"Yes, of course," I told the police officer as he said he would be in touch with more questions. I walked toward the car waiting for me on the corner, pinching the bridge of my nose to stave off the headache that had been threatening for hours. The flashing blue lights hadn't helped matters at all, and I was grateful for the cool darkness of the car when I slid into the backseat.

"Here."

James thrust a dampened handkerchief at me. I took it without a word and scrubbed at my hands. The white cloth turned pink as it cleaned away the remnants of blood. Blood I thought I'd cleaned off completely when the paramedics arrived, but James's eagle eye caught it.

"Thank you," I said, tucking it in my pocket as the car pulled into traffic.

"You should have left before the police got there."

"Yes. So I could look guilty as sin. My DNA was all over that crime scene because I tried—" My throat closed. "I tried to save her life."

James clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Kit talked to me before she left. The girl probably wouldn't have made it even if it happened outside a hospital. You did what you could."

"I know." I didn't need him to tell me that. I'd been repeating it on a loop since I felt her petite body go cold and still beneath my hands, her blood still warm on my skin. "We'll deal with whatever press this causes. I'm fairly confident I wasn't seen by though."

"What were you even doing there?"

This was the tricky part. As the head of my security and information team, James blamed himself when he missed something. We were a lot alike that way.

"I met with Melnyk last night."

Leather creaked as James shifted in his seat. "I'm aware."

"I figured as much."

I hadn't been stupid enough to meet the Russian thug without some of my men, and they would have reported the meeting to their boss, even if I requested secrecy. I had trained them to protect their clients no matter what. Even if meant protecting them from themselves.

"Does this have anything to do with your recent—" He hesitated as if considering his words. "Killing spree?"

"Do you disapprove?"

"No. They're all guilty by association."

The wall around my heart trembled. For him to say that meant only one thing. He was no longer selling the fantasy that Millie was alive.

Fighting to keep my voice from breaking, I launched into an explanation. "Melnyk told me they had tabs on Millie the night she disappeared." The night I kicked her out. "She ran into a girl who offered her a safe place to stay for the night. On a street corner where all the cameras were conveniently out."

Orange and yellow lights shifted to a cool blue as we pulled into the parking garage. We pulled into my space, and neither of us made a move to get out.

"You need me to stay, boss?" The partition between the front and back seat lowered to reveal my driver's grizzled face.

"No, Hank. That's all."

"This girl," James said as soon as Hank was gone. "Do we know her?"

"We do now. Jade was her name. She's the girl that just died in that alley."

"Fuck." I didn't need to see his face to know his brain was sliding into overdrive and putting the pieces together.

"Melnyk said they went into Jade's building and Millie never came out."

The urge to rip into the soft leather of the seats nearly overwhelmed me. I could pull this car apart, and it wouldn't bring her back.

"And now someone has killed her to keep her quiet."

"Now, we go back to Melnyk because he wouldn't tell me anything until I agreed to talk to Jade. Apparently, she knows most of his guys and refused to speak to anyone."

"That means someone else is involved."

The horror in his tone reminded me of the way I'd felt when that clicked. I hadn't even told him Melnyk was Millie's uncle. Supposedly.

"Jade said something as she was dying." I should hate the girl for leading Millie into a trap, but I'd watched her pay the ultimate price for her transgression. And something told me she was as much a victim as Millie. Her empty eyes staring into the sky would haunt my sleep. "She mentioned the name Sara."

James typed the name into the notes app of his phone. "Should be fairly easy to narrow that down."

"Let's get that started. I want as much information as possible before I meet with Melnyk again. That bastard thinks he has the upper hand."

"Right. Lochlan," James said, stopping me as I opened the car door. "I'll find out who she is. You get some sleep. You look like shit."

He wasn't wrong. I'd seen myself in the mirror at the diner, and that was hours ago. Hours without sleep.

"I'll be fine." I replied. My phone rang, and the name on the screen stopped me from pressing ignore. "Mrs. R. It's kind of late."

"Lochlan!" Her panicked voice had me clenching the phone so hard I was afraid the glass might break. "Tell me they're lying. It's not true."

"What's not true," I asked her as I snapped at James to get his attention. I put her on speakerphone. "You've got to slow down. Start at the beginning."

"Alex. He's been arrested. But they're lying. They're lying." James worked his magic on his phone and opened a live news stream. Mrs. R wailed on the phone while I peered at his screen, mouth parting in shock.

"The authorities have confirmed the identity of the woman pulled out of the pond in Central Park earlier this week as twenty-three-year-old, Millie Gordon."

"Breathe, Lochlan," James said.

"Turn it up," I rasped.

"Sources confirm that Millie came to New York City to answer Anna Reed's famous video plea requesting information about her missing daughter, Marianna Reed. Whether Millie is Marianna or not, we do not know, but what we know is that police have identified the oldest Reed child, Alex Reed, as a person of interest."

"Lochlan? Lochlan? Are you there?"

I raised the phone to my ear with a shaking hand. "It's okay, Mrs. R. I'll handle this."

Her sobs echoed in my ears as I ended the call. I slammed the car door, walked around to the front, and climbed into the driver's seat. Tires squealed as I peeled out of the parking garage and back into the night.

James didn't speak. Didn't tell me to rest. With every bit of my life that fell apart, whatever good that was left inside of me died.

There was no rest for the wicked.