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R eese opened the door when Hayes knocked, resecured it after him, and sat down again, reluctantly reimmersing herself in Ben’s medical documents.

As she’d feared, they slowly wedged open a creaky mental door that she’d long ago locked tight.

Unbidden, one of her last recollections of her brother swam across her mind like a sinister submerged shadow.

Her gasping and choking as he held her head underwater, chest burning as she flailed in a futile struggle to breathe.

The roaring in her ears as her lungs strangled.

Did she recall the exact moment he was pulled away?

When she was finally able to haul in a breath, only to spew the bathwater she’d swallowed?

She remembered an adult voice screaming.

Her mother, Reese thought. But she couldn’t be quite sure.

Self-preservation pulled an emergency cord, and a blind dropped over the rest of the details.

Of all the adults who’d insisted on protecting her from those long-ago recollections, none were quite as effective as her own inner guardrails.

“Busy down there. Check-in time.” Hayes’s chattiness barely registered. “I picked up a list of nearby restaurants that deliver from the concierge. How do you feel about Indian food?”

She blinked, struggling to push away the intrusive memories. As he put his purchases away, she said, “Your computer dinged while you were gone. You said you were running a search?”

He came over carrying two bottles of water and handed her one before sitting down in front of the laptop again. “Yeah. I was cross-referencing addresses for Thorne and Bradbury. Nothing showed up so I…” He pulled the computer closer to study it.

She watched excitement flicker across his expression. “What?”

“I tried his mother, Patti Wallace, and Bradbury.” Reese got up and rounded the table to view the screen. “They shared an address almost twenty years ago.”

“For how long?”

He scrolled, searching for the answer. “At least eight months. Wait. Wallace applied for utilities in her own name a year later. So eight to twelve months.”

“She moved in with him six months after Stephen Thorne burned his mother’s house down.” They looked at each other. “Wallace’s best friend said Patti landed with her for a while after the fire, but Stephen was sent away for a few years.”

Hayes nodded. “The sealed juvie record. I’m guessing a defense attorney made a case for self-defense, given the abuse he’d endured as a kid. That and his age would have been mitigating factors.”

“But just because Thorne didn’t live with them at the time doesn’t mean he and Bradbury never met.” The man could have accompanied Wallace on a visit to her son. Wallace and Bradbury could have remained friends even after they split up.

“I’ll message Loffler.” Reese grabbed her phone.

“And I’ll take Mendes.”

Another text came in as she was finishing up.

U coming or not???

She stood, staring at the note. It was shortly after five. Kervin must have just gotten to his car after work. The message bespoke all the urgency he’d displayed earlier that day. A moment later, he shared a location pin for the crematorium.

“Is that from Loffler?”

“No.” She drew a breath. Readied for combat. “It’s Kervin. I want to meet him tonight.”

She saw his answer before he even spoke and hurried on.

“You heard Mendes. They’re closing in on Thorne.

They may already have him in cuffs before we leave.

And we’ll have a police escort to a building that should be deserted except for Kervin.

” When he didn’t answer immediately, she pressed, “It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.

And it’s like you said earlier. It’s maddening to depend on other people for information.

But we don’t quit looking for it just because the answers will come from someone else. ”

“His info isn’t going to change for having to wait a few days.”

“This is important to me, Hayes.” Her quiet words had the desired effect.

“I wish I didn’t have to depend on strangers to color in what little I know of my only remaining family.

” Reese wished, quite desperately, that she could continue hiding from those details.

“But that’s the hand I’m dealt. I’ve waited too long already.

” She’d been a willing participant in her own ignorance on the subject.

She could afford to be while Julia was alive.

But now her brother’s well-being depended upon her being at least cognizant of his needs.

“What time did he say?”

Her heart leaped at the resignation in Hayes’s tone. “Eight.”

“I’ll call Starr. Have him meet us here and escort us to the crematorium.” His expression hardened. “But you’re not paying that leech a grand, no matter what he claims to know.”

She nodded. “We’re agreed on that.”

The sun was doing a slow bleed into the horizon when they left the motel.

Rolling Acres Crematorium and Aquamation was in Escondido, only a few miles from Tranquility Lakes.

But at Reese’s urging, they’d set out forty-five minutes early.

Fridays in San Diego meant heavier than usual traffic, although at this time, they might escape the worst of it.

Hayes was at the wheel of Julia’s vehicle. Reese leaned over for a better look in the rearview. Officer Starr’s cruiser was still right behind them.

“I have an idea contextually, but explain aquamation to me.”

“I had to look it up myself when Kervin mentioned it,” Reese admitted.

“Basically it’s another form of cremation, a greener option than a furnace.

It uses water, heat, and an alkali solution to reduce a body to its bones without releasing air emissions, or greenhouse gases.

The liquid can be disposed of through the sewer system. ”

“Intriguing.”

That was one way to describe it. But the idea of dissolving someone’s DNA in a manner of hours left her a little squeamish.

But that didn’t explain the clench in her stomach as they drove.

It was too easy to recall her trip through the graveyard with Autry hours before they’d both ended up captured.

She remembered the guilty whispers that had reached out beyond the graves, entwining around her like a poisonous vine.

And that hadn’t been the first time it’d occurred.

Did crematoriums have bodies refrigerated somewhere like a morgue or funeral home?

When making Julia’s arrangements she’d tried to spend as little time in the funeral home as possible.

But Reese had to believe they did. The furnaces—and the aquamation vessel—were expensive, and of course, handled only one body at a time.

Her palms had gone inexplicably damp. She wiped them on her jeans.

“Are you too warm?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m not a fan of mortuaries. Or cemeteries.”

“Few are. When we get back to the motel, we’re watching something completely mindless on TV. We need a diversion.” She looked at him, and a flicker of regret crossed his expression. “Not that kind of distraction, unfortunately. At least, not now.”

“As long as it doesn’t include a Star Wars marathon, I’m game.”

“I’m left to wonder at your questionable taste, but okay.”

Her phone rang in her purse. Figuring it was Kervin again, she almost didn’t answer.

“You going to get that?”

Reluctantly, she withdrew her cell. “It’s my editor.” Her ire earlier this week when she’d learned he was feeding Raiker information about her had faded. But she hadn’t spoken to him since, either.

“Figured you’d be deep into happy hour.” It was a joke.

Gordon rarely drank and had never joined in the knot from the newsroom who got together at week’s end.

But he did smoke like an overactive chimney stack and kept a package of beef jerky in his desk drawer to gnaw on, in his words, “so he wouldn’t have to chew his people’s asses” all the time.

Given what she knew of him, she wouldn’t say the habit was effective.

But for all his brusqueness and lack of a filter, the man was like family.

“Just left the office. Figured you weren’t going to check in, so wanted to reach out. It hasn’t made the news, so I’m guessing they haven’t tracked down the scumbag yet.”

“They’re working on it.”

“Taking their sweet time. You still have a babysitter?”

How Hayes would hate that description. “Sitting right next to me.”

“Good. Keep your head down. Waiting sucks, but that’s exactly what’s required here.”

“Such profundity. I should embroider it on a sampler.”

He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a bark. “Like you can sew.” In the next moment, he shifted topics, and she realized the purpose of his call. “Keisha Quintin contacted me. Made a point to remind me about Asha’s baptism next week.”

The invite still sat on the counter in her apartment.

After some unsubtle arm-twisting from Gordon, Reese had met with Keisha a few weeks after Autry’s death.

It’d taken all her inner strength to force herself not to bail on the meeting.

She’d been prepared for the woman to blame her for her colleague’s death.

But Keisha had only wanted to hear about Autry’s last hours.

And she’d seemed comforted by the fact that even while on assignment, her husband had spoken glowingly about her and the upcoming birth of their daughter.

They’d seen each other a few times since.

Keisha was as hard to say no to as her husband had been.

And while Reese had zero experience with children, she had to admit that Asha had inherited both parents’ charm.

“I know.”

“She was also feeling around about whether you were writing the book we discussed.”

Something scuttled in her chest, like a crab ducking into a hole in the sand. “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

“Doesn’t stop you from thinking about it, though. Closure, Reese. Giving voice to the victims might just bring you peace, too.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Anything of note occur this week?”

That surprised a laugh from her. “It’s been pretty eventful.”

“I’ll want details. And let me know when they catch Thorne. We’ll scoop all the competitors.”

She promised to do so and disconnected, Gordon’s earlier words echoing in her mind.

Peace. Reese wasn’t sure delving into the worst experience in her life was the key to tranquility.

Just like she was uncertain whether she was capable of opening herself up to the kind of relationship Hayes wanted.

But for the first time in a long while, she let herself entertain what-ifs.

As long as the cursed “gift” didn’t reappear, she wouldn’t have to keep her guard raised, afraid at any moment she’d be battered by a stranger’s reprehensible memories.

Then, she could afford to wedge that tight emotional door open a bit.

Perhaps enough to satisfy Hayes. Long enough to fan life into the fledgling tendrils of hope he’d sowed in her.

The aspiration was a fantasy, as tantalizingly out of reach as a desert mirage. Yet, still, it persisted.

Maybe.