Page 61 of Cold as Hell

He hesitates, and glances in the direction the others went, as if wanting to leave this and catch up with them.

“Marlon…? If there’s more, I need to know it.”

He exhales. “It’s nothing really.”

“Tell me, and I’ll decide whether it’s nothing.”

He glances after the others again and then says, “I thought it was Sebastian.”

“Thought…?”

“When I saw Lynn being escorted by someone, my first thought was that it was Sebastian. Something in the way he moved.” Marlon throws up his hands. “I don’t know. It was just an impression. But then Grant thought I said Thierry’s name,and I realized I didn’t have any proof about who it was, and if something happened to Lynn, I shouldn’t be making guesses.”

He looks at me. “I didn’t tell Grant I saw Thierry escorting Lynn. But I didn’t say I just saw ‘someone’ either. I said I saw Sebastian.”

Sebastian takes me up to his apartment. He offers tea or a cold drink, but I say no. I need to interview him quickly. My talk with Marlon had given Sebastian time to come up with a story, if that’s what he needed.

Do I think Marlon’s right? No, but what I think isn’t important. If there are detectives who can tell the guilty from innocent, I will never be one of them, and I’ve honestly begun to believe they don’t exist outside detective stories. The ability to “tell” monsters from ordinary people is a fiction we tell ourselves, because we don’t want to accept the truth, which is that nothing gives away the monsters among us.

Grant said he knows something’s wrong with Sebastian. So that’s proof that youcantell, isn’t it? No. What Sebastian has isn’t a streak of evil. It’s sociopathy. Call it mental illness or neurodiversity. What it means for him is that, as hard as he tries, he’ll never quite act the way we expect of neurotypical people.

Hell, the longer I live in Rockton or Haven’s Rock, with such a small community of people, the less I’m convinced that neurotypical is even a thing and not just a name given to a mental construct humans have declared “normal.” To someone like Grant, confident in the presumptionheis “normal,” it’s easy to look at Sebastian, or April, or even Dalton and me, and to narrow his eyes and decide something isn’t quite right.

In Sebastian’s case, yes, Grant is correct that the deviation in the young man’s brain does make him dangerous, and so I cannot absolve him of this accusation outright, as much as my gut says the crime doesn’t fit the young man I know.

“Thatisthe heart I made for Felicity,” Sebastian says as we crest the stairs into the apartment. “I’m sure of it, but I’d like to check where I was keeping it, if that’s okay.”

I nod and follow Sebastian to his room. On his dresser, there’s what looks like a jewelry box. When he opens it, I see that it’s his lure-making equipment. He pulls out a drawer and removes tissue-wrapped objects. He takes out one, starts to unwrap it, and then stops.

“This one’s been opened.” He points at the bottom. “I fold them under when I wrap them.”

“Those are…?”

“My lures.” He takes out another one. “This one’s been opened, too.” A third. “But not this one.” He shows me how he’d tucked it under, forming a perfect pouch for the elaborate and delicate lures.

He opens the three. They’re all lures—none a heart-shaped decoration like Grant found.

“It was in here,” he says.

“When did you last see it?” I ask.

He shrugs. “When I made it last month. I wrapped it up and put it away.”

“And you didn’t notice one missing?”

“The other three were already in there. That’s the drawer for Felicity’s lures. I finished hers first, and then moved on to doing ones for others. Once they were done, I didn’t open the drawer again.”

He doesn’t say that someone stole the heart. He doesn’t even point out that the opened ones suggest someone was lookingthrough the lures. Sebastian isn’t only smart—he’s a convicted felon. And he trusts me to draw my own conclusions.

“You sold a fly to Lynn?” I say.

He nods. “About a month ago. Someone heard I do them and was asking about them, so I promised to bring some to the Roc. I did. A few people wanted to buy them for spring fishing. Selling them is awkward—I don’t need credits—but if I give them away…” He shrugs.

“If they’re free, everyone will want one because theyarepretty. That’s why Lynn bought one?”

He nods. “She said she doesn’t fish, but she wanted it.” He glances over. “She wasn’t flirting or anything. To her, I’m a kid. Yeah, she hit on Gunnar, who isn’t much older than me, but she definitely saw me as a kid.”

“Who all was there when you were showing them off?”

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