A few steps away, I watched Julian kneel and sob into his hands.

I was tired of him.

How would this farce end in three days?

Would the woman from the video come back in my place?

How many more lies could he build out of my death?

I closed my eyes.

I was so tired.

Lucian passed them like a sharp shadow, not sparing Julian a glance.

Beside Hayes, he stopped.

“Nathan Hayes. Let’s make a bet. In three days, you won’t bring Stella home. If you bring anyone back, she’ll be another impostor.”

He turned his head slightly.

“Being fooled once wasn’t enough? You’re letting Julian use the same trick twice. I’m embarrassed for your badge.”

I looked at him, bitterness rising in my chest.

He knew I was dead.

He had suspected it from the beginning, but hadn’t quite believed it.

Or perhaps he had wanted me alive badly enough to doubt himself.

That was why he had treated the mutilated woman in the hospital as though she might be me. Prayed for me. Almost humbly begged me to survive.

Now Pearl had confirmed what he feared.

Hayes narrowed his eyes.

Doubt moved behind them.

Julian’s hands stiffened against his face.

Before the detective could speak, he looked up in righteous outrage.

“I was out of my mind with grief. That’s why I mistook a stranger for my wife. You can humiliate me. Break my finger. I won’t hold it against you. But don’t curse Stella. And don’t insult a good officer for doing his job.”

Such noble words.

From him, they were almost funny.

Lucian had already lost interest.

At the rooftop entrance, he paused again.

He looked back toward the place where he had stood.

Emotion rose in his eyes, fierce and sudden, then drained away.

The edge was empty.

Only dust moved in the cold wind.

Adrian got into the car with him.

He waited until we had left the unfinished buildings before he finally spoke.

“Do you understand what you almost did? If I’d arrived any later, you’d have thrown him off a roof in front of a whole police team. I can argue black into white, but I can’t win that case.”

He pressed a hand to his chest, still shaken.

I hadn’t realized the perfectly composed lawyer had been frightened, too.

Silently, I gave him a thumbs-up.

He had probably been even more panicked on the roof.

Yet he had smiled, tidied up the disaster, and gotten Lucian out.

Lucian didn’t seem to hear him.

He stared at his open right hand.

Long lashes shadowed his eyes.

Silent.

Absorbed.

I looked at the back of my own hand.

Where he had touched me.

It almost seemed to hold a trace of warmth.

“Adrian.”

The lawyer had talked himself thirsty. He took a bottle of water from the car’s cooler and drank.

“Yes?”

Lucian looked up.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Adrian nearly spat out the water.

“What? Did you catch a fever up there?”

He reached toward Lucian’s forehead.

A gun met his own.

“I’m joking.”

He withdrew his hand and moved closer to the opposite door.

“Are you really all right? You haven’t been yourself since Stella disappeared. Today was too much. If that gun hadn’t turned out to be harmless, I’d have thought you didn’t intend to survive this.”

The words struck me.

I had investigated Lucian while alive.

As the Blackwood heir, he had trained in almost everything from childhood. He began handling firearms at five.

I had thought the reports exaggerated.

But today, I had seen him unload the remaining live rounds in seconds, under everyone’s eyes, without drawing attention.

An awful thought formed.

Perhaps he really hadn’t intended to survive.

I was dead, yet something seemed to close around my throat.

I looked at his indifferent face.

It hurt to look.

Had he confirmed my death and taken Julian to that roof to avenge me?

To kill him, and then…

There was no then.

He hadn’t planned a way out.

I shook, wanting to shout sense into him.

Instead, I tasted tears.

“Lucian…”

His name was all I could manage.

Not just a lunatic.

A complete fool.

“Why would you do that for me?”

Tears blurred his face.

Alive or dead, had I ever really seen him?

I had wanted him to avenge me.

He had never given up.

Now I was beginning to regret what I had wished for.

I hadn’t imagined how far he might go.

Something dark clung more tightly to him, carrying a reckless, self-destructive determination.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Adrian continued. “I know you and Stella hated each other. You’ve done all this to find out if she’s dead, right?”

Miles went very still in the front seat.

“Veyra is no place for someone like her. A beautiful woman there would suffer more than most. Even if she comes back alive, she’ll never be the same.”

Adrian sounded entirely practical.

“Richard will see to it she stays out of sight. He won’t let her damage the company’s image. Whatever happens, she won’t threaten us again.”

The temperature in the car seemed to drop.

Adrian noticed nothing.

Miles covered his face and coughed hard.

“Mr. Shaw. Don’t you have another appointment? We’ll let you out here.”

The car stopped.

“No, I don’t. What—”

Miles got out and pulled him from the back seat.

He glanced through the window, led Adrian several steps away, and spoke behind a shielding hand.

I couldn’t hear.

I watched Adrian’s expression become increasingly complicated.

Eventually, his whole face creased.

Inside, Lucian absently stroked the blood-red bracelet.

His eyes gave nothing away.

Before returning, Miles took another call.

When he got in, he looked serious.

“We checked the care home Julian visited this morning. The Whitmores own it. He placed Pearl there. We also found something else. Vivian brought another patient in late one night recently. An older woman. Mute, with severe psychiatric symptoms.”

I looked up.

My mother.

They had found her by accident.

“Lucian, please. Save her.”