Page 29 of Silent Ritual

Jenkins smiled tightly. “You know I can’t do that.”

"You can," Finn said, "if you want to reduce your sentence. Right now, you're looking at the attempted murder of two police officers." He turned to Sheila. "How many years do you think she'll get for that?"

Sheila shrugged without taking her eyes off Jenkins. "Ten, twenty. Who knows? Maybe more.”

Jenkins paled, the color draining from her face in a matter of seconds. But still, she shook her head.

"I can't give you names," she said, her eyes darting around the room as if looking for an escape. "They'd kill me."

“Then there’s really nothing we can do to help you.” Sheila sighed and started to rise.

“Wait!” Jenkins said quickly. “Okay, okay. Most of the other members are associated with the university—faculty, former faculty, a few students. We take our beliefs very seriously.”

“We got that impression when you tried to kill us after we showed up,” Finn said dryly.

“We’re going to need details about these members,” Sheila said. “Names, addresses. How many of you were out scouring the salt flats?”

“Just a few of us.”

Sheila raised an eyebrow. “Then how’d you find the bodies so quickly?”

Jenkins hesitated as if she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to share.

“Talk,” Finn said.

Jenkins sighed. “The symbols around the first woman’s body—they can mean different things, depending on who you ask about them. But there’s one thing nobody else seems to have picked up on.”

“What’s that?” Sheila asked.

Jenkins leaned forward, her eyes twinkling. “One of the symbols is also a map.”

“A map to what?” Finn asked.

“To where the next body will be.”

"A map..." Sheila echoed, feeling a jolt run through her. Was it possible?

"They're no ordinary symbols,” Jenkins said. “They're celestial coordinates."

Finn frowned. "Celestial coordinates?"

"Like a star chart," Jenkins explained. "The symbols refer to specific constellations and their positions in the sky at certain times. That's how we knew where to look."

"So you're saying," Sheila began, trying to keep her skepticism at bay, "that the killer is revealing his next move in the markings around each victim?"

Jenkins nodded. "He, or she, is showing us where to look, but nobody's been paying attention."

A chill ran down Sheila's spine as she considered the implications of Jenkins' claim. If it were true, not only were they dealing with a killer who was strategically executing his victims according to celestial patterns, but they also had a way of predicting his next move—not who his next victim would be, but where they could find the body. And if they could get to that location first, set up some kind of surveillance so they could wait for the killer…

Finn looked at Jenkins skeptically. "And you can read these coordinates?"

Jenkins nodded. "Each one of us was taught. It's part of our rituals."

Sheila got up from her chair and began pacing, a habit she'd picked up from Natalie. She felt Finn's eyes on her, waiting for her to make the call.

Finally, she broke the silence.

"Alright," she said. "Show us how to read these symbols."

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