‘You stood guard, but then you left.’

‘I put a policeman at your door,’ she said quietly, sweetly.

‘He left.’

Deacon knew that the guard had been dismissed because they’d caught the man who’d put Marcus in the hospital and killed so many others. They’d thought the danger was past. Apparently they’d been wrong.

‘And you were alone,’ she whispered. ‘In the dark?’

He nodded. ‘He came.’

‘The man in the sketch?’ Deacon asked.

‘Yes. Sat in my room.’

Scarlett’s mouth opened, her eyes growing frightened. But she kept her voice smooth. ‘What happened, baby?’

Marcus’s body stiffened, his head snapping up to stare at Scarlett as he caught hold of the memory. ‘It was a pillow. He covered my face with it. I couldn’t breathe.’

Her eyes had grown wide, her lips firm with anger. Her breathing had become choppy. Frightened. ‘He tried to kill you, Marcus.’

Marcus straightened in his chair. ‘Why?’ he asked, frustrated and bewildered.

Scarlett’s gaze drifted to the side, her brows furrowing. ‘Nine months ago. What was happening nine months ago? Who was angry with you then?’

‘Nobody was mad enough to suffocate me with a pillow,’ Marcus said. ‘There was the one cop that Diesel and I had to escort away from his family, but he died on his own. He never even put a threat in writing.’

Scarlett went still. ‘Wait. That one threat. The one that was so bad that it made Gayle have her heart attack. Mc . . . McSomebody.’

‘McCord,’ Marcus said grimly. ‘Woody McCord, high school teacher and collector of kiddie porn. He was the target of our investigation, but Leslie, his wife, wrote the letter. She was dead by then, though, remember? Gayle said she OD’d on sleeping pills.’

‘What are you two talking about?’ Deacon asked.

Scarlett broke away from Marcus’s gaze to look at Deacon. ‘Last night I mentioned a list of threats. People who got mad at Ledger articles exposing things they’d done. Remember?’

‘Usually domestic abuse or child molestation,’ Deacon said. ‘Are you saying that Woody McCord was one of these threats?’

‘Yes,’ Scarlett said. ‘Well, his wife was. Leslie McCord wrote the letter after her husband committed suicide in jail – he hanged himself. Said she hoped that Marcus lost someone he loved. When Gayle read the letter, they were looking for Mikhail. At that point only Stone knew he was dead. Gayle thought Leslie McCord had something to do with Mikhail’s disappearance.’

‘It was such a shock, her heart failed,’ Marcus said. ‘She went into the hospital, and when she got out, she looked up Leslie and found the woman was no longer a threat because she’d OD’d on pills. Her death was ruled a suicide.’

‘But that’s where it doesn’t make sense,’ Scarlett said. ‘If Woody was dead and Leslie was dead, who is that guy’ – she pointed to the sketch – ‘and why did he try to kill you in the hospital?’

‘It doesn’t fit, Scarlett,’ Marcus said with a frown. ‘It doesn’t have to be anybody I pissed off nine months ago. It could have been somebody I pissed off five years ago who was just waiting for me to be a sitting duck in an ICU ward.’

Scarlett sighed. ‘You’re right.’

‘Who actually wrote the article about this McCord guy?’ Deacon asked.

‘Stone did,’ Marcus said.

‘That doesn’t explain Phillip’s attack then, other than trying to lure you,’ Scarlett said, disappointed. ‘Damn.’

‘Phillip wasn’t even working that case,’ Marcus said. ‘That one was Stone and Diesel.’

‘Diesel is his IT wizard,’ Scarlett explained.

Deacon leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed. ‘How did you find McCord’s kiddie porn stash?’ he asked, and watched the other two exchange a glance. Then Marcus nodded.

‘Diesel has a knack for finding things on people’s computers,’ Scarlett said.

‘He’s a hacker,’ Deacon said flatly.

‘That’s such a pejorative term,’ Scarlett said. ‘He’s an . . . explorer.’

Deacon stared her for a long moment, then chuckled. ‘Damn, girl. When you fall, you fall hard.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t care how he got the information. I just wondered why Marcus gets the threat if Stone wrote the article and Diesel the Explorer got the goods.’

Scarlett turned in her chair to look up at Marcus’s face. ‘Yeah, I wonder that too.’

Marcus drew a deep breath. ‘I may have gone to see McCord. In prison.’

‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Scarlett rolled her eyes. ‘You gloated, didn’t you? Went right in there and said, “Hi, I’m Marcus.”’ She pitched her voice ridiculously low. ‘“And I’m the one who just fucked up your life.”’ She shook her head and her voice was back to normal. ‘You didn’t want anyone threatening your people. You told everyone on that list that you’d done the investigating, not just the McCords. You gave them all a face to hate. Yours.’

Marcus’s eyes had grown wide. ‘Damn. You are scary good.’

‘I’m just plain scary,’ she snapped. ‘Especially when people I care about do stupid shit like that. Don’t do that anymore. Promise me.’

Marcus grinned. ‘I promise. I won’t do that anymore.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, disgruntled. ‘So Woody and Leslie hated you, but they were both already dead when you were in the hospital. So who is Mr Pillow and how does he fit into the picture? You had to have crossed paths with him, either physically or during an investigation. And if this Demetrius guy is your Mr Pillow, then you’ve somehow managed to snag the attention of a ring of human traffickers – nine months before you met Tala.’

‘Nine months ago, you were dangerous to this guy somehow,’ Deacon said, tapping the sketch. ‘You still are. You saw something, heard something . . . maybe something you don’t even know you saw.’

Marcus rubbed his forehead. ‘Fuck,’ he muttered. ‘Somehow I can’t see human traffickers biding their time for five years. Whatever it was, it most likely occurred nine months ago. And the only big story in play then was Woody McCord.’

‘So we’re back to the kiddie porn collector,’ Deacon said thoughtfully. ‘Somehow McCord and Demetrius connect and you’re the common denominator, Marcus.’

‘People started shooting you again when you met Tala,’ Scarlett murmured, ‘after nine months of nothing. You expose McCord in an article and Demetrius shows up a few days later in the hospital to kill you. You publish a story about saving Tala, and Demetrius shows up to kill you. The connection isn’t just between Demetrius and McCord. Tala’s in there too somewhere.’

Marcus frowned. ‘But the stories are different. Tala was a victim of human trafficking. McCord was a collector of kiddie porn.’

Scarlett stood up and began to pace. ‘But they were both the subject of stories published by you. Let’s assume that this Demetrius character was the one who killed Agent Spangler and took a shot at you at Chip Anders’s house, then later came after you at your apartment.’

Marcus still looked unconvinced. ‘But Demetrius didn’t kill Tala, Drake did.’

Scarlett stopped pacing. ‘But her murder put her in the spotlight, bringing Chip Anders into the picture by association. Tala was simply the trigger. Anders is the connection, not Tala.’

‘If you’re right,’ Deacon said, thinking through the various possibilities, ‘then Demetrius links to both Anders and McCord. How?’

‘I need to check Stone’s notes on the McCord story,’ Marcus said. ‘He’s over at the Ledger building now. He’ll have his notes in his desk. Come on.’

Scarlett held up her hand. ‘Wait. First I have to change my clothes.’

‘Why are you wearing a dress?’ Deacon asked her.

‘Because I like her in it,’ Marcus said, smiling at her.

She blushed. Deacon didn’t think he’d ever seen Scarlett Bishop blush.

‘It’s because my uncle wanted me to look as non-coppish as possible so we didn’t scare Mila and Erica away. Now, we have several places we need to be all at once. Let’s figure this out.’ Scarlett ticked off a finger. ‘First, we have the guys coming from the ankle tracker company. They’ll hopefully be able to tell us who was buying the trackers. That should be either Anders or the head traffickers. Hopefully the traffickers.’