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“I already miss you, Little Poison.” He smiled. “Stay safe.”

Layne and I parked in front of the Hollow Inn. Tabitha’s mother had already texted me the room she was staying in.

Rexy stared at me when I walked in with Layne.

“Hi, Doctor Sharma. What brings you here on a Thursday?” Rexy asked. “Do you need a room?”

“No, thank you. I’m meeting someone.”

We climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor, the faded carpet muffling the sound of our heels. We walked to the end of the hallway. Layne rapped her knuckles against the door, and it swung open, the hinges creaking in protest.

She looked at me with a frown. “Dee, is this the right room?”

I pulled out my phone with trembling fingers. It was. “This is the number she sent—” My words died. “Lay, is that blood?”

The curtains were drawn, keeping it dark even in the morning, and the metallic scent clung to the air, thick and suffocating.

Drip. Drip. Drip. The faint sound of water dripping filled the growing silence.

I moved toward the bathroom and pushed it open.

“Fuck.”

There was a large gaping wound on her chest, and blood bloomed down her blue dress.

She looked like she was smiling as if death wasn’t as scary as living.

The water inside the tub had turned crimson, seeping over the sides of the tub, snaking along the cracked yellow tiles, creating a macabre art.

“Fuck, Dee,” Layne cursed.

I stumbled out of the room, pressing a hand to my mouth.

Layne looked at me with worry lines along her forehead. “Does this mean…” she spoke, barely a whisper.

“He knows. He knows I’m looking into the suicide, he knows I’m getting closer—this is a warning. Stay the fuck away, or you’ll be next,” I said, rubbing my temple. “He might have found out it was Asher who killed Doctor T and Tomas Hannigan.”

“What should we do? This looks… pretty damning.”

Layne and I had killed, cleaned, and left a place without a smidgen of evidence, but right now, I could see she was as flustered as I was.

“Call the cops,” I said. “We can’t leave her like this.”

Taking a deep breath, I turned away from the dead woman.

If I hadn’t dug into this, she might still be alive. Living in her broken home, mourning her daughter’s death, but sometimes, death was a reasonable price to pay for something worse.

The bastard had finally come out to play.

I’d catch her daughter’s murderer.

He had played his twisted games with these women, breaking them, pushing them down a deep, dark hole, and he had been doing this for years and no one knew. But now I know.

You’re no longer invisible.

He was scared. Rattled. This was the proof.

If he was as in control as he wanted me to believe, he wouldn’t have done this. He’d have stayed in the dark, untouchable, untraceable.