Blake cleared his throat and began to explain the context. “It was to remind me to find his birth father.” Nashville Levi Barclay was the child of a single, teenage mother. No father was named on his birth certificate. “I’ve always wondered about his true paternity. One-night stand? Rape? Incest?”
Marissa’s mouth turned down on both sides. “Do you really think it could be one of the latter?”
“I never found out. I know he was raised in poverty by his grandparents who weren’t real thrilled by the burden. I had the significant displeasure of meeting with them after he got away from me the first time. They described him as an ungrateful child, and they believed in corporal punishment. His mother was absent. I got a good idea of why while I was there.”
Marissa leaned back against the couch cushions. “His life sounds terrible. No child should grow up feeling unloved or unwanted.”
Blake twisted to face her. He’d decided in the shower that he’d tell her as much as he could. She deserved to know what he knew. “Nash had a relatively productive life for a while. He finished high school. Got a job and met a girl. They were engaged to be married, but she died of a drug overdose before the wedding. She left a vague suicide note. That was six years ago, and what I see as his breaking point.”
She stared at the pages. “He was going to have a family. He had someone who wanted him, but not enough to keep living.”
“I’d thought that Nash’s first victim went missing a year after his fiancée’s death.” Blake stopped to rub the back of his neck and groan. “That’s another thing I was wrong about. One of the bodies from the lake was a year older than that.”
Marissa looked ill. “So, he’d actually started killing right away,” she whispered.
“Maybe. I’ll know more when I get the medical examiner’s official report.” Until then, everything he thought about what Nash had done to the victims was pure speculation, including the events on the day he killed them. Blake dropped his hands onto his lap and rubbed his palms together. “I think he attacked you and killed that jogger because I stopped trying to find him.” Sickness coiled in his gut. He glanced at Marissa, wary of what he’d see in her expression. “I’d put his case aside and resolved to make myself useful on active criminal cases. Then, this happened. I don’t think the timing is a coincidence.”
Marissa raised an eyebrow. “You think he somehow knew you’d stopped looking for him?”
Blake watched her carefully as he answered. “I think so. Yes.”
Someone knocked at the door. “Room service,” a familiar voice called.
Blake hoisted himself upright and went to check the peephole. “While you were in the shower, I put in a request for some food.” An agent with a bag of takeout and a giant umbrella stood at attention in the rain.
Blake thanked his teammate and accepted the meal before engaging the door chain and dead bolt once more.
Marissa pushed the files onto Blake’s empty seat and rubbed her eyes.
“Any more questions?” he asked.
“Why do you do this?”
Blake set the bag on the couch and dropped the stack of files onto the floor. “I thought there should be food here if you got hungry. We know Kara’s safe, so now maybe you can eat.”
Marissa pulled the bag onto her lap and extracted a salad and cup of dressing. “I meant, isn’t it hard to always be on the prowl for a monster? The people you go after are the worst of humanity, and I never gave them a second thought until yesterday. Not you, though. You chose this as your life.” She popped the lid on her container, looking baffled. “You all do.”
Blake moved the bag to the floor. He’d heard this before. “By all, I assume you mean my brothers and I.”
“Well, yeah, and your dad. You’ve all chosen careers like this. Isn’t it lonely and exhausting?”
“Tell me how you really feel,” he joked. “Please don’t hold back.”
Marissa smiled. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“Some families sing or sail or own horses. Garretts protect and serve.”
“And you all enjoy it?”
Blake took his time answering. Marissa wanted to know him, and he didn’t want to mess it up. “I think so. I do. I grew up in awe of my dad and uncles. They’re all patriots and veterans, and I wanted to honor that by emulating it. So, I followed their paths to the military after high school graduation. All my brothers did, too.”
“I think that’s beautiful,” she said. “Did you learn a lot in the service that helps you today?”
“I learned the importance of self-discipline, and I got a look at how bad life can be for some folks. Before that, I’d assumed my life in Shadow Point was the basic, standard issue stuff. I’d had no idea how great I had it here. I came home with a phenomenal appreciation for the freedom and profound safety in a rural American town. I knew I wanted to be a federal agent. I wanted to make more towns as secure as ours.” He barked a humorless laugh. A lot of good he’d done.
Marissa worked through her salad, bite by greedy bite. “You wanted to make a difference,” she said, pointing her fork in his direction.
He gripped the arm of the couch and tried to look less horrified at the amount of personal information he was unloading. “I know I’m not going to change the world. I don’t have the tools or capacity to cure cancer or end wars, but I can do my part to protect the lives of my cases.”
Marissa shifted her attention from her dinner to Blake’s eyes. “I think what you’re doing is noble. Most people wouldn’t risk their lives to improve the lives of others.”
He shifted in his seat, focusing wholly on Marissa. “I won’t let him touch you again.”
She pushed a hunk of lettuce with
