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Something breaks loose inside me, and I advance on him, one deliberate step at a time. I fist my hands in anticipation of smashing his face in. I don’t fucking care that he’s my boss. I don’t fucking care he’s got five inches and some seventy pounds on me. I don’t fucking care I’ll lose my job and spend time in jail for assault. All I care about is shoving his words back down his throat.

“Stop or I’ll shoot. I’m not kidding, Knox.”

“Jake! Stop. Stop.” Ava runs in front of me and slams her hands on my chest. “Stop. He’s baiting you. Can’t you see it?”

I’m blinded by fury, and pain, and loss. I push against the hands on my chest, and Ava wraps her arms around me and locks me into an embrace. Her heart beats wildly against my chest. Apples. It’s the smell of apples from her shampoo that finally reaches me. I close my eyes and try to focus on what she’s saying. I hear the words, but they don’t register. She’s saying the same words again and again. The cadence and the sounds are the same. I drag in a breath. My chest is tight, and my head is pounding.

“Stop. Stop. Jake, stop.”

I stop and hold Ava to my chest, inhale deeply, and find a measure of comfort in her scent. Jesus, I could have gotten us both killed.

I force myself to hold still, breathe, and relax. When I look up, Chief Malone is about ten feet away, gun still trained on us. I put my hands on Ava’s shoulders and detach her from me. Her eyes are wide. I try to move her behind me again, but she resists. She turns in my arms and faces my boss.

Ava takes a small step away from me, but I keep my hands on her shoulders. She takes a deep breath. “Chief, I understand why you’d think Jake and I are involved in this murder. It took me weeks to convince Jake of what I can do. And believe me, spending my vacation time tracking a serial killer is the last thing I want to do. But I cannot just go about my life as normal when I know this man will kill again if Jake doesn’t stop him.”

She has a point. Had I been in the chief’s place, I would have reacted as he did. “Chief, she’s telling the truth. She’s my informant. Not because she knows anything about the crimes, but because she can see what happened when she touches the objects in the evidence locker.”

Ava holds her hands out to him. “Let me prove it to you. I can do it right now.”

The chief narrows his eyes at her. “How?”

“Give me something to read. The wedding ring on your hand would work.”

He’s silent for a long time. Then digs into the collar of his shirt and comes up with dog tags on a chain. Pulling it over his head, he tosses it to Ava.

She catches it in the air and immediately closes her eyes. The tags pressed against her palm, the chain dangling.

“Duane. This belonged to Duane. Your twin brother.”

Chief Malone’s mouth goes slack.

Ava tilts her head. “You have worn this since the day they gave his belongings to your family. You two were extremely close. I see you through his eyes. He was so proud of you and how much you accomplished by going to college and becoming a lawyer. He always believed in you. That’s why he went into the military. There wasn’t enough money to pay for two tuitions, so he told everyone he didn’t want to go to college.”

It’s humbling to see a man as big and proud as my boss cry. He wipes his face, but the hand holding the gun is steady.

Ava smiles now. “You two had a secret language you created when you were kids. No one else knew this. You two never shared it with anyone else, and you continued to use it into adulthood when no one else was around. I can hear it but don’t know what it means.”

“What else?” Chief Malone’s voice is a whisper.

“It was supposed to be his last tour. He was weeks away from retiring. An IED killed him. He . . . didn’t die right away. He bled out. But he wasn’t in pain. He was conscious, and he wasn’t scared. He said something. But the medic who came to his rescue couldn’t understand him.”

The chief takes a step closer, and the arm holding the gun drops to his side. “What did he say? Do you know what he said?”

Ava opens her eyes, her soft gaze on him. “I can repeat the sounds, but I don’t know what they mean.”

“What was it?” There’s urgency in his voice.

Ava takes a deep breath and closes her eyes again.“Si laith ven dantothe. Miy ayr vi ven. Si vick.”

He gasps, and the gun drops to the ground. I hold still and fight every instinct to race and grab it. Ava opens her eyes, takes a step closer to the chief, and opens her hand. A faint imprint of the tags is on her palm. “He loved you more than anything in the world. I hope you know that.”

The chief swallows, then nods. In two minutes, he went from arrogant and confident to a shell of himself. He takes the chain, puts over his head, and tucks it under his collar again.

Ava hugs herself. “Did the words I said make any sense to you?”

He nods again. “They did.”

“Can I . . . can I ask what they mean?”