Chapter 4

The second I burst out of the apartment, panic locked around my throat.

The building's smart security system was completely frozen. The elevator sat dead at ground level.

Going down was suicide. I'd never outrun Vincent.

I spun and hit the stairwell, took the stairs two at a time up to seventeen, and hammered on the door to 1701.

The entire floor was Quentin's private photography studio. He shot vintage film work but he didn't have that pretentious artist vibe most of them carried.

Last month when I'd locked myself out, he'd let me wait in his studio for two hours until Vincent got home.

Made me tea. Kept his distance. Didn't ask questions.

Right now, that quiet, decent neighbor was the only lifeline I had left.

"Quentin! Open up! Please—Vincent's trying to kill me!" I slammed both palms against the door, my voice breaking apart.

Footsteps echoed from below. Steady. Unhurried. One after another.

Vincent was coming.

Quentin's door stayed silent.

My legs gave out. I slid down the door frame, both hands clamped over my mouth to muffle the sobs.

"Baby, come home."

Vincent rounded the corner at the landing. Blood was still running from the gash at his temple, soaking through his light-colored shirt.

"Stop this. Last chance." He kept walking toward me.

The second before his hand closed around my arm—

The door opened behind me.

An arm shot out, grabbed my wrist hard, and yanked me backward into the apartment.

SLAM.

The heavy security door crashed shut. The deadbolt turned with a solid click. The lunatic was locked outside.

The adrenaline crash hit me like a collapsing wall. My vision blurred. I pitched forward.

Quentin caught me.

I smelled cedarwood and something inside me just broke. I grabbed onto his jacket and sobbed so hard I thought my ribs would crack.

Quentin went rigid. I could hear his breathing shift—heavier, uneven.

Half a second later, his hand came up. Patted my back lightly.

Two or three minutes passed. I cried until there was nothing left and finally let go, stumbling back.

"I'm sorry, Quentin..."

He adjusted his glasses, started to speak, then stopped. His eyes caught on the blood covering the hem of my dress.

He stared for a beat, then his expression reset into something calm and clinical.

"What happened, Willow? You and Vincent get into it?"

I shook my head violently, my voice wrecked. "He's insane. He killed Celeste. And her fiancé. I saw it—I was there. Now he's going to kill me to cover it up."

Quentin's brow creased. He stared at me hard for two full seconds.

"You're serious."

"I swear on my life. There was blood everywhere."

I reached for my phone, then realized it was gone.

"Quentin, call 911. He hacked the building security—if he gets through that door, we're both dead."

Quentin nodded, expression grim. He crossed to the landline and dialed.

His voice stayed level as he gave the dispatcher a clean, efficient rundown of the situation.

He hung up. Leaned back against the desk. His eyes stayed locked on me—assessing me in a way that made my skin prickle.

I opened my mouth to ask how long until the cops showed—

THUD.

The door shook in its frame.

"Sweetheart, enough. Come home with me."

Vincent's voice filtered through the steel.

"Vincent, I called the police! They're on their way!" I pressed myself against the far wall and screamed it.

Silence on the other side. A full thirty seconds passed.

Then one brutal, deliberate slam against the door.

After that, footsteps. Slow. Retreating.

He was leaving.

The relief was so sudden and absolute I collapsed onto Quentin's couch, gasping for air.

Quentin was still watching me. Even now, that sharp, clinical focus made something in me uneasy.

"Willow. Breathe." His voice was low. "Now tell me exactly what happened."

I told him everything. Every detail from the moment I hid in that closet to the second I smashed the decanter into Vincent's face.

When I finished, his expression had gone completely flat.

"Willow..." He lowered his voice. "Have you ever heard of a serial killer called the Chimera?"

A chill shot through me. I nodded stiffly.

"Over the last five years, he's been targeting women with rare heterochromia."

Quentin's eyes didn't leave mine. "I consulted on the case for the FBI. Psychological profiling. I know details that never made it into the press."

The light caught his glasses at an angle, turning the lenses opaque.

"Every single victim had one blue eye and one green eye. He's obsessed with the expression they make right before they die—that specific kind of terror."

Quentin's voice sharpened. "And those photos you saw on Vincent's phone? "

"The Chimera... I think it's him. Your husband."

The floor dropped out from under me.

If I hadn't stumbled into that closet tonight, I'd have been the next encrypted file on his phone.

Quentin exhaled and stepped closer, both hands settling on my shoulders.

"You're safe here. The studio's secure. Police will be here any minute."

I slumped against the couch cushions, too exhausted to do anything but nod.

Quentin walked to the bar cart and poured me a cup of black coffee.

The liquid was bitter with a strange, cloying sweetness underneath. A few sips in, my heart rate actually started to slow.

Silence.

The wall clock ticked forward. We'd called 911 almost an hour ago.

No sirens. Nothing. Response time in the city center was never this slow.

"Why isn't anyone here yet?" My hands were shaking around the mug.

"Don't panic." Quentin's voice dropped lower.

"Vincent locked down the ground-floor security. SWAT needs time to breach. You're running on fumes. Lie down. Close your eyes for a minute."

I didn't know if it was the adrenaline crash or something in the coffee, but a wave of exhaustion hit me like a freight train. My eyelids felt impossibly heavy.

Quentin walked over to a storage cabinet to grab me a blanket.

Strange. A minimalist photographer whose entire apartment was black, white, and gray—why would he have a bright pink fleece blanket shoved in there?

CRASH.

The sound of metal hitting tile ripped through the quiet.

Quentin had pulled the blanket too hard and knocked a black metal box off the top of the cabinet.

I forced my lead-heavy legs to move, stumbling toward him to help pick it up.

"Don't touch it! I've got it!"

Quentin's voice cracked through the calm mask he'd been wearing. He lunged forward, trying to block my view.

Too late.

The dizziness pinned me in place, but I'd already seen what had spilled out of the box, scattered across the floor.