“Less than forty-eight hours later and two dead women is where we are.”

“I know you think this is just a calling card for a new killer,” he says. “But the dog coming home right as you are taunted at a crime scene feels personal, and not for you. For the killer. Think about that little nuance. I’ll go get the data you need.”

He hangs up.

I replay his little nuance.

It’s personal, not for me but for the killer.

He’s right.

And perhaps wrong.

What if it’s personal for the killer, who therefore wants to make it personal for me?

And now Kane is missing. My mind, logically, went to the cartel, but now I’m back to a killer clearly obsessed with me. I briefly remember Kane’s comment about Ghost being obsessed with me, but this, all of this, doesn’t fit his profile. Ghost is about clean kills and originality. He wouldn’t send text messages and play games and this killer is, I believe. And Ghost wouldn’t cross Kane.

For the moment, I stop worrying about involving other people in my hunt to find Kane. I call Andrew back. “I’ve talked to you more in one day than I did for the entire two years you were in California,” he says.

“Ping Kane’s phone,” I say. “He’s missing. He didn’t make it to the city, but I want this off the record. I’m worried—”

“It’s another way this case just got personal. I’ll handle it. Give me a few minutes.” He hangs up.

I push to my feet and start walking toward the door. I’m going to Kane’s office. I don’t know why that feels like the thing to do, but it does.

CHAPTER FORTY

I reach the subway entrance and Andrew hasn’t called back.

I try to call him, but he doesn’t answer. I leave a message. “I’m going into the subway. Leave me a message. I’m headed to Kane’s office.” I disconnect and jog down the stairs, eager to catch the next train out of there. As it is, I’ll have to change trains and I’m twenty minutes out. Once I’m in the tunnel, it doesn’t take long for me to make it to the train right after the doors shut. I curse and stop dead in my tracks. “Damn it to hell.” I squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to breathe, but I can’t. For just a moment, I’m back on that first crime scene in L.A., back in a room that was ankle-deep in blood, suffocating with the knowledge that’s it’s slushing around my ankles. That’s what’s happening to me now. I’m suffocating in the idea that Kane is dead.

Dead.

God, where did that word come from?

Kane is not dead.