Page 12 of The Shadowed Oracle
They were all perfect renditions of the symbols he’d been fussing over and photographing for a week.
“How?” he asked.
Ingrid shook her still pulsing head. “I see them. I’m as confused as you are, but I see them.”
“But how did you know? How did youknowthat they were the same symbols?”
“I just do.”
Dean shuffled through multiple expressions in quick succession. Amazement. Fear. Excitement. Yet, oddly, doubt was not one of them. He’d skipped skepticism and gone right to analyzing.
In a sobering push, she realized she’d just given a police officer very clear evidence of her possible involvement in the crimes.
She should’ve kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t her usual self.
“I don’t know whether to be in awe of you,” Dean said finally, his eyes still wide. “Or to be afraid of you.”
“Probably the second one,” Ingrid said dryly. “I knowIam.”
“This has never happened to you before?” Dean asked.
“No.” Not once. And considering all the wretched and unfortunate things the world had thrown at her, there were plenty of opportunities for this strange gift to surface—to help. But it hadn’t.
It all felt like a dream.
Ingrid could only stare out into the distance, her mind going completely blank while her senses heightened. The noise from the kitchen now seemed more intense. The traffic outside in the parking lot felt closer. The voices around her suddenly seemed clearer, too.
Then one of those voices cut through, louder than the rest. A gravelly intonation with well-trained delivery.
It was the news anchor blaring above from the TV.
“A gruesome story coming out of San Bruno this morning. Police found the body of a young man, posed and mutilated in his apartment after receiving numerous noise complaints from neighbors. Authorities are now linking this homicide to five others. All perpetrated, they say, by one man. Our own Jim Lyles was at the scene earlier today with Lieutenant Walls of San Bruno P.D., where he gave a lengthy, cautionary announcement.”
Ingrid’s eyes were glued to the screen. She could feel Dean looking at her, but paid him no attention. She watched as the newscast played a few exposition clips. First of the apartment complex where the sixth murder took place, then clips of the caution tape and the coroner’s vehicle outside of it.
A quick transition cut to a man that Ingrid assumed was the aforementioned Lieutenant came next. He was dressed in full uniform, his hat in his hands as he spoke.
“Sufficient evidence has been collected to lead us to this conclusion. And due to the wide scope of victim profiles, we thought it best to inform the public.” He looked directly at the camera, listing the specific street names and coordinates of all the murders. “If you are living in these areas, or are just outside of them, we urge you to take every precaution possible.”
Off-screen, another masculine voice cut in: “Are there any suspects?”
“Yes. But that’s all I can provide at this time. We are working tirelessly to apprehend the perpetrator.”
A different voice, and another microphone appearing on screen. “Anything we should look out for? Descriptive information of the suspect?”
Lt. Walls cleared his throat. “Be safe out there.”
The screen graphics crudely shifted back to the studio and the upbeat background music played once more. Ingrid couldbarely stomach it all. Now that she’d been so hollowed out by those images of the symbols—the killer’s symbols—it felt too real, too close.
She turned away, but just as her eyes fixated back on Dean, something called out to her. Directly spoketoher. As if the news reporter had stuck his head out from the screen and whispered it in her ear.
A name.
“What did he just say?” Ingrid asked, stumbling over the words. “The name,” Ingrid repeated, pointing upward to the TV. “Did they just say a name?”
Dean swallowed hard. “Do you know him? The sixth victim?”
“Yes—or, I don’t know. What was the name?”
