“I’m not lying,” Isaac said. “Look, I didn’t hurt anyone.”

No, he’d just stalked them instead. Paige looked over at Christopher who nodded and stood up, heading for the door, leaving him in there for now and taking the phone.

“We’ll get the phone checked for his location last night,” Christopher said. “The GPS data should still be on there. It should tell us if he’s telling the truth.”

“And if he is?” Paige asked. She suspected that he was, but she didn’t like the idea of releasing a would-be killer back into the world. Maybe next time, he would find the impetus he needed to cross the line into murder.

“Then we still hold him on charges of stalking,” Christopher said. “He needs to be off the streets before he hurts someone.”

Paige appreciated his determination about that. They had a problem, though.

“If he does turn out to be innocent, then we have no more obvious suspects,” Paige said. “Sorry. The whole point of having me along on this was that I was meant to be able to find the right suspects among Lars Ingram’s visitors.”

Christopher shook his head, though. “The point was that you’re capable, resourceful, and you can get into the heads of killers. You’re good at this, Paige, and there’s no one I’d rather have along.”

He put his hand on Paige’s arm as he said it, and Paige had to remind herself that it was just a friendly gesture, not anything more. Christopher was a married man. There wouldn’t be anything between them. There couldn’t be. Especially not now that they were working together. The FBI had rules about that kind of thing, and Paige wasn’t going to be the one to break them.

Especially when she had no real evidence that Christopher felt the same way. He was always friendly with her, and he obviously respected her as a psychologist, but as far as Paige knew, that was as far as it went. She wasn’t going to risk trying to push things further.

Christopher stepped back. “Look, between the visit to Ingram and chasing down this creep, we’ve eaten up most of the day. We should call it a night, get some rest, and start again tomorrow. By then, we’ll have the results back on Coleridge’s phone, and if it isn’t him, then hopefully we’ll have thought of a way to make progress on the case.

Paige hoped so too, because otherwise, a killer was going to be out there still, free to kill again.


Tags: Blake Pierce Paige King FBI Suspense Thriller Thriller