Page 38 of Whispers in the Quarter

The liquid burns going down, tasting of midnight and madness and Lucas’s laugh.

And somewhere in the darkness, I swear I hear Lauren whisper:Finally.

The world shifts sideways as the liquid hits my system. Colors sharpen, shadows deepen, and every string on my evidence wall seems to pulse with new meaning. Lucas’s chemical catalyst doing its work, or just my last threads of sanity finally snapping?

“You see it now, don’t you?” Lucas’s voice comes from my phone, and when did I call him? “The patterns, the connections, the beautiful chaos of it all.”

“What did you give me?” My voice sounds distant, strange.

His laugh crackles through the speaker. “Clarity, my falling Saint. Just a little push toward your true nature.”

I stumble to my evidence wall, Lauren’s photo seeming to watch me with new eyes. The red strings between photos vibrate like live wires, and suddenly I’m seeing connections I missed before. Dates, locations, patterns within patterns...

“The club where Lauren died,” I hear myself say, “it was owned by the same company that just bought the Gardenia.”

“Fascinating observation.” Lucas sounds delighted. Is he here? “What else do you see, my saint?”

My fingers trace a path across the photos, leaving smears of what might be bourbon or blood. “The investigating officer for Sarah Deveraux’s murder... he worked Lauren’s case too. Said both were random acts. Both times evidence went missing.”

Reeves.

“The system protects its own,” Lucas purrs in my ear. “Rather ugly, isn’t it? All that corruption hiding behind badges and bureaucracy.”

I spin and he’s there, swimming in my vision.

I didn’t let him in. How did he get in?

“Stop it.” But my voice lacks conviction. “I’m not like you. I’m not?—”

“A monster?” He laughs again. “Oh, my Saint, you’re something far more interesting. You’re a righteous man who’s finally seeing the truth about justice. Tell me that doesn’t feel like freedom.”

My knees give out and I slide to the floor, surrounded by photos of the dead and missing. Lauren. Sarah. All the victims I couldn’t save playing by the rules.

“I can’t—” My voice breaks. “If I cross this line...”

“You already have, darling. The moment you let me kiss you. The moment you took that vial. The moment you first looked at our Chimera and saw something beautiful in her darkness.”

Our Chimera. Evangeline. Celeste. The ghost I’ve been chasing who might understand this madness better than anyone.

“She kills people,” I whisper, but it sounds weak even to my ears.

“She delivers justice,” Lucas corrects kneeling before me. “Just like you want to. Just like Lauren might have, if she’d lived...”

That pulls me up short. “What do you know about Lauren?”

“Only what the molecules tell me, darling. And they whisper such fascinating stories about your dead fiancée.”

The room spins again, harder this time. Lauren’s photo seems to smirk now, holding secrets I never saw when she was alive.

“I need...” My voice trails off as black spots dance at the edges of my vision.

“Rest, my Saint,” Lucas soothes. “Let the chemistry do its work. When you wake up, everything will be so much clearer.”

“You’re finally seeing it, aren’t you?”Lauren’s voice, so clear it makes my heart stop. She steps out of her photo—or maybe I’m stepping into my memories.“All those things I tried to tell you, but you weren’t ready to hear.”

“Lauren?” The room tilts dangerously. “You... you knew about this? About all of it?”

Her laugh echoes strangely, mixing with Lucas’s voice. “Oh, Ethan. My righteous, beautiful Ethan. I knew so much more than that.”

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