Sadie never doubted him. He’d worked for Pauley for six years before Sadie took over the business. If Pauley said he was a good guy, he was a good guy.
“Call if anything comes up.” Sadie reached for the door.
“Sorry about your friend.”
Hand on the door handle, she hesitated. “Life sucks that way sometimes.”
“Yeah.”
Sadie climbed out of his car and got back into her own. She glanced at the house once more before pulling away. She was halfway down the block before she turned on her headlights. Traffic was light as she drove to her place. Didn’t take ten minutes. She rolled into the alley and parked. She locked the doors and headed for the fire escape. No one had been near her door or the fire escape since the last time Falco had banged on her door at seven. He’d called her a half-dozen times. She would get back to him in good time. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what he wanted. His and Devlin’s visit to Asher’s aunt had obviously turned their attention back to Sadie.
She unlocked the multiple dead bolts and walked into her loft to the sound of her security system’s hyperbeeping. Entering the code shut the thing up. She locked up and tossed her backpack on the sofa. She needed a drink. If there was any chance at all of her sleeping, she’d have to get ahead of the demons.
After grabbing the bottle she’d started on last night, she walked to her checkerboard pattern of sticky notes and photos on the wall, which represented her missing ten months. She tilted up the fifth of bourbon and chugged a long swallow. As the burn flowed down her throat and into her empty stomach, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Come on,” she murmured. “Do your magic.”
Knowing the buzz would soon begin, she studied the images of the faces she had reason to believe were involved in whatever had happened to her. Her gaze stalled on his. Eddie’s. Eduardo Osorio. The only son of the most dangerous and powerful cartel leader in Mexico. He’d lost his wife only a year before the undercover operation had been launched. Sadie was no fool. Her commander hadn’t picked her for the assignment because she was the best detective on the team. Her likeness to the target’s deceased wife was undeniable. The powers that be had wanted to get Eduardo Osorio’s attention, and it had worked. He’d taken the bait like a starving rat.
A shift in her chest had her tilting up the bottle once more. She closed her eyes and let the burn overtake the memory. Her mind took her to the one constant in the fragmented pieces of her memory.
The mask. White. Horns sprouting from the sides and curling over the top. Soft, childlike voice instructing her to eat . . . to drink . . . to listen.
The masked child, or whatever the hell it had been, had come to her so many times. Sadie had recognized the person was female, small. Maybe a kid. But everything around the visitor was a blur. The memories were scattered and cloaked in darkness. The occasional sound or image. Sensations. Fear. Pain. Need. Panic. And occasionally hope.
All of it nothing more than pieces she couldn’t seem to put together.
“To hell with it.”
Sadie turned away from the mishmash she’d worked on for nearly three years now. The first year back from that dark place she’d been too much of a physical and emotional wreck to focus on anything. Over the past thirty-six or so months, the one thing that had kept her from admitting defeat was her refusal to give her father the satisfaction of knowing she’d given up.
She would not give him that. Ever.
The neck of the bottle hanging from her fingertips, she decided a long hot shower was necessary. She’d finish off the bottle and hopefully sleep like the dead for a few hours. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t let the alcohol lead her anymore, but this was different. This was just for sleep. She rarely drank before or during work. She’d narrowed any serious drinking time down to a limited hour or so before bed.
It’s a start, right? She’d even gone to AA a couple of times. Needed to go more—she got that. And she would. She definitely would.
As long as she was breathing, she had an obligation to do right by Pauley. He’d left his business and this place to her.
And she needed the whole truth. All those missing pieces. Some part of her wouldn’t let go of the idea that those pieces were essential to something she didn’t fully understand.
With Asher’s murder, those pieces were even more important. Something or someone from her lost past was relevant to his death. She had to find that thing or person. Maybe the whole concept was simply a reason to seek revenge. Revenge was a powerful motive.
The warning that someone was on the fire escape chimed. She stalled. A fist against the door confirmed it was neither cat nor another four-legged animal.
Pound, pound, pound. “Cross, I know you’re in there.”
Falco. Sadie gritted her teeth. She was not going to answer his questions tonight.
She started forward once more, and the pounding began again.
“We know you were working with Walsh more closely than you told us,” he said, the hushed accusation leaching through the wood of the door.
Sadie turned around and moved toward the sound.
“I understand,” Falco said, his voice softer now, “what it must have taken for you to trust him.”
She pressed her forehead against the cool wood surface and closed her eyes. He couldn’t possibly.
“I just need to understand what he was doing. It’s the only way we can find his killer. You know that, Cross. You have to help us. We can’t help you unless you help us. You can count on Devlin and me. You know that.”
Sadie twisted around until her back was against the door, then tipped up the bottle and guzzled another deep swallow. With the fire burning in her gut, she slid down the door until she folded into a heap on the floor.
“Go away, Falco. I don’t need your help. Or Devlin’s.”
“We know about Naomi Taylor. We found Walsh’s working notes at her house. We need to understand what the pieces mean, Cross.”
Join the fucking crowd.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she lied. Anything to get him gone. She needed peace. Darkness. Quiet.
“What time tomorrow?”
Sadie gritted her teeth. “Just go, Falco, before I change my mind.”
He knew she would too. There were only a handful of people, and several of those were dead, who understood her. Falco was one of them. He even knew a few of her secrets.
But not all of them.
Hell, she didn’t even know all of them.
“Tomorrow, Cross. I need to hear from you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She listened to the clomp of his footsteps fading down the stairs. The security system chimed again, confirming he’d gone.
Good. She angled up the bottle once more and focused on cutting her own path away from here.
8
Session One
Three Years Ago
“I am Dr. Oliver Holden. With me is my patient, Sadie Cross, age thirty-one. This is regression therapy, session one.”
The sounds of rustling papers float up from the recording.
“Sadie, are you ready to begin?”
“Guess so.”
“I want you to close your eyes and relax. Allow your muscles to loosen. Start with the muscles in your neck and shoulders. Let them soften; release any tension. Slow your breathing. Slow and deep. Now your arms. Allow them to lie beside you. No tension. No anticipation. Just lie there. Deep breath. Slower. In . . . out. Your legs should be relaxed. Soft. Pliable.