Page 66 of Pure Killers

“Was it you who found the mask, the pictures?”

Shaking her head once, Rosie says, “No, the cleaner did.”

I suspect Tristan timed it that way.

With her perceptive eyes big through her glasses, Rosie peers at me. “How far did you two get?”

“Not far,” I smile softly. And it’s true of Seb, at least. To say nothing of his other persona.

“I thought so many times there was something familiar about him,” she muses, gaze distant. “I never forget a face.”

“He changed himself,” I say by consolation. “You don’t seem mad.”

“Neither do you.”

I look away. She has a point. Trying a smile, I say, “Hard to find a good man these days.”

Chuckling, Rosie nods. “That it is.”

***

I know I'm going to look at the binder before the night's out. I've seen it all before, I remind myself. I know what’s in that blue binder. I’d locked it in a closet, then brought it back out. Back on the coffee table, where Dirk left it, before so much.

My shoulders want to shrivel inwards as I think about that. Believing that he could be the Needler, was it wishful thinking? I miss him more than is professional. And what I felt at training…

I shake myself. Why do I care so much? We’re partners, that’s all.

But then I have to ask myself, why doeshecare so much?

I call Olivia again. The second time this week. She should be home from her trip by now. At my insistence, she gave me the landline of the cabin she’d be staying in. But again, it rings out, unanswered. I bite my lip. I’m procrastinating, finding something else to worry about. It’s not unlike Olivia to go MIA, I remind myself. She’s probably just gone with her lover off somewhere else. I sigh and replace the phone in the cradle.

The binder is on my bedside table now, and the light on, as though not being able to see the crime scene pictures clearly was the problem. I’ve seen the evidence before, everything that’s in that binder. But I didn't know then, didn't have a face, -and such a familiar one at that- to put to the crimes. To imagine the very hands that I held and kissed, grasped at an altar, would go away and lay on plaster, to pull chains to lift bodies up into rafters.

Taking another swig- I have no illusions about being able to do this sober. I push those thoughts down and pull the binder into my lap as I sit up in bed. The information is in order, Caleb first, and now a red page before the second section. For when he died… when someone else took over. I remember these early cases, even when I started staying away, and working less, I still heard about them. He'd tell me sometimes, always so earnest, working so hard to save the next one. I feel sick, the scotch turning over in my stomach. But I take another sip anyway, and it burns all the more.

God, why am I doing this to myself? It’s nearly midnight, the hours sliding by while I put this off. I pull several pages across at once, over to the new Cocooner. Small differences, like thewings. Caleb never did the wings. Just the chrysalis. But the method, the materials, hell, even where the plaster and the strips of cloth came from, stayed the same.

I think of the possibility that the new Cocooner was trained by Caleb, or at least knew him. This, my mind rebels against. He could be doing this and coming home to me, but also doing this with someone, teaching them like some sick tutor. That somebody else knew what I should have known- that’s what eats at me.

The locations stay random, though once again, as I look at the maps, his, then new Cocooner's, something about them seems less random. The satellite view of the scenes reveals three dots in a row, but then one far above, almost on the very edge of the suburb, and another at an angle off from that. Then the last, perpendicular to the row again but on the other side. That one was in Downtown, in an attic. Then another, on an angle down the southern edge of Downtown this time. His last. Seven murders over a bit more than three years. There are some that can’t be firmly assigned to him in the years before, although that may change now that we know who was doing it.

I squint at the map. Seven points.

The spot where they found his body. I can never forget. I see it whenever I look at a map of Tregam, standing out like a dot that always wants to draw my eye. I see it now, with the other seven dots. It’s up towards the edge of Crennick again. We couldn't work out what he'd been doing there. Now, it seems he was about to make a kill. The charred body a would-have-been. Before Tristan became Needler and attacked him.

I see all the dots together now, joined by a line.

Abruptly I’m on my feet beside the bed, so quickly and subconsciously that it’s almost a surprise to me when I find myself standing, staring down at the binder where it’s fallen face-down on the carpet. Loose pieces have scattered, and one ofthem is a photo of the Copycat’s latest victim. With everything going on, I never even looked at that face. I think I avoided it, even. Too much of the same.

But I see him now, smiling up at me from the floor. Hand shaking, I lift the picture, sure I must be mistaken. But no, I remember him, the piercing in his chin, the spikey hair. That night I went out with Olivia, the man in the booth who she took up with.

Olivia, who I haven’t seen or heard from in over a week. I fumble for the phone out in the living room, dialling the number again, murmuring something like prayers under my breath. It goes straight to voicemail once more. I curse, dropping it. Back in my room, I frantically flip the binder back over, finding the page I want. The map of this year’s crime scenes. It takes a moment, but I see it just like I saw the pattern of Caleb’s kills, a new pattern reaching across the city, almost a zig-zag with varying lengths. And one point which I know is missing.

What had Tawill said? Any night now. What if it’s Olivia? Cocooner must be a mutual acquaintance between her and chin-piercing. Caleb had preferred victims he knew in person. It stands to reason whoever he taught is the same. And with how long it’s been since I've heard from her… all the publicity around his next kill coming up, it could have made more sense for him to kidnap someone and keep them for a time, until the right time, than risk nabbing someone tonight. God, what if this past week Olivia has been tied up in a basement somewhere, waiting? What if it’s because of me? If Cocooner wanted me like Needler suggested, but couldn't get me? No, I couldn't live with that. If there's any chance to save her, I need to take it.

***

Dirk isn't answering either, as I frantically call him from the car radio. His voice tells me to leave a message while I curse at the machine. I run a red light waiting for thebeep, driving towards that missing point, the edge of the pattern I’ve stared at on the map so many times and only now seen for what it really is.

---