Page 34 of One Last Chance

“Like a phoenix.”

“Absolutely. I have at least five lives left.”

“That’s a cat, not a phoenix.”

“Still. At least five.”

She imagined him as handsome, to go along with the smile she could feel through the ham.

“Do you have any siblings?” he asked.

The question caught her like a hit to the boards. “Um. Yeah. Yes.”

“You sound unsure.”

“No, I’m sure. A sister. She’s a lot like me.”

“Smart, brave, and faithful?”

Oh. Wow.

“Too much?”

“I—”

“I’m freezing to death here. It might have shut down my brain a little, but . . . I’d like to meet you, Sparrow.”

Um. “Let’s just keep you alive there, Phoenix. Then we’ll talk.”

Laughter. It swept into her, through her, and found her bones. Heated them.

“So how’d you get into the serial killer hunting business?”

“I failed out of river-monster school.”

“Aw, I like you, Sparrow.”

She smiled, but his voice had softened. Fatigue, or possibly the cold, creeping over him.Stay awake, Axel. “I like you too. So I’m going to be really peeved with you if you die.”

“Roger,” he said softly.

Oh boy. “Okay, so when I was ten, we lived a neighborhood near uptown, in Minneapolis, with alleyways and detached garages, and one day I was walking home from school, and I found a dead body in an abandoned garage a block from my house. My sister was with me, and she completely freaked out, but I . . . I was curious. We ran home and my mom called the cops, but I sneaked back and watched them bag her up and take evidence, and I thought . . . someday, I want to do that.”

“Bag up dead people?”

“No—search for evidence. Find the killer. I actually met a cop on the scene—his name was Rembrandt Stone, and he was nice. He liked that I was curious. He explained what the crime-scene techs were doing—one of them was actually his wife, Eve. And then, later, he came by the house and gave me a detective book. Turned out he lived in the neighborhood. He quit being a cop after that, started to write novels. But after I graduated from high school, I tracked him down, and he introduced me to his wife. They became my mentors as I went to college. Then the police academy. And then into the forensics department. But I really wanted to be an investigator, so I became a beat cop and finally made detective.”

“And started specializing in serial killers.”

“Actually, that was . . . that’s a more recent focus. But I did recently catch one.”

Silence.

“Phoenix?”

“Mm-Mmmhmm.”

“Stay with me.”

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