It could be nothing. Or it could mean that whatever the artist had found in that old house had led Robert Twist to Mia Hart.

“I wonder why the reporter thought that Jimmy was sleeping with Monroe,” Izzy said as they trekked back to Edie’s house. It was well into the evening, well into the single digits. Mia was taking them on a shortcut through the woods, rather than having them wind their way back through town, and she almost regretted it.

There was a hush to the forest that she didn’t like, an eerie expectation, a threat of violence beneath the quiet.

She picked up her pace, forcing Izzy into a longer stride.

“I’m getting that feeling a lot. People getting the wrong idea about things,” Mia finally said. She didn’t want to think about it now, didn’t want to be distracted. She listened too hard, desperate for anything—a branch breaking, a creature fleeing from their heavy footfalls. There was nothing. Mia concentrated on the weight of her gun against her side, underneath her armpit, and fell back so that Izzy was a step ahead of her with Mia protecting her back.

Was it Jimmy following them? Had he been spooked by the questions?

Asher, something in her whispered. Like that first night. It was a sign of her sleep deprivation that she couldn’t immediately shake the thought.

“What do you mean?” Izzy asked. Mia swallowed the urge to tell her to shut up.

“I don’t know,” Mia said, keeping her voice pitched deliberately low. “It seems like there are a lot of wrong conclusions being made in this case.”

Izzy glanced over her shoulder, finally catching on. Her gaze flicked to the shadows trailing behind them, and then back to Mia’s face. She wanted to ask what Mia meant; Mia could all but see the question forming behind her lips. But she didn’t say anything further, just unzipped her coat enough that her weapon would be easily reached.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

“Shit,” Izzy whispered once they’d stepped into Edie’s house. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Mia agreed, and the shivers rippling beneath her skin, pulling her muscles tight, had nothing to do with the cold.

“That was creepy as hell,” Izzy said, shrugging out of her jacket. “Someone is definitely following us.”

Mia locked the door. The dead bolt was rusted and sluggish and protested being put to use after years, if not decades, of neglect. The thud it made when it sank home let Mia relax just a bit.

She hung up her outdoor gear but left her holster in place as she moved toward the kitchen.

“What were you saying about wrong conclusions?” Izzy asked, settling into the seat Mia had begun to think of as Izzy’s.