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“We need to talk.”

“Fine. I’m coming to the door, but you can’t come inside because I’m already in bed.”

“Fine,” he said back.

Phone in hand, she climbed out of the bed and stormed from the room. Some part of her considered that she probably should have checked the house before she came up to bed. Yes, the windows were all screwed shut and the monitors on the doors would have set off the alarm if someone had come inside before she got home. Still, she should have looked. Damn it. The Messenger had started something. It was no longer a theory; it was real. Diligence was necessary.

She checked the peephole, even though Bent had said he was at her door. There he was, hat making it hard to see his eyes. His long, shaggy hair hanging around his too-handsome face.

After deactivating the alarm, she unlocked and opened the door. Shit. She had on the damned nightshirt. She kept her lower body behind the door and leaned around to look at him. “What do we need to talk about?”

“I need to come inside, Vee.”

Well hell.

The hall was nearly dark, since she hadn’t turned on any lights. But the night-light that had been plugged into an outlet next to the staircase for as long as she could remember allowed her to see well enough. She opened the door wider, then closed it behind him. With her back to the door, she faced him. Yeah, she was half naked, but it was dark enough to prevent a close inspection. She wasn’t sure when she’d last shaved her legs. She was too old for this.

Bent braced his hands on his hips, stared at the floor, then at the wall. Maybe he was embarrassed by her manner of dress. Big deal. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in this old tee. Not to mention he’d seen her naked dozens of times ... more than two decades ago, of course. Anyway, she’d told him she was in bed.

“Jones told me how this Messenger guy refused to speak with anyone but you.”

“I didn’t know until tonight.” She suddenly felt bad again. “We were going to come over to the bar and talk to you or invite you over to our table, but we started talking and then you were gone.”

“I had to ... go.” The subtlest shift of one shoulder was apparently his way of dismissing the subject.

“Can you please take off your hat and look at me when you’re talking?” She hated when he wanted to have a conversation and he used that damned hat as a shield so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. He’d been doing a lot of that lately. She remembered the move wellfrom back when she was seventeen. Fury roared through her. She was not seventeen now.

He pulled off the hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and her body trembled.

She swore silently at herself. What the hell was wrong with her?

“He—Jones—said,” Bent told her, “we needed to talk about what happened before with the Messenger.”

Damn Eric. He shouldn’t have put the idea in Bent’s head. “It doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago. The man who did those things is old and dying now.”

Bent’s gaze zeroed in on hers. It was impossible not to feel the heat even in the near darkness, even across the four or five feet of floor space that separated them. “But the man he sent here to write that message on your mirror—on Baker’s back—isn’t.”

Vera lifted her chin and gave him the answer. Why not? If this thing dragged on, it would come out anyway. Reporters loved recaps. “He wanted to scare me, so he tried to make me feel as if he intended to do things to me. Like he did to his other victims. But he didn’t. Instead, he did them to Eric.”

“So, he didn’t ...hurtyou.”

“No.” She moistened her lips, her heart suddenly beating too fast. “He didn’t hurt anything but my feelings.” That was putting it mildly.

The Messenger was a torture-murderer. There was no end to his imagination when it came to inflicting pain and fear.

Bent nodded. “I read the things he did to the others, and ... I was worried.”

She took a step closer to him. Suddenly wished she had told him this before. They were supposed to be friends and colleagues now. His gaze locked on hers, and no matter that it rattled her somehow, she dared to take another step. “What he did to his victims was unthinkable, and I’m glad he’s dying. But he didn’t do anything to me except make me regret that I didn’t kill him when I had the chance. Eric is the one who ended up with all the scars.”

“He couldn’t stop looking at you,” Bent said, his voice too low ... too soft ... too wanting. “Your friend from Memphis.”

Vera wasn’t sure how to react to the statement.

“I kept thinking about him touching you ... you,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “touching him.”

Vera tried to find the right words to say, but her head was spinning. Her body quivering. This thing that had been simmering between them for seven months now was swallowing her up.

Bent claimed that last step between them. He tossed his hat to the floor and put his hands on her arms, his fingers curving around her. The feel of his palms against her skin made it impossible to breathe. Her phone slid from her hand, clattered onto the floor.