Page 31 of Traitor

“I’m okay. Thank you.” I waited until he went back into the kitchen before kneeling down in front of her.

“Katya, is there anything that stands out to you about where you were downtown? Did you see anything suspicious?”

She blinked slowly, as if just coming to the realization that I was here. “I thought you weren’t coming until next week?”

Her father was right. The blackouts were messing with her mind. I sighed, “We’ve been over this. We talked last week and I told you I’d be here this week.”

Her eyes widened with surprise and she shook her head. I had to look away—she was like a small child. Fragile.

“No, we just spoke two or three nights ago.”

Nikolay came back in with a mug of hot tea for her. He gave me a regretful look. “Detective, she is not sleeping well.”

“Nikolay, you and I both know she’s trying to avoid sleeping all together.”

Katya placed the mug on a nearby table before disappearing into the kitchen.

He handed me the letters. “She’s falling apart. I told myself she was getting better, but I was wrong. I kept her schedule full so that she would not dwell in the past. These notes and messages have made things difficult. Her mind has become her prison.”

I studied them—trying to make sense of it. The guy had a thing for song lyrics. This one said,“My darling, you looked wonderful tonight.”It had been attached to a picture of her as she’d left her condo earlier that evening.

No wonder she was paranoid—in the fractured parts of her brain she had to have been convinced that Landon had somehow discovered a way to get back at her, even in death.

She cried out from the kitchen and Nikolay and I raced in to find her hunched over the counter, sucking in ragged breaths, her cell phone in a death grip between her fingers.

I pried it from her hand to see a text.

Landon Scott-

“I desire the things that will destroy me in the end…”

Nikolay read the message over my shoulder.

“Jesus Christ.” I handed the phone to him and massaged my temples.

We were in big trouble.

I was starting to suspect that whoever was behind these messages knew exactly what had happened to Landon. “Katya, you’re sure you haven’t talked to anyone? You didn’t mention it to a shrink or one of your girlfriends?”

I sounded like I was on the verge of joining in her panic attack.

Nikolay set the phone down on the counter and replied, “Detective, my daughter has already told you that she didn’t talk to anyone.”

She glanced longingly at her water bottle and I snapped, “Yeah Nikolay, she also wants us to believe that it’s only water in that bottle of hers too. You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust her judgment right now.”

She slapped her hands against the granite surface and growled, “And you’re nothing but a dirty cop whose judgment is more questionable than mine. Yet, here we are.”

Before I could respond, her phone began chiming and I saw the screen as she reached for it.

Landon Scott tagged you in a post.

Landon Scott tagged you in a post.

Landon Scott tagged you in a post.

She clicked on one and her missing person flyer popped up. It had been posted repeatedly down Landon’s page. They were all captioned with,“What do you know about the disappearance of Katya Egorichev?”

Who the fuck was this guy?

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