Page 76 of Jayson
And for a moment—just a breath of it—there’s something in her eyes that looks like fire. Flickering. Hungry. Coming back to life.
31
KEIRA
Ican’t outrun it. Her name. Her face. That dream.
Riley.
She clings to me like a bad omen. I can’t breathe right as I pace back and forth across the floor in my room.
The phone vibrates in my hand like it’s alive—panicked, pulsing.
Unknown number.
My thumb hovers. Unknown numbers usually carry threats, not pleasantries, and after last night’s demons I’m in no mood for more ghosts. But curiosity is a rotten little hook, and it sinks deep. Especially when this time, it’s a call rather than a message.
Swipe.
“Keira Bishop speaking.”
A man answers—voice clipped, precise, the kind of tone that bleeds authority and keeps comfort at bay.
“Ms Bishop, Detective Hawthorne, King County PD. We need to discuss your father’s disappearance.”
Disappearance. Such a tidy word for a man who painted the bedsheets red.
“I’ve already spoken with the police,” I say, pacing faster. Thechandeliers overhead cast shifting bars of light that look like prison bars sliding across my skin.
“New information’s surfaced. We’d like to meet in person.”
“What sort of information?” My pulse hammers against the bruises on my heart. Silence sizzles back at me—pure bait. I bite my lip until iron blooms on my tongue. “I’m… out of town,” I lie, voice shaky but still walking the knife-edge. “Not sure when I’ll be back.”
“Where are you, Ms Bishop? We can come to you.”
A floorboard creaks. I glance up.
Jayson looms in the open doorway, arms folded over the black ink coiled on his forearms, eyes the color of a brewing storm. The single word “police” must have summoned him like some hellbound guardian. He mouths:Give. Them. The. Address.
My spine chills. I swallow splinters before I shoot off the address.
“We’ll be there within the hour.”
The line dies.
I lower the phone, fingers shaking. Jayson doesn’t move. The chandelier hums above us, sounding too much like a swarm ready to feed.
“Go on,” I mutter, voice rough as gravel. “Say whatever brilliant thing you’re thinking.”
“They’d have sniffed you out anyway.” He stalks closer, the hallway shrinking beneath his shadow. “Better we set the board.”
“I’m not your pawn.”
“No,” he says, tilting my chin up with a knuckle. “You’re the queen. And queens don’t hide.”
Heat—equal parts fury and relief—flares in my chest. Because as twisted as it is, standing next to this monster feels like slipping into armor I never asked for but desperately need.
An hour later, we watch from the great bay windows as anunmarked cruiser noses up the winding drive, tires crunching over gravel.
