Hunter winced. “He did. When we prewired the studio for security, Sam was asking a lot of questions. The next day, he came to work all jazzed to talk about what he’d found out about you and this serial killer. I told him to keep his trap shut, but that didn’t exactly work out so well.”

Brody laced his fingers through mine as if searching for comfort. And I would give him that anytime he needed it. I traced circles on the back of his hand with my thumb as he spoke. “It’s not your fault. And what happened in New York isn’t exactly a state secret. I just hope he didn’t use it to get rid of someone he had a beef with and try to pin it on me.”

“It seems like he has a vengeful streak,” Caelyn muttered.

Bell nodded. “Remember what happened to his neighbor?”

“Shit, I forgot about that,” Hunter answered.

“What are you talking about?” Ford asked.

Bell plucked up a graham cracker and proceeded to break it into tiny pieces. “It was before you moved back to Anchor. Someone called the sheriff’s department on Sam when he had a loud party. Two days later, the neighbor’s entire lawn had been bleached, and his truck windows smashed in. Not sure if anything else happened, but the guy moved.”

It all sounded a little too familiar. The uncontrollable anger and rage. The belief that he should always get what he wanted for no other reason than he deserved it. The need for vengeance if anyone crossed him. It sounded like Michael. If Sam had those tendencies, Parker had his work cut out for him. I just hoped he could make a case before someone else got hurt.

29

Brody

I smoothed down the strip of tape, making sure the bottom of the box was secure before flipping it over. The last thing I needed was boxes of paint and supplies coming apart at the seams as I tried to bring things down to the new studio. My gaze swept the sunporch, and I groaned. It was going to take more than a day to pack all of this up. But the studio would be done and ready to move into tomorrow.

The sunporch had been good to me. Between its light and Shay’s gentle pressure to continue painting, I’d finished a few more pieces in the last week alone. And the more people that had come into our lives, the more inspiration I’d gotten. But Shay was still my favorite subject. I didn’t think I’d ever tire of exploring every part of her. Just when I figured out one facet of her, she’d reveal a whole new layer I never would’ve expected.