“You’re crossing a dangerous line here, darling,” she’d said in a tone of amusement tinged with worry as she’d entered his den, a glass of wine in one hand. “You’ve got your little ‘treasures,’ just like the killer with his souvenirs, yes?” She’d eyed him curiously as she’d slung a leg over the corner of his desk, then picked up an earring from one of the killer’s victims. Rubbing it between her manicured fingers, she added, “This isn’t just unusual, you know. It’s freaky. And vastly illegal.”

He hadn’t said anything, just watched her from his chair.

“You could lose your job.” She eyed him over the rim of her glass, her short, sun-streaked hair catching in the light from his desk lamp.

Not if I don’t get caught. Not if you don’t rat me out.

“Or they could . . . send you away, to a psych unit. When you add this to that trance thing you do—how did you describe it? getting into the victim’s or the killer’s head?—I’m telling you, you’re one step away from the loony bin.” He’d felt his jaw grow so tight it had ached, but he hadn’t said a word. “Oh, well, it’s your funeral, I suppose. Just, please, don’t take me with you.”

Wouldn’t dream of it, “darling.”

“Face it, Brett, you’re disturbed. Deeply disturbed.” She’d dropped the earring back onto his desk and made a sour face. “Some secrets are better kept locked away.” Tapping a fingernail on the desk’s surface near the bow from a patent-leather shoe of another victim, her green eyes glinting, she’d said, “This isn’t a game, you know. It’s your life. My life. Our life.”

And she’d been right, he thought now.

He’d wondered over the intervening years if, indeed, it was a game with him, getting away with something.

Or was it a deeper psychological anomaly?

Whatever the reason, tonight he was undeterred. He swiped a paper towel across his face and hands, then tossed it and the wrapper into the trash.

In the dining area, he took a seat at one of the bar stools and started the ritual.

First, he picked up Megan Travers’s necklace, fingering the delicate links and looping it between his fingers, touching the small, glinting cross dangling from the chain. Closing his eyes, he waited for an image to come. To feel her. To sense her emotions.

He thought the images would come slowly, but he’d been wrong.

In a sudden burst, a kaleidoscope of pictures of Megan flashed behind his eyes: Seated at her desk in the clinic, fingering the cross nervously. Talking on the phone, rapidly, heart pounding. Worrying about . . . an unborn baby? Hopeful? Or not?

Was she pregnant?

Rivers felt a bit of her joy, her anticipation. And something else. Worry? Or disappointment?