Page 31 of The Familiar Stranger

Good ol’ Henry.

Fighting a smile, I called him out on it. “You’re pushing me to come clean, aren’t you?”

“I know you well enough to know when you’re working a case, Sloane. Is it related to Kim? Something else? I remember you had an old case over there in Savannah …”

“I’d rather not get into it right now,” I said, “not with all you’re going through at the moment.”

He cleared his throat, then said, “Just be careful, and hurry on back to New Orleans. I need you.”

Guilt consumed me; I wished I could be in two places at once. I should have gone to him before coming to Savannah, but I couldn’t ignore what was happening or the fact I was starting to feel like a mouse being led around by a piece of cheese.

Which was the truth.

That bastard was leading, and I was following. I needed to take a more proactive approach, and that started with my next question.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said. “But, hey, before you go, I do have a question about the investigation down there. They haven’t happened to find any, say, messages or notes, have they?”

There was a long pause.

“How did you know?” he asked.

I swung around to find Maddie, who was just coming out of the bathroom. I waved her over, putting the call on speaker.

“Henry, it’s Maddie. You’re on speaker now. What’s going on?”

“You referring to the note they found on Kim’s body? How did y’all know about that? They swore me to secrecy.”

“Who’sthey?” I asked.

“The law, who else? I’d planned to tell you anyway, once you got back from vacation, but then you called just now. I was about to tell you about the note they’d found, but I got interrupted by a call from the funeral home. So, yeah, there was a note. A creepy one too.”

“Do you have a copy?” Maddie asked.

“Can’t say as I do. But I have it ingrained in my brain. I’ll never forget it.”

He told us what the note said.

When he was done, one thought circled through my mind:And three makes a serial killer. Almost.

Grabbing a notepad from the desk, I asked Henry to repeat the words, but to include punctuation, capitalization, and where new lines began. I wrote as he spoke, asking questions to clarify, and in the end, I had this:

Number two, who are you?

A friend to Danger

- once was a stranger.

Don’t choke up!

And ending with the crossroads symbol.

“That’s a lot more complicated than the other—” Maddie stopped when she caught herself.

But Henry had already clued in. “Hold on now, are you saying there was another note?”

“It’s complicated, Henry,” I said. “I can’t go into it right now, but later, I will. I promise. I called to check in and see how you were doing, that’s all. Find out what was going on with the case. Knowing I’m not there for you, I just … I feel awful about it.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I know when you get back here, we’ll have plenty to catch up on. Everyone’s always talking about getting justice and all, but it won’t bring Kim back, and I just want it all done.”

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