Page 42 of By the Time You Read This

“If the messages were meant for Delaney instead of me,” Raisa said.

“You were the emergency contact,” Kilkenny pointed out, and Raisa tipped her head in acknowledgment. “And you were the one she made sure knew she was murdered.”

“Thinking about Delaney got me to the right answer, so maybe that’s why she did it. She wanted me to think about Delaney and—oh my god, do you hear me right now? I’m acting like Isabel is playing 4D chess, and really she’s probably only playing checkers,” Raisa said, with a sigh. “And yet we have to act like she’s a grand master because every once in a while she is. She gave Gabriela Cruz a clue to give to memonths ago.”

“Let’s just forge ahead for now,” Kilkenny said, with the calm air of someone used to high-strung horses. “One of the more interesting things to note is that if we do have a protégé on our hands ... well.”

“‘Well’ what?”

“They’re killing at quite a clip,” Kilkenny said. “Let’s say they’ve killed four people in the last four months or so? Isabel averaged that many a year, in a busy year. That, to me, signals the protégé could be escalating at a startling rate.”

Raisa grimaced. “Why?”

“They weren’t built for killing?” Kilkenny offered. “They thought they could, but taking that first life—”

“Peter Stamkos,” Raisa offered. “According to the timeline.”

“Killing Stamkos broke them,” Kilkenny continued, with a nod of thanks. “They’re not going to be functioning well, they’re probably holding it together by a thread at the moment. They’re going to make a mistake sooner or later, or even turn themselves in. But there will be more deaths before that happens. If I had to guess.”

“Yeah, your guesses tend to be pretty accurate,” Raisa said. She very much enjoyed when they set up shop in his area of expertise. “What kind of killer do you see this person as?”

“Erratic, is what I’m getting mostly.”

“Even though she’s killing like Isabel?” Raisa asked.

“Isabel killed for twenty-five years without ever getting caught,” Kilkenny pointed out. “Our person here? They were found out by a twenty-two-year-old with a homemade algorithm.”

“Because they stayed local and their cooling-off period is nearly nonexistent,” Raisa said. He made a, perhaps unconscious, move toward his holster. Raisa dropped her voice, even though there was no one following them. “You really think we’re in danger?”

“Not us,” Kilkenny said.

Raisa rolled her head, just enough to peek over her shoulder. “Me.”

“Yeah,” Kilkenny admitted. “Isabel wanted you in Gig Harbor. I think she sent you that note not just to get you to look into her death but because she has plans for you here.”

A shiver slid along the length of Raisa’s spine. The theory seemed to cut through all the maybes, the second-guessing, the what-ifs.

If Isabel had wanted Raisa to solve her murder, she would have given her more information.

If Isabel wanted Raisa in Gig Harbor, she would send the exact note she had.

“We’ll just have to stay four or five steps ahead of her,” Raisa said, though she wasn’t convinced they could do that. Not with so many different paths they could go down.

“We should get the visitors’ logs from the correctional facility,” Kilkenny said. “Gabriela probably wasn’t the only one to visit Isabel. Maybe we’ll get lucky and her Biggest Fan will have put their real name down.”

Raisa checked the time. They still had an hour to kill.

“They’ll probably all just say ‘Delaney’ and ‘Gabriela,’” Raisa said, though she didn’t disagree that they should get them.

“You think Delaney visited her?”

She glanced at him, trying to read his expression. “You don’t?”

“Delaney seemed like she’d come to her own realization about how dangerous it was to associate with Isabel,” Kilkenny mused.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Raisa said. “A nearly forty-year-old habit is hard to break.”

“Have you heard from her?” Kilkenny asked.

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