"Maybe I should be the one to interview her."

"Why do you think that?" I asked, ice clinging to the syllables of every word I spoke.

My tone did not put James off. If anything, it only hardened the resolve on his features. Cutting the engine off, he put a hand on my arm to stop me before I climbed out of the car.

"Joy is easily spooked, and right now, she thinks you're on her side. One look at your face right now, and she's going to risk it all with Melnyk."

"You're telling me to go easy on a woman who has been sitting on information that could have led to us finding Marianna?"

"Yes." His grip tightened. For the first time in our working relationship, his professionalism slipped to reveal a man filled with frustration and concern. "Joy kept quiet to protect herself. You've done far worse things in the name of protecting people, Lochlan."

I yanked my arm away and stepped out of the car. A chilly wind that smelled like snow and pine struck me in the face, and I hunched my shoulders against its ferocity. A cozy cabin sat nestled between towering trees several yards ahead, smoke curling from its stone chimney. The safe house we'd chosen was several hours from the city and deep in the mountains—a perfect place to hide someone. And also a place that reminded me far too much of where Millie and I had spent the night together for the first time.

A car door slammed, and James marched around the front of the vehicle. A strand of dark blonde hair fell into his eyes, another departure from his usual state of perfection, and if I wasn't so consumed by my own tortured emotions, I might care enough to ask him if everything was okay.

"You're not going in there like this."

I reeled back as he planted himself in front of me. "You work for me. You don't give the orders."

"I do when you're about to jeopardize everything. Look, it's been two days since you ran your girl off, and I'm not asking to know the details. But I am telling you to get your shit together or sit out here. We have worked too hard and too long for a break like this, and if you think you're hurting now, it's nothing compared to how you're going to feel when you realize you blew this entire thing because you suddenly discovered you're an asshole that has a heart that can be broken."

"I won't bite her head off."

"Your face says otherwise, and you've gone off at the slightest provocation since Ms. Gordon left."

Every time he mentioned Millie, a pain flared in my gut, like someone had plunged a knife there and left it. Every thought of her twisted it, burying it deeper until I feared no matter how much I told myself I hated her, I would never stop hurting.

"I did what I had to." Something flickered behind James' eyes and a mask slipped into place, hiding whatever he was thinking, and I realized that's all I'd ever seen of this man despite our years together. A mask.

"What, you disagree?"

"I think you looked at pictures and jumped to conclusions. There's a reason we usually discuss information together before acting on it."

"You're defending her?" I shouted, gravel crunching beneath my shoes as I walked down the drive to put some distance between us in case I lashed out. "You saw the flash drive. How do you defend that?"

"I don't have a defense, but you said she stopped herself before doing it."

"Why would she do it in the first place? If she cared for me at all, why would she choose to hurt me like that? That flash drive was personal. Meant to destroy me. She knows—" My voice broke. Normally, I would feel shame, but the pain of her betrayal overwhelmed everything else. "She knows that I've blamed myself for what happened to Marianna. Planting evidence that makes it look like..."

Everything on the flash drive replayed in my mind. The pictures. The letters between lawyers. All of it proven by my team to be fake, but it didn't make the hurt less real.

"You know she couldn't have done all that herself and for what purpose? Why would she want to hurt you like that? I don't think she knew what was on there." James grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face him.

He was right. Millie had tried to see what was on my computer, and as much as I told myself she was just a phenomenal actress, I didn't think anyone could fake that level of ignorance.

James squeezed my arm and dropped his hand. "The question we should ask is, who would go to that extreme to hurt you? The media would've had a field day for sure, but at the end of the day, who would they blame? An eight-year-old boy for a freak accident that killed a baby? Or the adults who covered it up?"

After Millie left, I'd spent hours pouring over the contents of the flash drive, half terrified it was true and that I'd somehow suppressed the details of causing Marianna's death from my mind, but every moment of that evening existed in my mind in vivid detail. I'd used them to torture myself often enough.

"You're right," I said, pulling the cuffs off my shirt down and brushing my hair back to compose myself.

"Of course I am. Let's go talk to Joy. Find out what she knows that someone thinks it's worth killing her for. We'll be one step closer to solving this mystery and getting ou—your life back."

"You just want me to say you're right again, you bastard," I muttered, earning a rare smile from James.

"It did feel good. I could get—"

An explosion cut off the rest of his words. A wall of heat and smoke threw us down the gravel drive, the stones ripping through my clothes and flesh. Ears ringing, I raised my head when I stopped rolling. Blood obscured the vision in my right eye, but I could make out James a few feet from me, half in the grass and half in the driveway. He didn't move.

I pushed up on my hands and knees, grimacing as debris pressed into the open wounds of my palms. Before I could gather the energy to move toward James, the sound of footsteps made me pause. Wiping my eye, I looked over to see a stranger approaching, the black metal of the gun in his hand glinting in the pale autumn light.

"Who the fuck are you?" I demanded. A metallic tasted filled my mouth as blood trickled in.

The stranger aimed the gun. "The Butcher says hello."

Then he fired.