And suddenly, I was pissed off. At my gene pool, which had cursed me with a condition that would forever set me apart. Until I spent my days with patients suffering from the one sensation I would give anything to feel. Because there was no Melvin in my life to keep me safe. Meaning I had to say no to everything. Hobbies, walks on the beach. Love. Kids. Kittens.

I lived like a shrink-wrapped toy, forever on a shelf, never taken down to be used and enjoyed, in order to avoid breaking.

I didn’t want to be a toy. I wanted to be a person. A real, live person. With cuts and bruises and battle scars and a broken heart. Someone who lived and laughed and hurt and healed.

I might as well wish for the moon. What was, was. What you couldn’t change, the intelligent, high-functioning person learned to accept.

I looked around my shadowed apartment, and it occurred to me that for once, my unique condition might be my best self-defense. Ambush relied on stunning your victim with an unexpected attack that delivered disabling amounts of pain. But I didn’t feel any pain. The Rose Killer could clock me over the head, punch my stomach, twist an arm. None of it would do my attacker any good. I would just keep coming, no longer my family’s conscience, but now its vengeance, as I chased a killer around my own home with my dark, unblinking eyes.

I checked the pantry. The hall closet. The lavette. Finally, my bedroom. A flip of a switch. My king-size bed coming into view, my gaze dashing immediately to the nightstand . . .

Nothing.

No champagne, no roses, nor fur-lined handcuffs. Not even the rumpled shape of another person’s body having laid upon the mattress.

I frowned. Not much left to check. The walk-in closet, the sprawling master bath . . .

Nothing.

The Rose Killer had been here. I didn’t doubt that. Whether to satiate curiosity or stoke obsession, I had no idea. But the Rose Killer had walked through my condo, maybe rifling my delicates, checking out my favorite foods, before exiting, leaving the front door open just to show off.

I conducted a second sweep of my unit, footsteps steadier, gaze more focused.

After the second pass failed to reveal any monsters lurking under the bed or masked intruders tucked inside a closet, I finally set down my purse, sank down on the edge of my bed and released the breath I hadn’t even been aware I’d been holding.

The Rose Killer had come to see me again. Just as my sister had predicted. This monster, somehow tied to my sister and a thirty-year-old murder.

I didn’t know what to think anymore. If I’d been capable of it, I imagine I would’ve had a headache. Instead, I was tired deep down to my core, as if I couldn’t think another thought, take another step.