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“I brought you here so you wouldn’t have to think about serial killers,” Shay said as lightly as she could. “And here you are, thinking about them.”
Callum laughed. “That’s not your fault. It’s all I think about these days.”
Shay straddled him, ending up in his lap, her knees on either side of his hips. “Are you so sure?”
“No,” Callum said, and pulled her down into a kiss.
They didn’t once mention a serial killer the rest of the day. Instead, they chatted about nothing. At one point, Callum chased Shay into the freezing-cold sea, and she dragged him in behind her. Ocean mist touched both their cheeks, and Shay couldn’t help but think that it was all so different from Texas.
But water had a way of making it all seem like home.
A beach. Someone she loved. The sea-salt air in her lungs.
Callum had so few perfect days to give that when they came, Shay would hoard them to her chest, a jealous dragon.
“Do you think you have that warrior gene?” she asked sleepily as Callum drove them home, into the moonlight this time.
“I want to say something cool right now, like ‘I thinkyouhave it,’” Callum said, with a half smile. “Because we associate warriors with being strong and amazing.”
Shay laughed. “But we don’t romanticize the warrior gene in this household.”
He reached over, laced their fingers together. “Exactly right. I think you have the brave gene. The courageous one, the kind and fair and strong ones.”
“Sap,” she said, and he laughed, bringing her hand up to his mouth to press a kiss on the knuckles.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I think you have all those, too,” she said, because she wasn’t sweet to him enough.
The quiet smile that tucked itself into the corners of his mouth reminded her to say nice things to him more often.
“I do have a warrior gene,” she said. “Just to protect you, though.”
“Hey, what did we talk about?” he asked, humor lacing his voice. He glanced over at her. She would never get tired of that look on his face.
Shay had always thought herself so hard to love. Hillary had never loved her; Beau and Max did, but that was a different kind of thing altogether. They’d gone through war—that kind of life solidified bonds without there needing to be any love involved.
Callum had chosen her, and continued to choose her every day. Even through the rough patches, he still looked at her like he’d burn the world down if he ever lost her.
He turned his attention back to the road, but the warmth of his gaze lingered.
“I have it, too,” he murmured. “Just for you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Raisa
Now
“Why did he use the Alberti Cipher?” Raisa asked. The prison had stuck them in an interrogation room and warned them that it might be up to an hour before they could pull Conrad to talk to them. There was a schedule to keep on execution day, after all.
“He never said.” Kilkenny was sitting in one of the metal chairs, perfectly still, not fidgeting at all.
“It’s just so simple.” Raisa had her tablet out, and she was studying the letters again like a self-soothing exercise. With writing samples, she at least felt like she could regain a little control of the trajectory of the case. “What would you say Conrad prized in himself? Over everything else?”
“His intelligence,” Kilkenny answered without missing a beat. Then corrected himself. “His supposed intelligence.”
“Right. And he was goading you with it, taunting you—the tone is completely smug throughout,” Raisa said. “His writing is extremely clean and grammatically accurate. He definitely saw himself as smart.”