Page 24 of Absent Feeling

“Whatis it, Simon?” she asked. “What’s so urgent?”

Simon’sexpression was grave. “There’s been another murder. Local PD are waiting for usat the scene.”

*

Amberfelt a little sick as she and Simon pulled up in front of a quiet, little,suburban house. She’d wanted to keep going last night. She’d wanted to keepworking, to try to find an answer.

“Ifwe’d kept working, this might not have happened,” Amber said, unable to keepthe guilt she felt at that out of her voice.

“Youcan’t think like that, Amber,” Simon said, although Amber thought that shecould detect a flicker of the same emotion in his voice. “If we’d kept going,there’s no guarantee that we would have found anything, or that we could havestopped this. Blame the killer, not yourself.”

Thatwas easier said than done, especially as the two of them went to run thegauntlet of the press that was there to cover the latest murder.

“Couldthe FBI have done more to stop this from happening?” a reporter called out tothem as they pushed their way through.

“Whyhaven’t you made any progress so far?” another shouted.

“Whatare you doing to keep the people of Guisborough safe?”

Itwas all Amber could do to keep from replying. She felt … well, she felt asthough she and Simonshouldhave done something by now, should have beenable to stop this from happening. She felt as though there was something therethat she should have been able to work out by now, something that might havelet them catch the killer already and that might have saved the life of thislatest victim.

Simon’shand on her shoulder kept Amber moving forward, though, up to a line of policetape and beyond it. Detective Heart was waiting for them there, not lookinghappy about the situation.

“Whatdo we have?” Simon asked.

“Thevictim’s name is Ysabel Jones,” the detective said, motioning for them tofollow him inside. “Thirty years old, worked for an agency supplying nursingstaff to psychiatric institutions.”

“TheGuisborough Wellness Institute?” Amber asked because the link seemed tooobvious to ignore.

“Wedon’t know yet,” the detective said. “With agency staff, it can be hard to keeptrack of where they have and haven’t worked.”

“Isthe coroner here?” Simon asked.

“Beenand gone with the body,” Detective Heart replied. “Says that we’ll have to waitfor the autopsy for the official cause of death, but that it looks the same asthe others. Multiple stab wounds inflicted from the front along with severaldefensive wounds to the hands and arms.”

Thatpart intrigued Amber because it implied that Ysabel Jones had seen her attackercoming. Why had the killer done this that way? Why hadn’t he ambushed her and stabbedher without giving her the chance to fight back or run?

“Didhe want to speak to her?” Amber wondered aloud. “Is there some personal motiveto this that means he wants to threaten his victims before he kills them orwants some kind of information from them?”

“Wecan’t know that for sure,” Simon said. “Although it’s intriguing that heattacked them from the front, as if he wanted to make sure that they saw himcoming.”

“Whocares aboutwhyhe’s doing this?” Detective Heart demanded. “Whatmatters is that we find a way to stop him. Thatyoufind a way to stophim. Isn’t that the point of the FBI being here?”

Ambercould hear the bitterness in his voice. He obviously thought that she and Simonweren’t doing everything that they should be in order to crack this case.

“Showus the crime scene,” Simon said, firmly. He clearly didn’t want to have a wholeconversation about the FBI’s role there and whether they were doing everythingthey could.

DetectiveHeart looked as though he might say something else, but instead he nodded andgestured for them to go through into a living room whose furniture wasoverturned with the force of the fight that had been there. There was whitecarpet on the floor. At least, ithadbeen white, but now, blood spreadout across it in a pattern that Amber knew all too well.

Itwas the same as the inkblots that had been left at each of the crime scenes.

Amberhad a moment to take in the shape of it before the full horror of all thatblood hit her. All of that blood had spilled from a woman’s body as someonemurdered her. It was a sign of the pain and violence that had been inflicted inthis place. She had to fight against that horror, trying not to be overwhelmedby it.

ARorschach card sat in the middle of that pool of blood, the same pattern on it,as if the killer didn’t trust just the pool of blood to get it across. Amberfelt sure, once again, that the design was significant to the killer in someway, because otherwise, why wouldn’t he just use the ten standard Rorschachdesigns?

“Havethe forensic teams managed to pull any DNA or fingerprints from the scene?”Simon asked.

DetectiveHeart shook his head. “If it were that easy, we’d already be going to pick upthe killer.”

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