI’s budget doesn’t allow for babysitting. They’re also too economical to spring for plane tickets, leaving Agent Nelson on a slow commute back to Maine. Which could be my only chance to make contact with Grayson.

Maybe that was Agent Nelson’s intention. After what transpired between us in Hollows, I have little faith that he harbors any trust for me. So there’s a chance that his patsy agents are still skulking around, watching.

I could go now. Right now. Don my disguise to the Blue Clover. Hope that Grayson senses my need…

Or I could be patient. Trust that Grayson and I are still working in tandem.

But are we?

Ever since I learned of Lydia, a sort of disconnect has descended over me like a gauzy veil, a feeling of detachment from Grayson that’s frightening. The more I wonder about the girl—the woman—who could’ve been, the more I allow myself to see and experience through her.

I’m fascinated, and I’m terrified.

I tighten the string around my index finger to the point of pain. It relieves some of the pressure wrapping my head as I swivel my chair back and forth, gaze cast out the window overlooking downtown.

Before I can proceed with my plan, I need reassurance. That’s reasonable. I’m not some lovesick teen fretting over her boyfriend’s lack of communication; I’m suffering the pangs of withdrawal. Like any drug, lust-sex-love pumps endorphins into the brain. And when depleted of those endorphins, the cravings can be as strong as the yearning for a hit of heroin.

I’m addicted to Grayson, and the way he makes me feel.

And yet I fear him just as powerfully.

It’s unhealthy, but there’s no such thing as a “healthy relationship”. Any interaction with another person that alters chemicals in the brain is going to be risky. Our behavior changes when in a romantic relationship. That’s just the science of it.

Love—that all-consuming love artists pen sonnets about—is a short-lived emotion.

That kind of love can’t be sustained. It’s wild and passionate and consumes you like a wildfire tears through a forest, burning hotter and raging rampant until its only option is to die out. That’s what Grayson and I are: a wildfire. We’ll burn through each other until our resources are expired.

That kind of love also makes you blind.

Before Grayson, trust was a figurative idea. Only obtained if one was blinded by their emotions. You can’t question what you can’t see—what you don’t know exists.

I pocket the string and spin my chair around to my desk, decision made. I pick up the office phone to return the call from the message Lacy gave me hours ago.

Trust.

That’s what comes next, Grayson said. I move, he moves. We’re a shadow of each other, fused to one another through pain and pleasure and a hedonistic illness that rivals even the greatest serial killer teams.

We’re a duet—we belong together. One cannot exist without the other.

Fine. I can accept that. But I want to accept it with my eyes wide open.

The operator on the line transfers me to the forensics’ department, and before I can hang up, second-guessing myself, Calvin’s sure voice booms across the line.

“Hello, London. You send me the most interesting things, you know that?”

I do. Like pig’s blood when I’m doused with it after a trial. Calvin is my trusted contact in the local forensics’ lab. He works for money under the table. They barely pay him enough to make rent.

“Someone has to keep you busy,” I say, opening my desk drawer. I pull out the vial I keep locked up. “This city is pretty boring, otherwise.”

“Well, you’re making sure to see to that, aren’t you?”

After a moment of trivial conversation, Calvin jumps in. “Genealogy isn’t my specialty, but I was able to scratch up a healthy report for you on the sample you sent over last week. Are you in front of your computer?”

I flip open my laptop. “Is it safe to send?”

“From the everyday hacker, yes. If that’s what you’re wary about. From the FBI? Probably not.”

A second of hesitation, then: “Send it.”

My apartment is under surveillance. The only safe and secure place for me to keep my research on Grayson is my practice. These walls are protected under patient-doctor confidentiality. In turn, the FBI may be able to trace and access my data, but they can’t use it. Not against me, or Grayson.

I hold up the vial. A few dark-brown hairs line the glass. I close my eyes and flash back to the moment Grayson thrust inside me and I gripped his hair, coming away with the strands.

I wrapped them around my finger—woven along my string—for safekeeping.

Pushing the memory away, I click open the report. “What am I looking at?”

Calvin goes over the basics: blood type, heritage, immediate family. Then he says, “But I figured you were looking for something a little more interesting. Considering the heritage, I ran the DNA through the international database and got a hit. A relative with a pretty lengthy record citing crimes against children came up.”

I locate the name on the report. “Shane Sullivan.” As I read, my stomach knots.

“Apparently, he was wanted in connection to a child sex trafficking ring. But when authorities finally caught up to him, he and his wife were found dead. Brutally murdered. Cut up into pieces. Pretty gruesome, huh?”

The police report attached to the document states their deaths were unnatural. A crude pendulum contraption was used to “dice” their bodies. Reading over the description, I realize it might’ve been more than an instrument to kill and mutilate; it’s possible it was designed to get answers. To work out a puzzle…and their failure resulted in their dismemberment.

A handmade puzzle constructed from woodchips was found at the scene in one of the large greenhouses. Images and words scrawled on the jigsaw pieces garnered no resolution for authorities to the murderer. The duo having many unsavory connections, the local police concluded it was a trade gone wrong. The case was closed with no further investigation.

What were you trying to puzzle out, Grayson?

“Thank you, Calvin. This is good information. Oh, one more thing. Does it say how his mother died? I don’t see a death cert in the docs.”

“That’s because there isn’t one,” he says. “She’s still alive.”

A cold dread whispers over my skin. “Okay. Thank you,” I manage, then hang up the receiver.

Before I lose my nerve, I cross my office and unlock the filing cabinet where I keep confidential patient folders not stored on my computer. I pull out Grayson’s file and bring it to the desk.

Having a computer do the search would be easier, but not wise. Technically, the transcribed sessions in the folder are off the record. I had shut the camera off—but I left the audio recording. I’m unethical. I’ve established that. I scroll down the dates, seeking one session in particular.

My mother liked to watch. But we’re not talking about that. You’re not ready.

A statement Grayson made when I questioned him about his mother. But which mother was he referencing? His birth mother, or the woman who held him prisoner?

As I read through the report, making comparisons to Grayson’s sessions, I come away with a terrible conclusion. All the children were sold to the couple by relatives.

Grayson was not kidnapped by his abductors. Someone sold him to them.

The only likely suspect would be his own mother.

A sinking feeling pulls at my stomach.

He murdered his blood relatives to escape a hell that no child should suffer. And yet, he didn’t return to his mother once he was free. He fled Ireland, leaving her alive. She didn’t undergo his vengeance.

Why?

I print out the report, highlighting and sectioning off the areas of interest for further research, and then tack the new material to my private corkboard embedded beneath my Dali painting. Grayson studied me for nearly a year before our official introduction. It’s only fair that I gather insight into his past, as well.

There’s a reason why he refuses to give me answers.

I want it.

For more than just my own curiosity. It’s keeping the status quo.

Grayson set me free, and liberated me of my past at the same time. I’m unsure if he believes I’m able to do the same for him…or whether or not he’s decided I already have.

His compulsions haven’t changed. How he channels them has changed. His disorder has progressed into one of a team dynamic, and that takes trust. Something that was stripped away from him at an early age. By the person who he should’ve been able to trust the most in his world.

His own mother sold him into hell.

I replace the painting along the wall, then unlock the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. Tapes of my patient sessions are organized by name, year/date, and diagnosis.

When I first arrived home after the excavation of my father’s victims, my office was my immediate destination. To this drawer. To where the videos of my deceased patients awaited confirmation of my malpractice.

I plugged in the video of my last session with Thom Mercer and waited, breath bated, for what I knew was about to unfold. The alternate memories I created had been eradicated while I was caged in Grayson’s cell. But that wasn’t enough. I had to see it with my own eyes. Hear it with my ears. Experience the sessions—this time—with no hindrance of a deluded state.

Some kind of morbid awakening, I suppose.

Only the evidence—the only tangible proof of my misconduct—had been erased.

The tapes were blank.

At the time, I reasoned I did so myself, a form of counter forensics—a measure taken to protect myself. I still had holes in my memory. Gaps. Not everything recovered. It made sense that I would hide the evidence of my crime even from myself.

I check the tapes once a week. Just to be sure. It’s a frightening thing not to trust your own mind.

Static flickers over the TV screen.

I eject the tape and return it to the filing cabinet, the pressure at my temples easing, but only marginally. There’s still a record in existence.

Trust.

Grayson has a recording of my confession. It’s captured under duress, and it’s unlikely authorities would consider it authentic. It could’ve been enhanced, manipulated. My lawyer could work up a strong defense. And yet, just the existence of that confession disturbs me.

Every serial killer partnership suffered one common flaw: complacency. One or both became too secure in the relationship. This security wasn’t established with trust; it was established through power.

One dominated the other. Their trust exploited.

It always comes down to power and control.

Grayson having something over me places him in a position of power—and I’m not reluctant to admit I’m struggling with the trust part of our relationship.

Lydia would never belong in a relationship such as this.

I press my palms to the cool surface of my desk, letting the temperature bleed from my body. My hand imprints mark the wood when I move away. It’s been an exhausting week.

I lock up my desk, making sure everything is secure, before I start out.

A sound startles me as I near the door, and I stop. My breathing sounds too loud in the enclosed space. Then the door opens.