Page 124 of By the Time You Read This

The heart monitor beeped steadily, greeting Raisa when she finally woke.

It felt like she’d slept sixteen days instead of sixteen hours. But either way, Kilkenny still hadn’t stirred.

“Is it time to start worrying?” Raisa had asked the doctor like she hadn’t spent every minute Kilkenny had been in that bed worrying.

“No, I think we’ll see progress in the next day or two. The swelling in his brain has decreased dramatically,” the doctor had reassured her. “I’m hopeful it won’t be much longer.”

Raisa knew doctors. He wouldn’t have saidhopefulif he hadn’t meant it. They always wanted you braced for the worst-case scenario.

But hopefulness wasn’t a guarantee.

“No change, huh?” St. Ivany asked from the doorway.

“Nope,” Raisa said, not bothering to stand up. Everything in her body ached. She was getting too old to sleep in chairs, but she would have done far worse if it meant she could be here when Kilkenny came to.

“The DA listened to Gabriela’s confession from Delaney’s recorder,” St. Ivany said, moving around to the end of the bed.“We’re also searching her place now. We’ve already found some souvenirs.”

“Isabel never kept souvenirs,” Raisa murmured.

“Yeah, well, Isabel got away with it for twenty-five years and Gabriela Cruz got away with it for six months,” St. Ivany pointed out. “With the help of Isabel.”

“I hate that she was so good at it,” Raisa said, thinking of Delaney, too.

No one would have ever suspected that Isabel had been killed, if the ME hadn’t been briefed on the fact that it was a possibility. And that had been Delaney’s first try.

Raisa shook off the unease that came with the thought.

She had spent the past two years worrying that Isabel would break one of them, that their Parker blood would come through and destroy the world.

Yet Isabel had thrown her very best at them, and all it had taken was a visitor logbook for Raisa to drop her gun.

Isabel had been obsessed with them, she had studied them, she had tried to understand them.

But she was a psychopath unable to actually do so.

Where her mind had drawn blanks for predicting their behaviors, she had assumed they would do what she did—the most harmful, terrible action possible.

It was in Delaney’s and Raisa’s humanity that they had finally beaten her.

That knowledge felt comforting.

“Obviously it doesn’t matter much, practically speaking,” St. Ivany said. “But it’s good to have everything on the record.”

“Yeah,” Raisa agreed. Especially since she had been right there when Gabriela had died.

“We’ll keep you updated,” St. Ivany said. “I would add to stay in touch, but, well, I didn’t like you that much.”

Raisa laughed so hard she finally looked at the woman, who was smiling along.

“Yeah, you were terrible to work with, lose my number,” Raisa shot back.

St. Ivany saluted her before patting Kilkenny’s feet once. Then she turned and left the room.

Raisa’s phone buzzed and she almost ignored it. But she glanced down to find an unknown number had texted her.

In case you ever need me.

Raisa stared down at it.

---