Page 11 of Catching Fire

For fifteen minutes, she stayed away from the windows as she and agent Watson waited for Decker to return. Eventually, he opened the front door, and Seline looked up anxiously. He only shook his head. “Nothing.”

Watson raised an eyebrow and Decker gave them both a full run-down. “I asked everyone I saw if they saw him, but no one had. I showed the picture and knocked on doors along the street where she said she saw him and no one even recognized him. Strange for a small town like this.”

Seline agreed. She’d come to Redemption in the hope that she would know her neighbors. Though Lincoln wasn’t huge by any standards, she’d been lonely in her apartment there. And the thing about “Nebraska Nice” was real, but it was for passing people in the hallway, and not for making real friends.

She and Maggie had become close within two weeks of her moving here and had confirmed she’d made the right move. But, though she adored Maggie, it seemed her new friend had brought a serial killer to her doorstep. Seline’s heart was beating far too fast. While it was understandable that she might not yet recognize someone who lived in Redemption, it wasn’t reasonable that no one down the whole street did.

He wasn’t from here. So what was he doing on her street? And at exactly the right time to bump into her?

“Deep breaths,” Agent Watson told her calmly, realizing she was starting to hyperventilate even before she did.

Seline forcibly slowed her breathing. Though she still couldn’t talk, she stood up and rearranged the furniture for something to do … ridiculous though the action was.

“All noted and recorded,” Decker told his partner as he motioned them all to sit back down. Watson still had two more versions of pictures to show Seline.

“They all look like ordinary people. This one looks like the student who bumped into me at the club last night.”

“Do you remember this student?” Watson asked.

“No, but I don’t remember all of my students, and…” Seline almost laughed as she pointed at the last picture.

“What?” Watson pressed, frowning at the odd reaction.

“That one looks exactly like one of the professors at my school.”

“But you're certain it's a professor?”

“Yes, it’s Dr. Gilman,” Seline said, and when they continued to stare at her, she added, “He was in his office. And he’s been tenured there long before I was even in the department.”

At that, the two agents shrugged and tipped their heads, giving up on that avenue, though they still asked her all kinds of other questions.

“Can you think of anything weird or strange that has happened to you recently?”

She couldn’t honestly say anything had.

“We have a problem,” Watson said then, as though Seline could help solve it.

But all Seline could think was, how could there possibly be something worse? Hadn’t the things she’d already encountered been problem enough? But she didn’t ask.

Instead, Watson smacked her upside the head with something worse. “We have another body … It’s confirmed to bear the same signature as BRK. This is why we know that William Treat Sanders is still alive and in the area.”

“You're confident it's not a copycat?” Seline asked, having watched enough late-night forensics tv-shows to have an opinion. One that was probably ill informed and laughable, but she'd already asked.

“Yes, there are things about the bodies that have not been released to the public. Something a copycat is unlikely to get correct. However, there was somethingnewon this one.”

Seline tried to stay calm, but her breathing wasn’t steady at all.

“This is a gruesome picture,” Watson warned, pulling a printed page out of her bag.

Mon dieu.

She sucked in a breath but noddedokayand gripped her knees a little bit tighter if that were possible.

The picture that Watson handed over was cropped, not a picture of the full body, just the torso. Naked. One word was carved into it.

Seline’s breathing shallowed as her eyes involuntarily pulled away. She was looking at the wall as Watson took the photo from her outstretched hand.

Once again, it was difficult to breathe. Her nerves constricted, and she felt as if everything were buzzing.

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