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That was the first thing I assured myself.

He couldn’t call me. He couldn’t.

But trauma didn’t care about logic, and my heartbeat didn’t, either.

My hands shook as I lifted the phone again.

The line rang once before a gravelly, bored voice answered. Not Hattie. She was gone for the night. “Front desk.”

“Hi,” I breathed out, quickly. “Sorry to bother you, but…did someone just call my room?”

I heard paper shuffling on the other end. “No outside calls have gone up to the rooms from here.”

My skin went cold.

“Okay,” I whispered, trying to steady myself. “Then…did anyone come up to my floor? Maintenance? Housekeeping? Anyone?”

“No, ma’am. Nobody’s been up that way since housekeeping left at three.”

The words hit me like a physical blow as my throat tightened. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Should there have been someone?”

I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to break down right there in the middle of the room.

“No,” I said, my voice barely more than breath. “Thank you.”

I almost hung up, I almost convinced myself to crawl into bed and pretend none of this had happened. But my voice slipped out before I could stop it.

“Could you…please transfer me to the police?”

There was a beat of silence. “The police?” he repeated, sounding confused.

“Yes.” My grip tightened around the receiver. “Someone’s been in my room.”

CHAPTER 23

STERLING

The first thing that hit me when I stepped into Jett’s basement was the smell.

Rot with something sour underneath, like the drifter’s thoughts had curdled long before his mind did.

And threaded through it all was the copper tang of blood.

The man was slumped in the chair Jett kept down here for nights like this, his head drooping as he muttered into the hollow of his own chest. Jett had already bound his wrists.

Up close, he looked even worse than he had on the trail cams. His hair hung in greasy ropes, plastered to a face that hadn’t seen rest or reason in a long time. Dirt clung to the grooves of his neck and hands, packed so deep it might as well have grown there. His nails were black. His boots, held together by duct tape and pure stubbornness, were coming apart around his feet.

And his face was stained red.

Not dried in streaks the way you’d expect from a fight. Smeared instead, still wet in places, and not from his own skin.

Jett had found him chewing when he finally caught up to him in the woods…chewing on a woman. A woman none of us recognized, which meant he’d brought her from someplace else. Some other town. Some other life he’d ruined before wandering into ours.

The drifter mumbled again, his lips twitching, a thin smile ghosting across his face as if he’d just remembered a joke from whatever broken little world he lived in.

I stared at him, disgust curling in my gut.