CHAPTER NINETEEN

While Jack drove to the field office, Rachel's gaze flickered between the rearview mirror and the road ahead. Vincent Hale sat cuffed in the back, his head lolling against the window with a sullen expression etched onto his face. He'd been something of an unexpected lead and though Rachel still had her doubts, it was the closest she'd felt to something like progress on this case ever since Jack had taken the call over dinner two nights ago.

Hale had been quiet since the arrest. Rachel had seen the look on his face numerous times, the face of a man who knows he's been caught. More than that, it was the face of a man who realized that the sins of his past had caught up to him and now he had to face the consequences.

Rachel was already thinking about the line of questioning she'd use when they had him in an interrogation room when her phone rang. The caller ID showed Dir. Anderson. Whenever Director Anderson called in the middle of a case, it always meant either something promising, or another roadblock. This made Rachel quite anxious as she answered the call, unsure of what to expect.

"This is Gift." She saw Jack looking over to her quickly, a look of concern in his eyes.

"Agent Gift," Director Anderson's voice crackled through the speakers, clipped and urgent. "There's been another murder. Rebecca Clarke—another actress. Anonymous tip, just like the others."

"Christ. When?"

"The call came in less than ten minutes ago. Local PD is sending a unit over to block the place off until you and Agent Rivers arrive."

"Roger that," she said, her nerves on edge, her thoughts already swirling with the implications. Clearly, Vincent Hale wasn't their killer, though he still needed to be questioned and held accountable for his transgressions. "Got an address?"

"Sending it to you now."

"Director, we do have a previous suspect in custody that we need to deliver first. We're headed to the Broad Street precinct right now."

"Okay. I'll call ahead to make sure someone is there and ready for the hand-off the moment you arrive."

They ended the call, and Rachel relayed the information to Jack. As she did, she noticed Hale sit up a bit straighter in the back—perhaps realizing he was off the hook for the murder charges, at least.

Jack stepped on the accelerator a bit more, blasting through intersections and laying down on his horn when he needed to. "Mr. Hale," he said as the turn-off for the precinct came into view, "don't you worry. We're leaving you in capable hands."

They pulled up to the precinct, the stark building looking like a small fortress in the night. As Anderson had said, there were already two men waiting idly at the edge of the parking lot. Jack stepped out to assist in getting Hale out of the back, filling the officers in on the charges and the brief interrogation they'd already conducted at Hale's apartment.

Two minutes later, he was back in the car and squealing tires out of the parking lot. The night closed in around them as they sped away, the darkness teeming with unseen threats and another murder at the hands of their elusive killer.

***

Rebecca Clarke's modest home was nestled in the heart of the city, a small house hidden away along a series of similar streets with similar homes. Rachel's pulse was hammering in her ears as they pulled up to the curb, the sight of a lone cop standing sentinel at the front door doing little to make her feel any better. The anger was there, too, riding the wave of emotion. It had become almost like some strange, secondary personality that she was always aware of.

And, of course, there was the headache, always lurking in the back of her head like a roaming storm cloud.

Jack parked in front of the house, behind the police cruiser, and they stepped out into the night. They flashed their badges and IDs at the cop standing guard, and he nodded gratefully.

"That was fast," the cop commented. His face looked pale, perhaps because of what he'd seen inside.

"You've already been inside?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah. The scene is secure."

"You mind staying out here a bit longer?" Jack asked.

"Not at all."

Rachel and Jack stepped forward, Rachel opening the door and stepping into Rebecca Clarke's house. The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood as they stepped inside. The scene before them was one of calculated brutality—one of the worst Rachel had ever seen.

There were splatters of blood on the walls, the furniture, the floors. In the center lay Rebecca Clarke, her once shining eyes now dull and lifeless. She's been beaten so badly that her forehead seemed to have vanished beneath a bloody smear of red. A single brick, edges caked with gore, lay nearby.

"Jesus," Jack exhaled, the word barely a whisper yet laden with a weight that seemed to echo through the space.

"This is incredibly recent," Rachel observed, noting the way the blood still glistened wetly, a slow trickle seeping from the wound on Rebecca's head. A few splatters of it on the wall also continued to run downward in thin rivulets. Rachel crouched beside the body, careful not to disturb the scene, her gaze tracing the chaotic patterns left by the killer's rage.

"No more than an hour ago—tops," she said.

"Cause of death is pretty apparent," Jack said with disgust, his eyes taking in the brick.

"Yeah. And that does us a favor; he couldn't have killed her any more than an hour ago. Let's look the place over, find any clues we can. We're practically already on the bastard's heels."

It took a considerable amount of effort to look away from the bloody mess that had once been Rebecca Clarke. When Rachel had finally turned back toward the rest of the apartment, she found it tidy and clean. Almost right away, her eyes went to the small coffee table, where two folded sheets of paper lay on top of one another. One was a sheet of notebook paper with an amount of money scrawled on it, along with a bill to her internet service provider. Beneath that, though, was a sheet in a style that she and Jack and become quite familiar with during the past two days.

It was a playbill for a play titled The Chai Gospels . Rachel picked it up and scanned the cast list on the inside. Sure enough, Rebecca's name was included with the cast. She then turned to the cover and saw the date that the play was performed.

"Jack…there was a showing of this tonight. She was on stage earlier tonight. Showtime at 7:00."

Jack checked his watch. "It's 10:45 right now."

"He was in the audience," Rachel said, feeling very certain of it. "I'm sure of it, Jack."

"You think he followed her home?"

"Yes. And I think it was probably the same with the others. Each actress was murdered post-performance in a manner they used on stage to act out the murder of another character."

"Someone's been watching them, waiting to see them kill on stage and then carrying it out in real life on those actresses," Jack said. "The obvious question is why?"

"No way to know right now. But we have to act fast. This is only an hour or so ago…"

"We can try compiling a list of everyone who was there tonight, purchase histories from the theater's payment system. But that would take a long time."

"A very long time," Rachel said. "But I think it has to be done. And another thing…I want to go to the station where these calls came in. I know they couldn't be traced, but they were recorded. Maybe there's something on those calls that can point us in the right direction."

"Maybe," Jack said, but his tone made it clear that he thought it was a long shot.

"Do you want to head out and speak to the officer?" Rachel suggested. "Maybe try to line up the effort of getting the ticket purchase information with him? I'll take a look around here, see if we can find anything else."

"Yeah, sounds good."

Jack stepped back outside, casting one last weary glance back down to Rebecca. As he stepped out, Rachel saw and heard another patrol car pull up to the curb with its bubble lights flashing. She took a breath, not too deep to avoid inhaling the pungent smell of freshly spilled blood, and looked back to the wrecked body of Rebecca Clarke. She assumed that tonight's performance had Rebecca acting out the murder of someone by beating them in the head with a brick…not exactly the sort of scene she'd expect from a play titled The Chai Gospels . But she knew this could be verified easily.

Rachel stepped gingerly around the pooling blood, careful not to disturb the grotesque scene. It had been done with ruthless violence, making her think the killer had enjoyed it— that it went beyond whatever message or pattern he was trying to communicate.

We need to shut the theaters down, she thought. We may get some pushback, but we can handle it. All performances of local theater production need to be shut down until we find this guy.

And with that thought came another. She wondered how hard it might be to find any actresses in the city who were currently playing or rehearsing a part in which their character committed a murder on stage. If they could determine that information, they'd not only save lives but maybe even track down the killer at the same time.

***

"Who would we even call to make that happen?" Jack asked. "I don't think shutting down local theater productions is a big ask considering what we're working on, but where does that chain of command even start?"

He asked this question as his fingers were curled around the steering wheel, speeding toward the precinct where the killer had called to report his murders. The city's lights flickered through the windshield, casting shadows that danced over Jack's solemn expression.

"No clue. I think we can start with directors. And Lord only knows we've spoken with enough people involved with theaters today who can help us with that."

As they turned a corner, a soft, dull ache throbbed at the base of Rachel's skull. She winced, reaching up to massage her temples, trying to fend off the headache that had been her unwanted companion since the case began. Stress, she knew, and too many sleepless nights spent chasing shadows. Or at least that's what she was telling herself. The tumor, like the anger that had taken over her mind in the past few weeks, was always a lurking shadow in the back of her mind.

"Hey, you okay?" Jack's concern was evident even without looking at him.

"Just a headache," Rachel muttered, dropping her hand and focusing on the road ahead. "It's nothing."

"You're sure?" The concern was evident in his tone and his eyes.

"Almost positive. I haven't slept much in the past two days, and this is all…it's moving pretty fast."

"But you'll let me know if you think it's—"

"Yes. You have my word." She knew he was only looking out for her and that based on her past with keeping such information to herself, he had every right to be suspicious. But, at the same time, there was a killer on the loose and thinking of herself seemed inappropriate somehow.

They reached the precinct several minutes later, and Rachel caught several glimpses of Jack looking over at her, checking to make sure she was truly okay. When she stepped out, the cool night air was a brief respite from the confines of the car, where she'd started to feel slightly cornered and trapped. And though she moved ahead as if the case was her sole focus, she had to admit that she was indeed starting to grow nervous about the headache's re-appearance and what it could possibly mean.