“Where are you going?”

“I need some air.” North took another step, and then he spun back, jabbing a finger down on Shaw’s drawings. “And that? Your fucking pride flag? It looks like a shitty pan of lasagne.”

“Good. Because it is a pan of lasagne.”

Shaw’s hazel eyes were so fucking innocent that North wanted to scream. Instead, he marched outside, passing Chuck and Pari without a word, and circled around the side of the house. He wiggled the loose brick free from behind the downspout, and he retrieved the pack of American Spirit. He smoked through half of one viciously, butted it out on the brick, and stowed it back in the pack. Then, after another minute, he went back inside to tell Pari’s girlfriend—and boyfriend—they were going to try to find her favorite asshole.

Acknowledgments

My deepest thanks go out to the following people (in alphabetical order):

Justene Adamec, for helping me tease apart the Hanson case from Shaw’s own traumatic history, for seeing parallels in the characters I hadn’t recognized, and for helping me fix countless other little missing pieces.

Austin Gwin, for encouraging me with a new series and helping me spot gaps in the characters and the setting (it might help if I mentioned the city?!) that needed to be addressed.

Cheryl Oakley, for helping me make this mystery make sense. You’re awesome, Cheryl! Thank you for helping me weave in Shaw’s suspicions about the Slasher and for helping me make that final conversation with Matty much more satisfying!

Jo Wegstein, for carefully proofing the manuscript multiple times and for helping make the blackmail much more realistic and believable (no more mailboxes!) as well as so many fixes to character and plot.

About the Author

Learn more about Gregory Ashe and forthcoming works at www.gregoryashe.com.

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