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“They all knew too much about violence,” he said, quietly, meeting her eyes like he knew her past. Like he knew Beau’s and Max’s as well. And maybe he did. How close were he and Beau? Or was it just obvious?
Shay looked away, and then the door opened. They both stepped off.
“I’ve got to run,” he said, tipping his head toward the hallway that led away from Billy’s room. “It was nice meeting you, Shay. Even under threat of baseball bats.”
“Hey, same,” Shay said, meaning it. “Maybe next time we’ll try it without the weapon involved.”
He laughed politely and then shifted toward one of the hallways.
“I didn’t get your name,” she realized, before he could walk out of sight.
“Oh.” He smiled. “It’s Nathaniel. Nathaniel Conrad.”
CHAPTER NINE
Raisa
Now
“Tell me about Shay,” Raisa said as the plane leveled out. She didn’t have a sense for who this woman was. Just as she’d blamed Kate Tashibi for reducing the victims to names and numbers, Raisa had created a shallow stand-in based on murder-scene photos and myths for a flesh-and-blood person who’d probably had strengths and flaws and a personality.
That was the problem with the way they talked about these victims. They no longer belonged to themselves—they belonged, forever, to the person who had murdered them.
“You would never guess someone like her ended up with someone like me,” Kilkenny said, with an incredible amount of fondness.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“She was really fun,” Kilkenny said, and Raisa lifted her brows in surprise. He was right; that wasn’t what she’d been expecting. “Really fucking fun.”
Raisa huffed out a laugh. “But you two clicked anyway.”
“Against all odds,” Kilkenny said, his mouth tilting up in acknowledgment of her little chirp. “She was hilarious and quick and smart as hell, though she didn’t think so.”
“Really?” She’d always imagined Shay Kilkenny as an academic type, though Raisa wasn’t sure why. Or a model, the sleek and polished kind to match Kilkenny. All grace, no ketchup stains.
“You remind me a little of her,” Kilkenny said, and from anyone else, Raisa would have taken it as a line and thrown up all her brick walls. But the two of them were on the same page about any potential romance. It had been a nonstarter from the wordhello.
Instead, Raisa took it as a compliment. “She sounds awesome, then.”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“What did she like to do for fun?” Raisa asked.
“The beach,” Kilkenny said. “Put her near water and she was a happy camper. She even liked our Pacific Northwest beaches.”
“Slightly different than Galveston’s,” Raisa said.
“Right.” He smiled softly. “She’d talk me into taking a day off in the middle of the week, and we’d go down to Oregon. Eat good cheese and get drunk on cheap wine.” He went quiet before admitting, “She made me remember there were beautiful things in the world. And it wasn’t all just terrible trauma and death.”
Raisa wondered how many vacation days he’d taken in the past ten years. She didn’t think the number reached the double digits. “It sounds like she was good for you.”
“She was.” He rubbed his thumb over his wedding band. “I’m not sure I was good for her.”
“I am,” Raisa said.
“You have to say that,” he said, predictably. Kilkenny always appeared so confident, and he was, in his job. But outside of that, he carried around the weight of Shay’s death like it was an indictment on who he was as a person.
Even for the five seconds she’d wondered if he’d been the one to kill Shay, Raisa had always known he wasgood. At least, well meaning, which she put a hell of a lot of stock into even if it sounded like she was damning him with faint praise.