Page 51 of Dead Love

He wasn’t checking on me. He was making sure I was still doing my job. “No,” I said, my stomach dropping to the ground. “Nothing. But will you please get me out of here?”

He grinned. “Don’t you worry your little head,” he rubbed his knuckles into my hair, “I’ll send help as soon as I can. We just don’t have the resources right now. But until then, remember, you havegotto investigate Erickson. Use your time wisely.”

“You’re leaving me here?” my voice thick with fear.

“Miss Kora, get this right. I am assigning you a task to take care of. It is of the utmost importance.” He straightened, adjusting his shirt as if I had dirtied it somehow. “I was checking his files, and you know his brother died exactly like these Echo victims?”

I squinted my eyes. “Was Echo even around back then?”

“Darling.” He gave a deep sigh, shaking his head. Had I said something wrong? “Drugs in their system. Unexplained wounds. It all adds up.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “People are dying, Miss Kora.”

His hand was sticky and cold. It gave me chills.

“You think he killed his own brother?” I asked. “Then why isn’t he in jail?”

“Trust me, if it were that simple, he would be.” He scoffed to himself. “But you can change that right now. A man like Vincent is wrong in the head. We need to lock him up, put him in his place, before it is too late.” Catie’s footsteps reverberated down the hall. He grabbed my shoulder and gave me a stern expression. “You can do this, Miss Kora. I believe in you.” I sucked in a breath. “For Nyla.”

Nyla.

I ran back and quickly closed Catie’s office door behind me. Their voices were faint through the walls, but I could still hear them.

“You have not seen or heard from her, then?” Andrew asked.

“Not at all.”

“Mind if I check here again later when Erickson is around?” I imagined Catie shook her head. How could she tell an officer ‘no’? “Perhaps we can keep this visit between us, Miss Catie. I would hate for you to obstruct our investigation.”

My stomach turned, though I didn’t know why. He was trying to do his job, but why did it feel wrong?

Eventually, Catie returned and shuffled behind her desk.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

I blinked rapidly. She meant the television. I hadn’t seen a single thing.

“Not much,” I said.

Catie lifted a brow at me, knowing that I had been up to something. “You okay, there?” she asked. I shrugged, not really sure what to say. “Okay. Spill.” She turned off the television and swiveled her chair to me. “What’s that face for?”

“I just—” I paused. What could I say without letting her know I had spoken to Andrew? Could I tell her I was supposed to investigate her boss? I couldn’t. Instead, I word-vomited the one thing that had been on my mind since he had left the basement the night before. “I don’t even know who Vincent is. What he wants. Why he’s—” I stopped again, unsure of how to word it, “—why he’s helping me.” I tucked the short hairs behind my ears, then crossed my arms. “Some days, it’s like he can’t stand me at all. And other times, I don’t know what to do to get him to leave me alone.”

She tapped her fingers together, squinting at me. “You have a crush on him?”

I gawked at her. “Absolutely not.”

“Uh-huh,” she nodded slowly.

My skin flushed red. “It’s nothing like that. I just don’t understand him.”

She tapped a pen to her temple, turning back to the paperwork. After a few minutes passed, she turned back to me: “You’ve known Vincent for a long time, right?”

I blinked. How had she gotten that impression? Technically, we had only gotten to know each other recently, but it had always felt like I had known him for much longer. I never thought of him as a stalker, but as a guardian. A shadow watching over me.

But how did you explain that to someone without sounding crazy?

“Sure,” I said.

“Go to his art studio.” She pointed in the house’s direction. “That’ll clear up any doubts.”