My hand shook, but I pressed the phone tighter to my ear.

“Where are you, Derek?” I asked.

My voice was low, barely a murmur so the detectives in the outer room wouldn’t hear me yet.

Marisol leaned in, her eyes wide, gesturing for me to put him on speaker.

I tapped the screen, and his heavy, uneven breathing filled the small, darkened observation room.

“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” Derek sneered.

The charm was completely gone from his voice, replaced by a raw, jagged edge that made my skin go cold.

“I know what you’re doing with the police, Elena,” he said.

“I’m just fixing what you broke, Derek,” I said.

My skin, still tight and itchy from the healing skin grafts on my collarbone, flared with a sudden, painful heat.

“You’re going to drop the charges,” he said.

“If you don’t, everyone finds out about the offshore accounts.”

“Those are your accounts, Derek, not mine,” I said.

“They have your name on them too, sweetheart,” he laughed, a dry, coughing sound.

“I made sure of that before the fire.”