I turned on my enhanced hearing.
Somebody had been in that room. The list of who it could be was short.
Melissa's room came back quiet — just breathing, slow and deep, a woman still under from what had happened in the bathroom. No movement. No change in the rhythm.
That left one.
I pushed the hearing out toward Monica's door and the sound arrived at once. Skin on skin. A wet, deliberate rhythm. Under it the small strained noises of someone keeping quiet on purpose — breath cut short, held, released through the nose, every sound managed so it wouldn't carry.
[ That's bad. She saw what happened to Sophia. She's trying to finish herself. ]
Isn't that what I want? She comes, the season's over, she's spent.
[ No. If she releases by her own hand she stops being a source and she never becomes a mark. ]
[ It transfers. ]
I had the door open before the rest of it landed.
[ Stop her. If it goes across we lose every route to the Veyron girl. ]
