I almost turn and run from the house, but the sight of the engagement ring on my left hand makes me stop. I said yes. We made a plan, and I agreed to it. I can’t run now. It’s too late. And I don’t want to anyway. The ring brings a grin to my lips.
I walk to the bedroom, feeling like I might faint or be sick any second. He’s sitting in a chair in the corner, alone in the dark like Norman Bates. It’s creepy, but I walk into the room anyway.
“You signed up to do a mind run in the girl they found in the river?”
I nod, even though it’s dark and he probably can’t see me.
“You promised you wouldn’t do any more of them.”
I nod again.
“The appropriate response is to argue back, Jane. Jesus.” He says it like he’s praying.
“I know that. I just don’t really have an excuse. She’s the girl who was missing from that college out west last spring, the eleventh girl on that case Rory was talking about. She’s got defensive wounds, and she’s been fed, but she’s horribly pale. I don’t know a college girl who lets her skin get that pale. She’s escaped, and whoever had her is going to be looking for her. It’s going to be a small run, I swear. I just need to know who keeps taking them.”
“Why? Why can’t you wait and see if she wakes up?”
I sit on the chair by the door, not crossing the room. He’ll win the argument if he gets near me. He has skills I do not possess. “Because she might wake like me, forgetting everything. Or she might not wake, and he will worry that one of his girls got away. We haven’t found a single body of the other ten girls. No one has turned up. He’s keeping them alive and torturing them. I know it. When he panics because she’s been found, he’s going to purge and run, and we’re going to lose him. We’ll find the girls, but he’ll be long gone.”
He’s silent. He knows I’m right. “I’ll give you the day, that’s it. Then I want your name out of the hat. No more mind runs.”
I crack a grin at my success. “Lucky number eight.”
He shakes his head. I barely catch it in the dark, but the annoyed sigh is obvious. I lift my left hand. “Still wearing the ring.”
“It’s been four hours.” He clearly doesn’t see how remarkable that is, so I go for the thing I’ve been holding back.
“I put in for a transfer. Into a profiling position that has no guns, stakeouts, or mind runs. Hardly any travel and no chance of me being killed in any small way, except from boredom.”
He’s up and out of the chair instantly. Even Binx crosses the room to me. Dash scoops me into his arms, kissing my neck. “That is amazing news. Military profiling—what a great job. I bet it even comes with a raise.”
“Yeah,” I sigh.
He laughs and carries me to the kitchen. “You are such a baby sometimes.” I shrug as he places me down and pulls out my chair. “I made something new.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t want new.”
He rolls his green eyes. “You’re getting new. We have to talk about the wedding.”
“Just make it whatever you want. I don’t honestly care.”
His face drops, making me jump up and kiss him quickly. “I mean, I would elope. I don’t have family or anything so it doesn’t matter to me.”
He kisses me back, but it’s wooden. “Well, my mother is from Virginia. There is no way I am getting away with anything less than four hundred people. She’s already insisted that if I don’t bring you there for Christmas in a month I will be an orphan too.”
I wince against his face. “Christmas?”
He nods. “It’ll be great. You’ll have fun. My sister is amazing, and my mother cooks like it was her profession.”
“What was her profession?”
“Gossip and charities, mostly, but you’ll be fine. She knows you don’t have family and grew up in an orphanage. She knows you’re not big on sharing or talking or hugging or—”
“I hug!”
“Your cat doesn’t count.”
I hug Dash harder. “I hug you, and Angie sometimes.”
“Okay, I’ll strike hugging from the list then.” He makes me smile. He kisses my forehead, lingering to breathe me in the way I do Binx. “You don’t have to do anything but be you. I don’t care if she likes you or not. I love you, Jane Spears. I have loved you since the moment I first saw you.”
I narrow my gaze. “In the room where we were doing interviews but really you were testing our mental capabilities?”
He laughs. “That’s not the first time I saw you.”