Page 4 of Faceless Threat

“I need you to pay a visit to Miss Carver. Smooth over what happened with Guinness.” Meaning apologize for his behavior. “Get her statement again. I know he took it already. I want a clean slate on this, though. She still may not be able to give you any identifying features, but I hate that her willingness to come forward left her with a bad taste in her mouth and possibly a distrust of the department.” He explains what Guinness did and I see why Shivers is pissed. He’s not the only one.

“I’ll go do that now,” I assure him, wanting to make things right for Miss Carver and the victim.

“I did a bit of research on the illness she was diagnosed with.” He shakes his head. “Shitty thing to be saddled with for trying to be a Good Samaritan. She should be commended, not ridiculed by someone under my purview.”

“Fill me in, sir?”

He does, and by the time he’s finished, Miss Carver has all my sympathies. Not only did she see somebody murdered, she’s been robbed of the ability to recognize people she’s known her whole life. Unable to know if they’re complete strangers or had a part in creating her.

An affliction that can allow the killer to walk right up to her and she’d never know it.

**Rae**

The music switches on the show I’ve been trying to watch for the last twenty minutes, letting me know something is coming when an actor enters the scene. What that is, I don’t know. Is he good? Bad?

I’ve been a fan of this series since it premiered three years ago, yet it’s as if I’m watching it for the first time. I recognize the characters by their names, but that’s it. If it’s not used, I’m lost.

This adjustment has been hard on me and my family. When my parents entered the hospital room, my older brother right behind them, I’d stared at them as if I’d never seen them before. Because, in my shifted mind, I hadn’t.

A therapist had come in to speak to me while I’d been there and had offered a few suggestions to help me cope. Ways I could teach myself to remember aside from solely relying on their facial features or hair.

Yes, the latter can work, but shades and cuts can change.

As can eye colors, though that’s not as common. However, a lot of people have brown irises. It’s the most prevalent in the world. So, unless it’s a unique one such as a bright blue or green, something memorable that sticks out like heterochromia, it’s not much use to me.

Their walk, for example, will remain the same barring an injury to a leg, knee, etc. Which makes it more advantageous to make a mental note of.

Tattoos as well can help me.

Scars.

Jewelry if it’s distinctive enough.

A laugh.

While I’ve been enlisting those, the people closest to me have been given an identifying factor specific to them.

An idea that came to me when I’d been watching the hall, trying to distract my brain from the rabbit hole of helplessness it had been determined to go down. A couple had walked by my room, their fingers flying as they used ASL to communicate. I began reading up on it, wondering how difficult it was to learn, the best way to, and how long it would take.

The basics were a good starting point as I immersed myself in the language. I began by studying videos of the alphabet, then I combined that with personal memories I have with my family. Creating what’s known as sign names.

For example, my dad’s name is Clark. When we see each other, he alerts me as to who he is by curving his hand in a c with the thumb forming the bottom. Then he mimics casting a line because he would always take me and my brother fishing when we were younger, giving my mom Saturdays to sleep in and relax.

My mom, Jennifer, raises her hand and curls it into a fist, with the pinkie sticking up and a twist of the wrist to symbolize the curve at the bottom when a j is printed. Because baking is our favorite thing to do together, she flattens one hand around the height of her chest and curves the non-dominant, palm up, to slide forward underneath it as if she’s putting it in the oven.

Finn, my older brother, again with the dominant hand raised, palm out, touches his index finger to his thumb, forming a circle. The remaining three are then spread apart. That’s the letter f, though he jokes that it means he’s a-okay, since it has been used as a symbol for that for many years as well. Then, to pull on a shared memory that’s meaningful to the two of us, we chose gaming or game. To do that, he makes a fist, both thumbs sticking up, and bumps his hands together a couple times. When I was little, he would wake me up so I can see him rescue the princess on the old school Mario Brothers game he had.

Each is a silent way to reassure me that not only do I know them, I love them.

It’s our little safety net, one that I’ll be employing with those who are a constant presence in my life.

It’s greatly appreciated and a measure of relief in a now scary world. That probably sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s really not. Especially in my current situation when there’s a man out there that I can identify as a killer. And he could walk right up to me and I wouldn’t know it.

A realization that came to me in the middle of the night, waking me from an already fitful sleep.

Talk about a plot twist.

Not that the cops care, at least Officer Guinness didn’t, and he’s my only frame of reference.

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