Page 41 of Whispers in the Night

He was building toward something. Getting ready for Harper.

The thought made Silas’s chest tighten. He poured coffee, added cream and sugar the way he’d noticed Harper took hers, and tried to think like the killer. Tried to understand what drove someone to spend five years obsessing over an FBI profiler, killing surrogates, planning an endgame.

It wasn’t sexual—Dr. Reynolds had confirmed no sexual assault on any of the victims. It wasn’t about power in the traditional sense. The killer could have grabbed random women off the street if he just wanted to feel dominant.

No, this was about creation. About perfection. About making something beautiful out of death.

The symbols were the key. They meant something to the killer, communicated something important. Silas pulled up photos on his phone, studying the patterns. Circles within triangles. Intersecting lines. A language only the killer understood.

Or maybe...

Silas grabbed his laptop, pulling up the Nevada case files Ellery had sent. He’d been thinking about this wrong. The symbols weren’t random. They followed a specific pattern, appeared in a specific sequence on each victim’s body. What if they weren’t just decorative? What if they were actually trying to say something?

He started mapping them, using a drawing program to recreate the symbols in order. Upper torso first, then lower torso, then—

“You’re up early.”

Silas looked up. Harper stood in the hallway, wearing sweatpants and an oversized FBI academy T-shirt, her hair messy from sleep. She looked rumpled and vulnerable and entirely too appealing.

“Coffee’s ready,” Silas said, pushing his laptop aside. “How’d you sleep?”

“Better than I have in months, actually.” She padded to the kitchen, poured herself coffee, and joined him at the table. “Thanks for staying. I know that was probably uncomfortable.”

“I’ve slept in worse places.” Afghanistan immediately came to mind—weeks in the field, sleeping in full gear, one eye always open. “And you needed someone there. The nightmares—”

“Are getting old, yeah.” Harper wrapped her hands around her mug. “What are you working on?”

Silas turned the laptop so she could see. “The symbols. I’m trying to map them, see if there’s a pattern or sequence I’ve been missing. What if they’re not just decorative? What if they’re actually communicating something?”

Harper leaned closer, studying his work. She smelled like soap and coffee and something else—something warm and distinctly her. Silas forced himself to focus on the screen.

“That’s smart,” Harper said. “I tried to decode them in Nevada, brought in symbology experts, but maybe we were thinking too literally. Looking for existing languages or occult symbols. But what if he created his own language? His own system of meaning?”

“Exactly.” Silas pulled up another photo. “Look at the sequence on Melissa Wagoner. The circle appears first, upper left torso. Then the triangle, overlapping. Then these intersecting lines, moving down toward the abdomen. It’s like he’s building something, layer by layer.”

“Building or telling a story,” Harper murmured, echoing his thoughts. She grabbed a notepad, started sketching. “In Nevada, the symbols appeared in the same sequence on all three victims. But there were variations—small differences in the line placements, the angles of intersection.”

“So he’s refining the message. Getting more specific with each victim.”

“Or getting closer to what he really wants to say.” Harper looked up at him, and Silas was struck by how close they were sitting. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes. Close enough to smell her shampoo. “The question is what he’s trying to communicate. And to who.”

“To you,” Silas said. “He’s been trying to communicate with you from the beginning. The Nevada victims, the notes, the escalation now that you’re in Blackridge. This is all about you.”

Harper’s expression tightened. “Then maybe we use that. We put out a statement, address him directly through the media. Tell him I’m listening. I’m ready to hear what he has to say.”

“Absolutely not—”

“Silas, think about it,” she said with a note of frustration. “He wants my attention. He wants me to understand him. So we give him a platform to communicate. We control the message, we control the meeting point. We draw him out.”

“By making you even more of a target than you already are.” Silas shook his head. It was too risky. “No. We work the evidence, we find him through investigation, we don’t hand you to him on a silver platter.”

“But—”

“Harper.” He reached over, covered her hand with his before he could think better of it. “I know you want to end this. I know you feel responsible for those women’s deaths. But sacrificing yourself won’t bring them back. It’ll just give him exactly what he wants.”

Harper stared at their joined hands. Silas should pull away, should maintain professional distance. But her hand was small and warm under his, and he found himself not wanting to let go.

It wasn’t lost on him that she could have pulled away. But didn’t.