Page 19 of The Truth You Told

“She reached out, I politely declined.”

Raisa laughed. “You’re a better person than I. I threatened to have her arrested.”

Kilkenny’s lips twitched. “It’s easier to be mad on someone else’s behalf.”

“True,” Raisa acknowledged.

“She would have had to prove the truth of what Conrad said in some way,” Kilkenny said softly after a moment. “No credible company would buy her film otherwise. She must have some kind of evidence beyond his word.”

Raisa deflated, knowing that was true. “Yeah.”

“So, there it is, then. He didn’t kill Shay.”

He sounded entirely too calm. She didn’t want him to fall apart, but she knew better than anyone that when someone kept it together this well, it usually meant they were headed toward a nuclear meltdown in the near future.

Raisa couldn’t quite picture what a nuclear meltdown from the cool and composed Callum Kilkenny would look like, but she also didn’t want to be able to picture it. Or experience it. “Maybe we should sleep on all this.”

He glanced at the time; it was nearing one o’clock in the morning. “We have less than forty-eight hours until we lose our chance to speak with Conrad.”

“You want to talk to him?” Raisa asked carefully, not wanting to sway his decision either way.

His eyes flicked to something over her shoulder. She glanced back and noticed the bookshelf for the first time.

On the middle shelf sat a framed picture of Shay.

Raisa swallowed hard and fought the urge to go get a closer look. She’d seen a few photos of the woman, but they had been ones that were provided to the police.

Here, Shay had been caught midlaugh, her eyes crinkled, her head thrown back.

Kilkenny’s expression was so wistful as he rubbed a thumb over his wedding ring, Raisa nearly had to look away, unable to shake the feeling that she was seeing something private. Intimate.

“We have to go to Houston,” Kilkenny finally said.

Raisa didn’t blink at the fact that he’d included her in the plans. She had taken time off to attend Isabel’s trial, and this was a much better way to spend those days. “Okay.”

He smiled at her easy acknowledgment, but he didn’t offer any other sign of gratitude. He didn’t need to.

“You know what they’ll all say, right?” Kilkenny asked, still staring at the picture. “If Conrad is telling the truth. If we prove he’s telling the truth.”

Of course she did. It might not have been her first or second thought—those had centered around Isabel and all the ways her sister had managed to continue to upend her life.

But it wasn’t hard to reach the next conclusion. Raisa might be a linguist, but she was also an FBI agent.

It was always the husband.

“They’re going to say you killed her,” Raisa said, grimly meeting his eyes. “And that you framed the very serial killer you were famous for hunting.”

EXCERPT FROM DECRYPTED ALPHABET MAN LETTER TO AGENT CALLUM KILKENNY

The sunlight kisses her skin, just like the blade of my knife does; and the more she screams, the more gentle I become. You thought I would say something different there, did you not Agent Kilkenny? You thought I would cut her deeper, to the bone even, when she cries because I like the way her voice reverberates off the stone walls. Oops. Did I give something away about myself? About my location, or worse, about my personality?

Do I have a personality, Agent Kilkenny? You must know the answer to that, as you say you know so much about me. Respectable, you have called me. At least on the surface. I have a good job, proper manners, a nice smile, maybe. That was in your profile, was it not?

So what lesson should the people of Houston learn? The Alphabet Man is trustworthy, so do not listen to your instincts that tell you someone is safe, harmless, good. Do you find that as ironic as I do?

Why you, why you, why you? I know you must wonder that in the deepest hours of a night as dark as coal. (Just like my heart, right?)

There is a reason, why you.

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