Chapter 14

The air grew volatile, but Bel didn't hear a single sound. She was deaf to the world, blind to all save that horrifying sight carved into her memory, and she bent over the grass, fingers gripping her knees as she heaved for breath. She'd seen death before. She'd held it in her hands, stared into its faceandgreeted it with defiance, but what lay in that freezer below the dirt undid her, and she hovered over that field as if she no longer existed in her body. Her hand shook. Her lungs burned. Her stomach churned. Eamon. She wanted to call Eamon, to hear his voice, to beg him to hold her and stop her from falling apart. She wanted him beside her as she braved the darkness of that cold and heinous room because whoever had locked that chain around that door was an evil unmatched.

"Isobel?" A broad palm slid over her back, and she flinched at the touch. Griffin never called her Isobel, and she stared at him, unable to focus on his face.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his features twisted with horror, butit was Oliviasitting against the side of the barn with eyes as dazed as the frozen girl's that commanded her attention.

"I…" she trailed off and grabbed Griffin's shirt, clutching it in her fist until her knuckles turned white, and her boss instinctively pulled her into his arms. "I thought this was about drugs," she whispered into his neck as she clung to him. "I thought we were going to find a cannabis farm, not… I wasn't prepared for that."

"None of us were." He stroked her hair. "But I need you. I can't do this alone."

"I know." She reluctantlyextricatedherself from his embrace. "I can do it. I'm okay. I just… needed a minute."

"Me too." Griffin patted her shoulder. "I have to call Thum… I don't know what to tell her."

Bel slipped her hand into his powerful one and squeezed tight. "I want to shut my eyes and pretend I never saw what's down there, but they've spent enough time in the dark. They no longer have a voice, so weneed tospeak for them. Lina will understand that."

"She will." Griffin's thumb rubbed her knuckles. "We all do. I'll make the call, then I'll come down with you. I don't want you to be alone."

"I don't want to be alone either." Bel released his hand and turned her sights on the death-stained barn.

"Are you going back down there?" Olivia asked from the grass as she strode past, and when she nodded, Olivia scrambled to her feet. "I'm coming with you, even if it makes me sick. I can't bear the idea of you alone in that cold."

"Thank you." Bel gripped Olivia's hand as they returned to the freezer, not caring that the gathered deputies could see their interlaced fingers clutching each other. This scene was beyond them, beyond judgment, and together the friends braced for the cold.

"I'll be here if you need me." Deputy Rollo pressed his back against the door to reassure the women they wouldn't meet the same fate as the girl in the freezer, and Bel patted his shoulder in thanks. He nodded before turning away as if he couldn't bear seeing what waited for the detectives, and withthat sobering reminder, Bel led Olivia into the freezer where not one frozen girl awaited them but dozens.

Neither woman spoke as they slipped through the perfectly preserved bodies. Burned matchsticks sat in a single pile before each victim, a testament to their last attempt at survival. Bel didn't need Lina Thum's expertise to know these women froze to death, and while it seemed their killer moved their frozen statues to make room for every new matchstick victim, he'd left them in the cold for each girl to find. Bel stopped walking and turned her gaze to the pitch-black ceiling. To be locked in this freezer alone and scared and see your fate staring back at you. To know that you would end up another frozen girl, that you'd be added to their ever-growing ranks for the next terrified victim to stare at as her matches burned to nothing. Death was rarely kind, but this? This made her want to forget the law and lock the killer in a room with Eamon.

"They're all dressed differently," Oliviawhispered,as if she was afraid to speak in such a place. "Some are dressed for winter and others for summer. Some of their clothes are fashions I haven't seen in years. He's been doing this for a long time."

"There are forty-two women," Bel said. She'd counted three times because she couldn't fathom the number. "How does one person kill forty-two people and get away with it?" She ran her numb fingers through her hair. They'd been inside for only a few minutes, yet her knuckles were already stiffwithcold. She didn't know how they were supposed to work this scene without experiencing damage to their bodies, and she found a sliver of comfort knowing these girls' ends were probably quick. When the body froze, the mind eventually shuts down, dulling the senses. She prayed that in the end, the women felt like they weresimplyfalling asleep.

"My guess is these Jane Does were runaways or girls who lived on the streets," Griffin said as he joined them. "People no one would look for. To kill forty-two women and have no one come after you? No one missed these girls."

"That makes this worse," Olivia said, pausing before a victim who looked barely eighteen. "Some are older, but she's practically still a child. This was someone's daughter, someone's baby girl, and he froze her to death with only a pile of matches to give her hope." She fell silent, and by thewayher breathing changed, Bel could tell she was crying.

"There are no lights in here," Bel said as Griffin rubbed Olivia's back. "These women would've only seen what their matches illuminated, which wouldn't have been much since our flashlights barely light this space. They might not have realized how many dead girls knelt in here, but they also weren't able to find the door." She backtracked through the silent women and aimed her flashlight at the front of the freezer.

"What are you thinking?" Griffin asked.

"Freezing people to death is a detached, weaponless form of murder," she answered. "If you don't want to look your victims in the eyes, this is the perfect execution. It's not complicated either, since most deep freezers fit in a garage, so you wouldn't need to tap into the electrical grid, but this." She gestured behind her. "This is elaborate and expensive. Leaving the girls here long after they die for his next victims to see is a power play. Being locked in a freezer is terrifying, being locked in a freezer with dozens of dead girls and just enough matches to learn how doomed you are is excruciating. Our killer wanted them afraid, and he wanted their endingdramatic. Someone doesn't go through all this troublejustto lock the doors and walk away."

"You think he watched them die?" Griffin swung his flashlight at the wall, but the beam did little to revealanyhidden clues.

"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 following hours 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 make mistakes, 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. You wouldn'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."

"I guess you are." She smiled weakly, remembering how he followed her to the point of borderline stalking when they first met. To a certain extent, he'd done it again by coming to this scene, and maybe it signaled something was wrong with her, but she wanted him to follow her from the shadows, to know when she needed him without her having to ask. Knowing he was always watching gave her an edge other officers didn't have. It was easier to face evil with the devil guarding your back.

"Before you go." He caught her hand to stop her from leaving. "Who's here with you?"

"Olivia, Griffin…"

"No." He stared at her with intention. "Who's here? Did Ewan stop by to check on Gold?"

"No." Bel's heart rate picked up at his meaning. "I haven't seen him, at least. What do you smell? The killer?"

"Not sure." He shook his head. "There's something here. Or there was at one point." He lifted her hand to his nose and inhaled. "You've come into contact with it."

"I've come into contact with forty-two bodies," she said. "Who knows what scents I carry, or if what you smell is living or dead? I don't remember seeing anything suspicious. It's just the police, forensics, and the press here."

"Keep your eyes open. It's hard to pinpoint over all the people and death, but someone here isn't natural."

"I hope it's not the killer." She stepped closer to him, no longer ready to leave his side. "If the killer isn't human?—"

"I'll be there waiting for him," Eamon said. "The presence isn't strong, but it's something. Please be safe. I love you too much to lose you."

"I will," she promised. "I'll mostly be at the station, though. Thank you for coming, but you should go. I don't want a nosy reporter filming you."

"I'll see you soon, Detective." He slid his fingers through her hair and pulled her back against his chest. "Don't worry about Cerberus. Just worry about catching the monster who did this and then come home to us."

Eamon released her, and before Bel realized he'd moved, he vanished into the darkness as if he'd never existed.