CHAPTER NINE

"I just can't make a connection," Sheila said, leaning away from the laptop and rubbing her tired eyes. "What could be ‘impure' about the two victims?"

She and Finn were sitting in a conference room at the Coldwater County Sheriff's Department. Finn had his own laptop open in front of him, his screen filled with images of the crime scenes. After clearing Hawthorne of suspicion, they'd taken his suggestion that the ritualistic elements of the kills—the astrological symbols, the herbs—might point to a cleansing ritual of some kind, as if the killer had been offering the victims to a higher power to compensate for some wrong done. But Sheila couldn't find anything in the victims' pasts to explain such a perspective.

"It was just a theory, anyway," Finn said, stifling a yawn. It was about noon, and the hours they had spent hunched over their machines had taken a toll. "Maybe there's no connection at all."

"But there has to be," Sheila said, frustration gnawing at her. She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "The killer selected these two women for a reason. If we want to stop him from attacking again, we need to figure out what the reason is."

The room fell silent as they both stared at their laptops, lost in thought. The hum of the air conditioning filled the silence, and Sheila found herself staring blankly at the photos of Emily Greenwald and Vanessa Hart plastered on the wall.

All of a sudden, her phone buzzed with an incoming call that made her heart lurch. It was her father.

"I should take this," she said to Finn.

"Do what you gotta do."

Sheila rose and, stepping out into the hallway, answered the call. "Hey, Dad. What's up?"

"Oh, not a lot," he answered in that gruff voice Sheila knew so well. "I just wanted to touch base about this weekend."

This weekend, Sheila thought, trying to remember. She was drawing a blank.

"The cabin?" her father said .

"Oh, that's right." Her father had asked her about going together to Natalie's cabin to look through her things, decide what they wanted to keep and what they wanted to get rid of. Now Sheila understood why she'd so conveniently forgotten about it—because she dreaded the idea of entering that building again. She remembered all too well how it had felt to walk in there a little over six months ago and find her sister dead on the floor.

"I'm not sure this weekend is going to work," she said. "Maybe we can try sometime next week."

There was a long pause.

"Listen," her dad said in a heavy voice, "I know this is difficult. But it's been half a year. I'm not saying you need to get over what happened—God knows I never will—but this is just one of those things you gotta do. I can't keep paying for a property nobody's using."

"Then just hire a crew to clean it out," Sheila said, trying not to get frustrated. "Rent a dumpster."

"You know you'll regret that."

"Fine," Sheila said, pressing a hand against her forehead, frustration creeping into her voice. "How does Saturday sound?"

"Saturday works." A pause. "Listen, why don't you bring Finn along? I'd like to get a chance to talk to him, get to know him a bit better."

He knows. The realization hit Sheila like a thunderbolt. She hadn't told her dad she was dating anyone, and she carefully avoided talking about her partner, but somehow he had figured it out. The clever bastard.

"I'll mention it to him," she said dismissively. "But he might have plans." She decided to change the topic. "How are you doing, Dad? How's the knee?"

"The knee?" A low chuckle. "Oh, the knee's fine. I just use it as an excuse to avoid your grandmother's weekly game nights. Don't tell her that."

Sheila couldn't suppress a laugh. "Your secret's safe with me, Dad."

They both fell silent. Sheila was about to end the conversation when her dad spoke up again.

"Heard from Star lately?" he asked. Sheila recalled how, recently, her dad had asked her to check on Star. Sheila had done so, only to discover that Star had been beaten by her father, leaving her with a bruised jaw and a swollen eye. Sheila had let Star's father know what would happen if he ever touched his daughter again, and in response, he'd thrown Star out. Now, Star was temporarily crashing at Star's home while she worked on a more long-term solution.

"I never touched base with you about that," she said. "She's actually been staying at my place."

"At your place?" Her father sounded confused.

"Yeah. Her dad threw her out."

He let out a low whistle. "Well, that's something. How's she doing?"

"She's tough," Sheila replied. "She's coping, but she needs stability. A safe place."

"She still going to school?"

"Remotely, for now. I've been helping her with her homework at night. But I worry about her—being alone there all the time."

"You should take her to the gym," her dad said.

"I've been meaning to," Sheila said. "She wants me to train her. Could be a good way to get some pent-up frustration out."

"For both of you."

Sheila thought about that. She decided not to comment on it.

"Anyway," she said, "I should get going."

"Back to the grind. I know how it is." He sighed. "Well, I'll let you know if I think of a way to help Star out. Ordinarily, I'd say the best thing would be for her to be back at home with her folks, but in this case…"

Sheila heard the door behind her open, and she turned to see Finn standing there, a troubled expression on his face. He gestured that he needed to speak with her.

"Sounds good," Sheila said into the phone. "Talk to you later, Dad." She hung up, then took a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever Finn had to say. "Were you able to make a connection between the victims?"

Finn shook his head, looking grim. "No. But we've got a different lead: Another woman has gone missing."

Sheila cursed under her breath. "How do we know it's the same killer?"

"Because they left a few astrological symbols in the woman's apartment. In blood."

** *

Sheila paused on the staircase leading up to Fiona Blake's apartment, everything within her telling her to go back. She closed her eyes, gripping the rail as she reminded herself that this wasn't Natalie's cabin. Her sister wouldn't be in there, lying dead on the floor.

Finn marched past her before realizing she'd stopped. He studied her, sighing. "Look, if you need to hang back—"

"No," she cut him off, pushing past her own fears. "I'm fine."

They continued up the stairs, Sheila fighting back the memories that threatened to overtake her.

The door to Fiona's apartment was slightly ajar, the yellow crime scene tape fluttering in the mild breeze. The neighborhood was eerily quiet, all eyes courting the disrupted sanctuary.

Sheila steeled herself, pushing open the door, the creak of aged hinges echoing too-loud in her ears. The apartment was an artist's paradise, finished canvases lining the walls, each one a testament to Fiona's talent. A spatter of red paint on the wall almost made Sheila jump until she realized what it was.

In the heart of the living area, patches of dried blood marred the hardwood floor, an unholy constellation connected by police chalk. A framed picture showing Fiona, surrounded by a number of paintings and smiling beneath a sign that read 'WELCOME TO FELDER UNIVERSITY, WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE,' was speckled with fine droplets of blood.

Whoever had done this had taken their time, arranging Fiona's abode into a grotesque constellation of violence and terror. The symbols were similar to those found on Vanessa Hart's body: intricate and abstract, fashioned with a disturbing precision that only heightened Sheila's unease.

Finn was already crouched down, studying one of the symbols drawn in blood. He had traded his uniform for a black suit, which rendered him almost ghost-like in the dim light filtering through the apartment windows.

"Anything you recognize?" Sheila asked, pulling herself from her thoughts. She stooped next to him, trying to make sense of the cryptic sigils before them.

"Not right off," Finn admitted, "but there are similarities to what we found at the other two scenes—with the obvious exception that there's no body, of course. "

Sheila studied the symbols and tried to estimate how much blood it had taken. Assuming it was Fiona's blood, was there any chance she was still alive?

She tried to play out the situation in her head. "So he attacks her in here, maybe catches her by surprise when she comes home. But does he kill her?"

"If he did," Finn said, "I'd expect to find a pool of blood somewhere. But there doesn't seem to be one, which suggests—"

"She was alive while he was drawing these." Sheila rubbed wearily at her face. "If he wants to follow the pattern, he needs to take her out to the salt flats. That's where the other two were."

"It would be a lot easier to get her there alive," Finn said. "Dragging her body down those stairs in broad daylight—too great a chance someone would notice."

Sheila nodded, already thinking the same thing. She rose to her feet. "We've got to coordinate another search, and we have to do it fast. Out there in the hot sun, losing this much blood—" She shook her head. "Fiona's not going to last long even if she gets away from her captor."