“You got something you want to share with the class, Townsend?” Lia’s tone was light and mocking, but I knew with every fiber of my being that this wasn’t a joke to her.
You came up here because you thought he was hiding something. From you. From all of us.
While Dean and I had been profiling the crime scene, Lia had been watching Michael. She must have seen some kind of tell. Even if he hadn’t lied, she must have noticed something that made her suspect…
What? What do you suspect, Lia?
“That’s not a photograph.” Michael gave Lia a look. “It’s a digital drawing. Celine took creative license with the old photo and updated it. Obviously. Unless you didn’t happen to notice that her schedule included a class on digital art?”
As a matter of reflex, I ran through the rest of Celine’s schedule in my head. Visual Thinking. Death and Apocalypse in Medieval Art. Theories, Practice, and Politics of Human Rights. Color.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Lia asked Michael. “When you went home over Christmas?”
Michael’s jaw clenched slightly. “I haven’t seen Celine in nearly three years. But I’m touched that you’re jealous. Really.”
“Who says I’m jealous?”
“The emotion reader in the room.” Michael glanced at me. “Maybe the profiler in the room can tell the lie detector that it’s borderline pathological to be jealous of one of our vics?”
Vics. As in victims. The Michael I knew wasn’t capable of thinking of someone he cared about that way. Celine Delacroix wasn’t a nameless, faceless victim to him. And I couldn’t help wondering—if Celine hadn’t seen Michael in three years, how had she captured the way he looked now so precisely?
“Tell me you’re not hiding something.” Lia gave Michael what seemed to be a perfectly pleasant smile. “Go ahead. I dare you.”
“I’m not doing this with you,” Michael said through clenched teeth. “This
isn’t about you, Lia. This is none of your damn business.”
They were so caught up arguing with each other that they didn’t see the picture on the screen change again. This time, there was only one face depicted in the drawing.
Thatcher Townsend’s.
“Michael.” I waited until he looked at me to continue. “Why would Celine have a picture of your father on her computer? Why would she have drawn him?”
Michael stared at the computer screen, his face unreadable. “Townsend, tell me you think this case has something to do with the
Masters.” Lia went for the jugular. “Tell me that you haven’t known, from the second you saw that crime scene, that it does not.”
“In five seconds,” Michael said instead, his gaze intent on Lia, “I’m going to tell you that I love you. And if you’re still in the room when I say it, you’re going to know.”
Whether he loved her. Whether he didn’t.
If she’d known for certain that the answer was the latter, Lia wouldn’t have moved. If no part of her wanted him to love her, she wouldn’t have cared. Instead, she looked at Michael with something like hatred in her eyes.
And then she ran.
It was several seconds before I found my voice. “Michael—” “Don’t,” he told me. “Because I swear to God, Colorado, if you say a
single word right now, I’m not going to be able to keep from telling you exactly what combination of emotions I saw flash across your face when you started to think that Celine might not have been taken by one of your precious Masters.”
My mouth went dry. If Celine had been taken by the Masters on a Fibonacci date, she was already dead. But if this case was unrelated, she might still be alive. And I…
I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t hopeful. Part of me—a sick, twisted part of me that I barely even recognized—wanted her to be a victim of the cabal.
Because if she was their victim, there was a chance they’d left evidence behind. We desperately needed a lead. I needed something to go on.
Even though I knew Celine mattered to Michael. Even though he mattered to me.
YOU
Some things you remember. Some things you don’t. Some things you’ll shudder at—and some things you won’t.
