CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTERNINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Everybody called him Tex.
His real name was Esteban Mejada. But because the room service waiterhad a southern drawl, someone had given him the nickname, even though he’d saidrepeatedly that he was from Louisiana, not Texas. It only took him a few weeksof working at the island hotel to discover that both the drawl and thenickname, along with a few other factors, actually helped him when it came totips.
He got off the elevator, ready to deliver a tray of champagne andchocolate-covered strawberries to a guest waiting for him to serve them, andservice her. Saturday nights almost always involved extra services. He wonderedwhat his tips would be like if he had a flatter Midwestern accent.
Tex rounded the corner and headed down the hallway. He was halfway tothe guest’s room when he heard a bloodcurdling scream. Moments later, a womanburst out of a room at the end of the hall wearing a pink jogging suit withseveral wine stains on it. Her eyes were wild and her face was filled withpanicked intensity. She saw him and ran over, babbling incoherently.
“I can’t understand you,” he said.
The woman slid down the wall and slumped to the ground, so that she wasseated cross-legged on the floor.
“What happened?” he tried again, kneeling down and placing the traydown beside her. She didn’t respond, only pointing at the door she’d come outof before beginning to cry softly.
Though his heart was beating rapidly, Esteban stood, gulped hard, andwalked toward the door, which was slightly ajar. His own breath was heavy inhis ears as he stood there, willing himself to take one more step. Finally, he nudgedit all the way open with his shoe.
The room was dimly lit, with only a lamp in the corner of the roomoffering any illumination. He didn’t immediately see anything that would havecaused such an intense reaction in the woman. His eyes adjusted, revealing aform on the bed. He couldn’t tell much more than that.
As the powerful feeling that something was horribly amiss in the roombegan to overtake him, he pulled a tissue out of his pocket, instinctively sensingthat he should avoid getting his fingerprints on anything. He flicked on thelight switch near the door. The second he did, the form became clear.
A woman was lying on her back in the middle of the bed. But that alonewasn’t what caused terror and disgust to well up in his chest.
Her eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling. She was naked andthe sheets near her body were soaked in blood.
Sticking out of her chest was a knife.
The same one he had dropped off an hour ago, along with the rest of theroom service meal she had requested.
CHAPTER ONE
Jessie Hunt knew something was off the second she woke up.
It took a moment to figure out what it was. Glancing over at her clock,she saw that it was 11:48 p.m. She blinked a few times and then it hit her.Normally she could feel the heat radiating off the man who slept beside hereach night. But the bed was cooler than usual and it felt somehow lighter.
She reached out her hand delicately in the dark just in case she waswrong. But sure enough, Ryan wasn’t there. She grabbed her phone to search theroom but he was nowhere to be found. She glanced over toward the bathroom. Therewas no sliver of light sneaking through underneath the door.
Trying to stay calm, she got up and put on her robe. She brieflyconsidered taking her gun out of the bedside drawer but chose against it. Therewere a dozen credible reasons Ryan might not be in bed and there was no need tojump to conclusions. But after everything they’d been through, she couldn’tblame herself for the instinct. It’s not like serial killers hadn’t leapt outof the shadows in the past.
She slid her feet into her slippers and shuffled out of the room, armedonly with her phone and a body full of adrenaline. At the last second, herapprehension got the better of her and she stepped back into the bedroom tograb one of Ryan’s canes.
As she made her way down the hall, holding the cane above her shoulderlike a baseball bat, she reminded herself that her boyfriend might just berestless. Even though it had been six months since he was stabbed, and despitehow well his rehabilitation was going, sometimes he was still overcome byanxiety that could only be subdued by middle-of-the night pacing.
She saw a dim light coming from the breakfast room and moved toward itas quietly as possible. Peeking around the corner, she saw Ryan hunched overthe breakfast table, poring through a pile of papers. He looked lost inthought.
Sighing in relief, she put the cane down, resting it against the wall,out of sight. Then she coughed quietly so as not to startle him as she steppedinto the room. He looked up, seeming to take a moment to connect the sound tothe person in front of him.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she whispered back, not wanting to wake her sister, Hannah, whowas hopefully fast asleep in her room. “What’s up?”
“I think I may have a breakthrough in the case,” he said excitedly.
Jessie walked over and sat down across from him at the table. It hadonly been a month since he’d started consulting for the LAPD, so she couldunderstand his enthusiasm at being back in the mix. But she was worried aboutthe effect of expending so much energy on a case instead of rehab. Of course,she couldn’t say that without sounding unsupportive, so she didn’t.
“What did you find?” she asked.
He smiled. Clearly, he’d hoped she would ask.
“You know the case I was looking into, the one with the girl who wascarved up?” he asked.
Jessie nodded. He hadn’t mentioned any details beyond that to her, butshe did know this was the case he hoped
