Chapter 53

Chapter Fifty-Three

During the entire ride from Tom's apartment, I'm certain that when I get home he's going be waiting for me in front of my building with a butcher knife hidden under his coat, ready to slash my throat. But he isn't.

I get up the stairs as quickly as I can, then I lock the door to my apartment, as well as the dead bolt. And then I stuff a chair under the doorknob. I don't know if it will make any difference at all, but it makes me feel better at least. All the shades are already drawn, thanks to Real Kevin. Then I go to my bedroom, where I toss and turn for the next several hours.

I manage to wait until six-thirty in the morning before I shoot off a text message to Jake. I recall he was always an early riser, so I've got my fingers crossed he will get the message and I can talk to him before I lose my mind.

I need to talk to you in person as soon as possible. I can meet you wherever you want.

Almost instantly, a reply from Jake pops up on my screen:

I can be at your house in half an hour.

Twenty minutes later, the sound of my doorbell ringing nearly makes me jump out of my skin. Even though it's almost certainly Jake at the door, I grab a knife from the kitchen and bring it with me while I check the peephole. Sure enough, Jake is standing there in a crumpled white dress shirt and trench coat, the trademark stubble on his chin.

When I open the door, his tall, broad frame fills the doorway. He looks down at the knife in my right hand and his eyes widen. "Syd? What's going on?"

I pull him inside by the arm and lock the door behind him. Then I hurry over to the coffee table and pick up the freezer bag lying on top of it. Inside is the water bottle I took from Tom's apartment.

"I need you to check this for fingerprints," I tell him.

"Okay… Why?"

I take a deep breath. "I want to see if it matches up with the unidentified prints found in Bonnie's apartment."

Jake takes the freezer bag out of my hand. He looks down at the water bottle inside. "Where did you get this?"

I have to tell him the whole story, but I really don't want to. It's humiliating to admit that the guy I've been dating could be a serial killer. Not that Jake is particularly judgmental, but he will judge me for that. I don't blame him.

So I don't want to deal with having to tell him unless it's true.

"Can you just…" I squeeze my fists together. "Can you just run the prints please?"

" No ." He shoots me a look. "Sydney, I want to help you. But you handing me a water bottle and expecting me to check for prints without even telling me why? That's not a reasonable thing to ask." He folds his muscular forearms across his chest. "I'm not leaving this apartment until you tell me what this is all about."

It's not an unfair request. The truth is, I would have been stunned if he'd done it without that information. But now I have to tell him everything.

"The prints belong to a man named Thomas Brewer," I say.

"Okay, and why do you think Thomas Brewer killed Bonnie?"

I have to tell him. There's no way around it. "Because I've been dating him, and I found some of her belongings in his apartment."

Jake's face blanches. "Are you serious?"

I nod slowly.

"You're dating a guy you think is a serial killer? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

My face burns. "Look, he seemed like a really nice guy. He's a doctor." Well, a pathologist who cuts dead people up for a living.

"Thomas Brewer…" He frowns. "Wait, that's not Dr. Brewer, the medical examiner?"

I nod again.

"Holy shit." He shakes his head. "I've met him before. He's a really smart guy—a hell of a medical examiner. He didn't seem like a creep. You really think he could have done this?"

"I…I do." I bite down on my lower lip. "Honestly, I barely got out of his apartment last night."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No. I was really scared he was going to…you know…"

Jake looks dazed as he pushes past me and drops down onto my sofa. He is still holding the freezer bag with the water bottle in it, and he stares down at it, his eyes glassy. "So you're saying you could have ended up like Bonnie…"

"Well…" I sit down next to him. "I didn't. I got away."

"You should have called me right away."

"It's fine. I got out. I didn't want to bother you in the middle of the night."

"Are you joking?" His dark eyes are flashing. "Sydney, please bother me in the middle of the night, okay?"

"Okay, I just…"

"How could you put yourself in danger like that? He could have killed you, for Christ's sake!"

The outburst renders me temporarily silent. Jake doesn't yell much, but when he does, it's loud enough to make the whole room shake.

Jake drops the freezer bag on my coffee table and then buries his face in his palms. "Jesus, Syd…"

"Jake…"

"If he had done anything to hurt you," he says in a low growl as he lifts his face from his hands, "I would have slit his throat."

I suck in a breath. Jake has always seemed utterly in control of his emotions, but I've never seen him like this—with his face bright red and a vein pulsating in his temple. He's the kind of cop who always does everything by the book, and certainly not the kind of cop who would exact vigilante justice on a man who attacked a girl he used to date.

Maybe he's changed.

Jake has to take a few deep breaths to get his emotions under control. The color in his face finally returns to normal and his shoulders relax.

"Okay," he says. "I'm going to run the water bottle for prints. And in the meantime, I'm going to have a patrol car sit outside your building."

"You don't have to do that…"

"Don't you dare say no." The crease between his eyes deepens. "Syd, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. If that psychopath got to you, I…I would never be able to forgive myself. Especially since…" He drops his eyes. "Especially since if I hadn't been an idiot and had treated you right, you wouldn't be in this situation to begin with."

We sit there on my sofa for a moment staring at each other. I can't say he's wrong. "The past is the past. You can't change it."

"Sometimes you can make it right though."

I'm not sure what he means by that, and he doesn't elaborate. He picks up the freezer bag from the coffee table and promises that he'll let me know as soon as they have the results. I don't know how long it takes to run fingerprints, but I don't think it will be long.