The Obsession(128)

“Oh, f*ck the press. You’ll stand up to it.”

“You have no idea what it’s like.”

“You’ll stand up to it,” he repeated, without a hint of doubt. “And you won’t be alone. You’ll never have to be alone again. You can count on me.”

“Oh God, Xander.”

When he crossed to her, she tried to back away, shook her head, but he simply grabbed her, pulled her in. “You can count on me. And you’re damn well going to.”

He tipped her head back, kissed her more gently than he ever had. “I love you.” Kissed her again, drew her in, just held. “Get used to it.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“You don’t know until you try. We’re not going anywhere, Naomi.”

She felt herself breathe in, breathe out. “I’ll try.”

“That’ll do.”





      BALANCE


   Still to ourselves in every place consigned,

   Our own felicity we make or find.

   SAMUEL JOHNSON





Twenty-six




It felt like an interrogation. She knew better—she knew—but when Mason came into her studio in the morning, set up a folding chair, and sat, he turned the sanctuary into an interrogation room.

“You didn’t sleep well,” he said.

“No, not very well. Neither did you.”

“Well enough, just not very long. I worked late.”

“You didn’t come down for breakfast.”

“Because it’s at dawn.” He smiled a little. “I grabbed a bagel, had coffee, talked to the tile guys. The room you’ve earmarked for the uncles is really coming along. They’re going to love it.”

“I’m not sure they should come.”

“Naomi, I know it has to feel like your life tipped sideways, but you have to keep living it.”

“If something happened to them—”

He cut her off. “The unsub’s not interested in men.”

“He’s interested in me, and they’re mine. So.”

“They’ll come anyway. Put that away for a while. I’m heading into town shortly, meeting the team. We’ll work out of the police station. He’s never had an investigation focused on him like this, Naomi. It changes things.”

“Whatever we do, it doesn’t change what’s already happened.”

“No.”

“And I know, Dr. Carson, dwelling on that, brooding on my part of it, however involuntary, isn’t healthy or productive.”

Knowing that, knowing he thought it, irritated the crap out of her.

“But I might need a couple days to dwell and brood.”

All understanding, he simply nodded. “You should play to your strengths, and you’ve always been a champion brooder.”

“Up yours, Mason Jar.”

“Another strength,” he went on, “is your power of observation. You see the big picture and the small details. It’s going to be an advantage. It’s going to help.”

“My keen powers of observation didn’t clue me in that I’ve been followed by a serial killer for a couple years.”

“Longer, I think—and being clued in now, you can go back, remember things and people you noticed. You can go back, refresh those memories by going through pictures you took—the where, when, what was going on around you.”

Longer, she wanted to dwell on longer, but pressed her fingers to her eyes, ordered herself to deal with it. “I don’t pay attention to people when I’m working. I block them out.”

“You have to pay attention to block them out. You know more than you think, and I can help you bring it to the surface.”

Though she had to stifle a sigh, she decided if she had to take another trip into a therapy session, it might as well be with her brother in the chair.

“Let’s go back first, and tell me how much longer you think this has been happening.”

“Did you know Eliza Anderson?”

“I don’t know.” Already battling a vague headache, Naomi rubbed at her temple. “I don’t think so. Mason, I’ve brushed up against dozens and dozens of people. On shoots, at the gallery on trips to New York. There are motel clerks and waitresses and gas station attendants, shopkeepers, hikers. Countless. The odds of remembering . . .”

But suddenly she did. “Wait. Liza—I think they called her Liza. I remember hearing about her at college, my sophomore year, after she was killed. But, Mason, it wasn’t like this. And everyone said it was her ex-boyfriend. He’d been violent with her before, which is why he was an ex. She was beaten and raped, but she was stabbed to death, wasn’t she? And—God—they found her in the trunk of her own car.”

“What do you remember about her?”

“I didn’t know her. She was a year ahead of me. But I recognized her when I saw her picture on the news, on the Net, after it happened. We didn’t have any classes together, didn’t socialize, but she came into the restaurant where I worked the first two years of college before I could intern with a photographer. I waited on her enough times to remember her face.”