Page 66 of Criminology of a Character

“Take a seat.” Charles gestured to the couch against the wall as his hand brushed her back where it lingered for a second too long. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

“I know you’re busy, so if you don’t have time this afternoon, we should go to dinner later. You, me, Eamon, and Anne. Eamon will foot the bill, so perhaps we can discuss it over a meal?” Bel lied. If he agreed, she would apologize to the Blaubarts for Eamon’s sudden work emergency, and then she’d remove something from the table that Anne had touched to test for fingerprints and DNA.

“That might work better,” Charles said. “I’ll be back, and we can make dinner plans. I’m sure Anne would love to catch up.”

“It’ll be nice to see her,” she lied again.

“Okay, I’ll be only a few minutes.” The doctor left, and Bel leaned into the couch cushions, wishing she had Eamon’s creditcard. She was annoyed she already needed the card she’d so adamantly insisted she didn’t, but if she was going to treat the Blaubarts to dinner, she should dress the part. Her current outfit was not New York City fine dining appropriate, but maybe Eamon would give her his card number over the phone. Not that she wanted him to. She preferred buying her own clothes, but if she was going to worm her way into Anne’s life until she found proof, she needed to look the part. A part she couldn’t afford.

Bel started to text Eamon when the wall behind Charles’ desk caught her eye. Photos, awards, and diplomas decorated the space, and knowing she’d never have another chance to snoop, she shoved her phone into her pocket and crossed the room. Anne and Charles’ wedding photo immediately drew her gaze. Anne was angelic in her designer gown, and she gazed up at her husband with the same adoration Bel felt when she looked at Eamon. The couple captured in the photograph were hopelessly in love, and a twinge of sadness pinched her heart. They no longer regarded each other like that. Almost a decade together had stolen their spark and reduced them to a marriage stereotype. Would this be her and Eamon if they lasted ten years? Would strangers one day look at their photos and wonder when their passion died? Not that they had any to share. Eamon didn’t age, and photographs were proof of that. Bel possessed the only pictures of him, but they were safely tucked away in her phone.

She withdrew her cell and scrolled to the shots of her and Eamon at Wendy’s wedding. He hadn’t looked at the camera when the photos were shot. He’d been staring at her as if she were life itself, and Bel rolled her eyes at herself. They’d only been together a few months. She should be having fun in this early stage, not worrying about what their relationship would look like if it survived the next decade.

Pressing her fingers to her lips, she kissed them and brushed them over the image of Eamon’s face before she continued studying the wall. Framed news articles hung between the photos, awards, and diplomas. Dr. Charles Blaubart was ridiculously successful and intelligent, his immense client list forcing him to work weekends. He was the obsessive type. The workaholic, and his constant absence from home would certainly give Anne the freedom to run an illegal surgery operation right under his nose. It wasn’t a smoking gun, but it was something. It also meant he wouldn’t be much help with her unsanctioned investigation. He was too busy to know how his wife spent her days. The chances of him revealing something by accident were low, but with no other options, Bel resolved to see the day through.

Satisfied the wall had nothing else of interest, she stepped toward the couch and froze. “No,” she whispered. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. That wasn’t possible.

She leaned closer to the newspaper article framed at the edge of the wall. It was just below eye level, making it less noticeable, but the face in the article’s photo was burned into her memory. People didn’t forget the faces of men who tried to kill them with an assault rifle. They didn’t forget the face of a man who froze forty-two women to death.

Bel clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from gagging. The article was from an award ceremony, but the photo perfectly captured the smiling images of Dr. Charles Blaubart and Jax Frost shaking hands. Their connection was too friendly to be strangers posing for a photo op. These men were friends. Charles knew The Matchstick Girl Killer, and Bel pressed her palm harder against her lips to force the bile down. Frost was a celebrated photographer, and Blaubart was a sought-after surgeon. The chances of them traveling in the same circles were high, but their apparent friendship wasn’t what made her sick.It was the date. The article was published three years ago… right before Hazel Wyatt and Annalise Sept went missing, and as if to mock her, two damning figures hovered at the edge of the photograph.

Hazel and Annalise were blurry behind the men’s images, but there was no mistaking the women. Annalise’s eyes were trained dreamily on Charles, and Bel’s hands shook. This was probably the last time anyone had seen them alive. Was that how Frost found them? Was that the night he took them? And why was Annalise staring at Charles the same way his wife stared at him in their wedding photos? Being photographed with Jax Frost might’ve been a coincidence, but a newspaper article that included a Matchstick Girl and a missing woman before they disappeared? Something wasn’t right.

Bel snapped a photo of the article before she spun on her heels and aimed for the door, praying Blaubart was still in his consultation. Something about the column and the way Jax and Charles interacted settled a rock in her stomach, and she silently berated herself for coming alone. She needed Eamon, Barry, Griffin… someone, and she almost cried when she opened the door and saw an empty hallway. She slipped out of the office and rushed toward reception. By the time she reached the waiting room, she feared she would choke on her own breath, but somehow, she made it out of the lobby and then out of the building and to her car. Only once she locked herself inside her vehicle did she breathe without gagging, and that was her first mistake.

“I hear you,but that won’t work,” Eamon said, glancing down at his phone as he spoke. Bel hadn’t texted to say she was home,and he was starting to worry. Chances were, she got caught up with Violet when she picked up Cerberus and stayed for dinner. Still, he disliked the silence. His imagination immediately pictured the worst possible scenario after the shooting.

“That approach isn’t aggressive enough,” he continued, forcing his eyes away from his cell and back to the crowded conference room.

“Isn’t aggressive enough?” the man who’d suggested it repeated. “How can you say that?”

“Because it’s the truth,” Eamon said. “I know you think it’s risky, but I’ve seen this situation before. The only companies that survive are the ones that take an almost—” he froze as his hearing registered the news playing down the hall. He’d had centuries to practice tuning out unnecessary information and sounds. He’d gotten so skilled at it that he barely noticed background noise anymore, but someone in the office’s kitchen had turned on the television, and the reporter’s words caught his attention. He’d trained himself to listen for those words, and with fear poisoning his every cell, he launched to his feet.

The force knocked his chair across the room where it crashed into the wall, the board members shouting at the sudden violence, but he ignored them as he ran. Not bothering to restrain his speed, he raced through the halls, the air surrounding him growing darker by the second as his panic surged ever stronger, and then he was in the kitchen, the TV playing out his greatest nightmare.

“Carol is at the scene,” the reporter said. “Carol, can you describe what you’re seeing?”

“Thank you,” Carol said as the footage switched to the local camera. “I’m here on the outskirts of Bajka where a fatal car accident has blocked all traffic into town. As you can see behind me, the driver lost control of the car, causing catastrophic damage to both the vehicle and the road. Authorities don’t knowwhat caused the crash, but they have confirmed there was one fatality. The vehicle’s driver was Bajka’s own homicide detective, Isobel Emerson, who was unfortunately pronounced dead at the scene.”

“Where is she?”Eamon burst through the front door, more monster than man, andevery living personin the building recoiled at the invading darkness.Ashadow,thick and oppressive,strangled the air, choking all who breathed the decay-filled oxygen of Bajka’s morgue, and fear followed.The beast had come.

“Where is she?”Eamon’s voice echoed off the walls so forcefullythat thelights flickered, and a distraught Reese lunged into the hallway.He’d beaten Eamon there, but the millionaire had anticipated that.He’dbeen too far to drive home, too far to run, and so he’d cursed both fate and himself as he fought to secure a return flight. For hours, he was alone with his grief, and its weight was suffocating him. He’d landed early that morning,andthe momenthe arrived in Bajka, he raced for the morgue. He needed to see her with his own eyes, to prove to himself that the woman he loved beyond words was dead. The endless hours had been agony, and by the tearing sensation in his chest, he feared he was dying. Not that it mattered. If Isobel Emerson was dead, then his life was pointless. He hadn’t been there to save her. He’d left her to die alone, and his knees almost buckled as he stormed down the hall.

“Eamon, stop.” Reese caught his chest and forced him to a halt, his haunted eyes bloodshot. He’d seen her. Eamon read it in his defeat-painted features. He’d seen her body. He had proof of Bel’s death, and Eamon wanted to shout at him to stop lying. He’d spent the past day convincing himself the news was wrong, that Bel wasn’t dead. For over twelve hours, the only way he stopped himself from getting sick was to trust this was a mistake.That thereporter had read the wrong name, but her father’s despair told him all he needed to know. It was Bel on that table.

“Let go of me,” Eamon growled.

“Eamon, please,” Reese sobbed, shoving the much larger man as if he could stop him. “You don’t want to see her. Notlike that. Remember her as shewas,because if you go back there, that sight will haunt you for the rest of your life. I identified her body, so Ihave tolive with that image, but you don’t. Please remember my daughter how she was. I need someone to preserve the memory of how beautiful she was.”

“I said let go of me.” Eamon grabbed Reese and shoved him aside. He should be kinder to her father. The man’s suffering was an ocean, endless and deep and treacherous, but Eamon couldn’t function. He needed to confirm with his own eyes that his Bel was gone.

“Please, don’t,” Reese sobbed. “Please. You don’t want to see her like that.”

But Eamon was deaf to his pleas.

“Mr. Stone!” Lina Thum raced after him as he reached the back room. “You can’t go in there.”

Eamon turned his death-black eyes on her, and she froze in her tracks. Fear visibly coiled through her, and she silently retreated, allowing him the freedom to enter the exam room.

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