Page 40 of Criminology of a Character

“I think he enjoyed watching them light their matches and panic as each one burned to ash,” Bel said. “If there are cameras in here, I would guess they’re equipped with night vision so he could see their final breath. This is why he killed Walker and placed himinthe wall. Whyheensuredeveryone believed this property was inhabited andlegal.He didn’t want convenient deaths. He wanted to savor them, and he needed land not associated with his name. A place no one would search with easy but secluded access to the highway.”

“I’m not seeing anything,” Griffin said,the thunder offootsteps interrupting him as the deputies arrived with the gear. “Put those lights here,” he ordered, and the officers obeyed, aiming their power at the entrance’s wall.

“There,” Bel said within sixty seconds of the light blaring to life. “That’s a camera. He was watching them.”

“What kind of animal is he?” Griffin muttered.

“Bel and I didn’t find any monitors at the farmhouse,” Olivia said, finally rejoining the conversation. “If he wanted the property to remain under the radar, he wouldn’t watch this from Walker’s home.”

“He would watch it from his own.” Bel met Griffin’s gaze with a surge of hope. “Which means there’s a signal.”

“And we can trace a signal,” Griffin said as he pulled out his phone and led his officers into battle.

The followinghours blurred together until time ceased to exist. The world consisted only of incapacitating cold and the haunting stares of forty-two sightless women, of the hunt for evidence and the coffee clutched in icy hands to keep the pain at bay, of the flash of cameras and the horror painted on every face… both the living and the dead. Forty-two girls had to be photographed. Forty-two girls had to be sketched and examined. Forty-two girls had to be packed in black body bags still frozen in their death poses and then transferred to the morgue. The morgue where Lina would have to stare at the faces of forty-two young women and beg their forgiveness as she cut into their bodies. It was a long day and an even longer night, and as the endlessness coated them in her despair, Bel feared she’d never regain feeling in her fingers.

They found little evidence on The Matchstick Girls and even less in the freezer. The women had no defensive wounds or IDs on their persons. They wore only the clothes they were locked away with. The freezer was clean. Too clean. The killer left nothing of himself behind. Much like the farmhouse, it told them little about who controlled this property. Everything was staged just how he liked it… without a shred of himself peeking through.

“Can I have everyone’s attention?” Griffin said, his voice too loud in the somber silence. “As you’ve noticed, the press has found us. They’ll make assumptions based on the obvious facts, but I don’t want a single officer speaking to any reporters. Someone killed forty-three people right under our noses on this property, and the next few days will be unbearably long. Unlimited overtime is approved, and we cannot afford to makemistakes, including letting the news in on our findings. A lot of parents are about to learn their daughters died horribly, and I won’t let them find out because the story leaked. Our lips are sealed for now. Is that understood?”

The crowd murmured their agreement, and Griffin dismissed them to begin the daunting task of transporting the bodies and the evidence. A skeleton crew of deputies was instructed to stay at the barn until it was deemed no longer necessary to the case, but the rest of the officers guarded the bodies as they loaded The Matchstick Girls into the vans for transportation.

The instant the police ventured close to the crime scene tape, the vultures descended, and after the silence of death, their aggression was almost too much to bear. Every time a reporter clamored for the detectives to answer their insensitive questions, Bel felt herself closer and closer to tears, her body flinching with every shout of her name.

“Detective Emerson!” a forceful reporter shouted as his cameraman shoved his lens into her face. “Can you describe what you saw in that barn? Can you confirm how many bodies you found inside?” He lunged closer, straining against the crime scene tape, and Bel almost tripped trying to escape the spotlight.

“Detective, do you have any?—”

A growl escaped the shadows, and the reporter recoiled. He forgot her as he searched for the monster lurking in the darkness, but tears pricked Bel’s eyes at the sound. She rushed forward, stumbling over the uneven terrain, and the moment the blackness swallowed her, she collided with a solid chest as she collapsed into his arms.

“Girls,” she whispered into Eamon’s shirt, his powerful embrace swallowing her whole. “Forty-two of them. Some are barely older than eighteen. They’re practically babies.” She dissolved into tears, and he buried his nose in her hair.Divulging investigation details to a civilian went against the rules she lived by, but she didn’t care. Eamon wasn’t the press. He wasn’t even human. Somehow, he’d become the man she trusted most in this world, and she needed him to take her pain away, to erase the memory of those forty-two lifeless faces, and while he never could free her of this nightmare, his arms dulled the horrors.

“I’ve seen horrible things, but not that many people at once. Not that many women,” she sobbed, unable to stop her voice now that she’d started. “What he did to them. I don’t even want to arrest him because prison isn’t enough. I want to hand him over to you.”

“I owe loyalty to none save you,” Eamon whispered into her hair. “If you wish to turn a blind eye and leave him to me, I’ll do as you ask. I have no qualms about putting animals down.”

“You would do that for me?” She gripped his shirt in her fists, terrified of her own words.

“I would go to hell and kill the devil himself for you,” he said. “I’ve used my own body as a shield for you. I would die in your stead if needed, so I am not afraid to sin on your behalf.”

“You aren’t allowed to die.” She leaned away from his chest, her tears leaving stains running down his shirt. “And I won’t turn him over to you. I want to, but I can’t. It’s not…” she trailed off.

“It’s not who you are, and that’s why I love you.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “You are pure and good. You make me feel I am redeemable.”

“You are.” She wiped her eyes and then raised onto her toes to hug his neck. “How did you know I needed you?”

“You never texted to tell me you weren’t coming home,” he answered. “Cerberus is fine at my place, but it’s almost dawn, and I haven’t heard from you since yesterday afternoon. Youwouldn’t leave your dog that long without communicating your plans unless something terrible had happened.”

“Thank you for watching him. I’m so tired, and I’m so cold. I want to climb into bed next to you so my fingers stop hurting, but I don’t know when I’ll be home. Do you mind keeping him with you? I’ll be tied to the station for the foreseeable future.”

“He always has a home with me, as do you.” He kissed her forehead, his normally cool lips burning hot against her icy skin, and he pulled her closer, trapping her hands between them to warm her frigid fingers. “Why are you so cold? Do I want to know?”

“I shouldn’t tell you. Not here with so many prying eyes and cameras,” Bel said. “I already said more than I should.”

Eamon studied her face as if he might push the issue out of concern for her safety, but he kept his mouth shut.

“I should go before Griffin sees you.” She extracted herself from his embrace, hating how the cold and dread flooded her in his absence. “I’ll try to communicate what my next few days might look like, but I wouldn’t expect to see me… I wish you could be with me like on the Darling case.”

“I’m always with you.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek before trailing his lips lower to brush against her scars. “In one way or another, I’m always watching over you.”

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