Page 44 of The Truth You Told (Raisa Susanto #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Shay

January 2014

Two months before the kidnapping

The wine bar was dark and comforting, the low buzz of tipsy chatter and the clink of glasses familiar now. After Shay’s freak-out with the serial-killer box, she and Tori had made it a point to meet up every month or so for drinks there. They were both hurting for friends in the area, and the gossip—even though neither knew the people involved—was always juicy and fun.

They’d lost touch when Shay had moved to Seattle, which happened more often than not when two women got busy and put a dozen states between them. Shay was used to relationships like that falling apart, but she’d mourned the loss.

She had been so happy when Tori suggested they hit up the wine bar that she’d mostly forgotten how strange it was that she’d run into her in the FBI parking lot.

Mostly, but not quite completely.

Tori beat her there, waving to get Shay’s attention from a high-top in the back.

“I can’t believe I ran into you,” Shay said, kissing her cheek again in greeting before taking one of the stools. “What on earth were you doing at the FBI building?”

“What was I doing there?” Tori asked on an easy laugh. “What were you?”

“Oh, my husband works for the Bureau. I thought I mentioned that,” Shay said, not bothering with the intricacies of explaining Kilkenny’s fly-in, fly-out position. And she definitely wasn’t going to go into whatever was going on with Beau and Pierce.

“Of course, that’s right,” Tori said, before turning toward the waiter and ordering for both of them, like she used to do every time. Back when Shay had been dating, that kind of behavior had pissed her off. But she liked when Tori did it.

Tori turned back to Shay, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Are you still enjoying your tall, dark, and handsome drink of water?”

Shay hadn’t told Tori about the baby. There was no reason she would know that Shay wasn’t living in that typical honeymoon bliss. And this wasn’t the time to correct her, either. She forced a smile. “We’re happy.”

But she forgot she was talking to a psychiatrist. “Uh-oh. Want to talk about it?”

“No,” Shay admitted, taking a too-big swallow of what was probably too-expensive wine to be gulping with such abandon. “Are you doing consultation work with the Bureau?”

“Mmm.” Tori hummed the nonanswer. “So, what are you doing in town?”

“Oh my god, it’s so stupid,” Shay said, burying her face in her free hand. She debated if she should tell Tori anything, but she wanted to talk about it with someone who wasn’t Callum or her teenage sister or even Beau and all his baggage. Just an abbreviated, sanitized version that left out the active investigation of whatever the hell Hillary was doing.

“Max decided she wanted to play detective,” Shay said.

“Not another serial-killer box.” Tori laughed. “It’s my job, and I’m not even as fascinated by them as she is.”

“What?” Shay asked.

“What, what?” Tori said, eyes still crinkled in amusement.

“I thought you worked exclusively with children who had violent histories,” Shay said, her head going a little bit buzzy. They’d flown in that morning, and then everything with Beau had gone down. She should probably slow down on the wine. Instead, she finished her first glass.

“Yes, and they sometimes become serial killers,” Tori said, some of the humor fading from her face. “You knew that.”

Shay blinked and remembered a night almost identical to this one, perhaps even sitting at this exact table.

“To my knowledge, no one has ever really been able to pinpoint the moment in someone’s life that sets them on an irreversible course.”

“Right, yes, of course,” Shay said, shaking her head to get rid of the whisper of something creeping along her skull. “Anyway, Max got it in her mind that—get this—Beau was the Alphabet Man.”

“What?” Tori asked, again on that same burst of laughter. “Why would she think that?”

“She’s sixteen,” Shay said by way of explanation. “I came down to do some sibling relationship repair.”

There was no need to fill Tori in on her own amateur sleuthing habits. The less said about that embarrassing hour when she’d also thought Beau really might be the Alphabet Man, the better.

“She must have found something ,” Tori prodded. Lightly, but there was an edge to her voice.

Shay frowned down at her now-full glass, glanced at Tori’s empty one, and wondered if she’d switched them without Shay realizing it. Then she shrugged. It was something she’d done with plenty of people throughout the years when she could tell they needed it more than she. And she could call Callum to come pick her up. Or take a taxi.

“Oh, she had some maps and was talking about the hospital,” Shay said. She squinted at Tori, remembering one particular visit with Billy. Tori had stuck her head in as a surprise hello. “You work there.”

“What?” Tori asked.

“At the hospital,” Shay said, her mouth operating faster than her mind.

“I don’t work there,” Tori said, that laugh of hers going completely brittle. “I have admitting privileges. And I’m called in every once in a while for a consultation ...”

“Oh, right.” That made sense, of course. It was the same with Nathaniel. “Is that what you were doing at the FBI building?”

Shay wasn’t sure why she was so fixated on Tori being there, but she also wasn’t sure why Tori hadn’t answered yet. Even a pat I’m helping with a case would have been enough for Shay.

For some reason, she remembered what Pierce had just said when he’d explained why he’d felt the need to look into Shay’s family.

“We had just stumbled onto a serial killer who Kilkenny profiled as being someone who would want to find an in on the investigation.”

“What else made Max think Beau was the Alphabet Man?” Tori asked, dodging the question once more. Shay tried to remember why she cared about the answer and then forgot anyway.

“Something about a Dallas trip,” Shay said, swirling the last remnants of her second glass. She should probably slow down, she realized. But then the waiter set another rosé by her elbow, and she smiled in thanks because she would never be rude to someone serving her drinks. It was the bartender in her. “Don’t ask me, honestly. It didn’t make any sense.”

“Did she say anything else?” Tori asked softly, coaxing out the details.

“Just that it felt ... familiar,” Shay admitted, because that part had stuck with her the most.

“Familiar how?”

Shay shook her head. “She never really explained that part.”

“Weird,” Tori said, and Shay giggled.

“Yeah, that’s Max for you,” Shay said. “You really never thought she was going to grow up to become a serial killer?”

“No,” Tori said with incredible sincerity. “I really didn’t. She’s not capable of killing.”

“Huh, all that worrying for nothing,” Shay said, still giggling. “Have any of your kids? The ones you see?”

“Shay,” Tori said after a beat. “You know I can’t tell you information about individual patients.”

“That’s a yes,” Shay said, and stared down at her empty glass as she remembered exactly what they were talking about. “Oh, that’s not good. What if one of those kids is him ?”

Tori went still. “I think we should call you a cab, my friend.”

Shay swallowed against the layer of sugar on her tongue, and all of a sudden, she wished the world had sharp edges instead of blurry ones. “Wouldn’t that be funny?”

“Hmm,” Tori hummed, already pulling out her phone. Somehow, they made their way outside, the process happening in that way it did when you were drunk. Blink, sitting down. Blink, opening the door to a taxi.

“Wouldn’t that be funny?” she asked Tori again, though of course it wasn’t. She didn’t even remember what would be funny anyway.

“No,” Tori said softly. She sounded sad. So sad. “I don’t think it would be.”