Face of Death

Everything felt strange—loose—like she was made of jelly all of a sudden, her arms and legs flopping like dead fish when she tried to move them. The one thing she knew she could feel was the heat of the blood seeping out of her neck, staining the ground now, pouring in such quantities that she could not comprehend it.

Rubie lifted her head to look into the distance, the lights of the town where her sister lived still just a speck on the horizon. So far away that it might as well have been the stars. The wound on her neck opened like a mouth to pour out another gush of blood, and she felt her face hit the ground, no longer strong enough to hold it up.

She only registered dimly that she could no longer feel the cold before there was nothing left to feel at all.

CHAPTER NINE

Zoe was dismayed to find that the motel was even shabbier on the inside than it had looked from the outside.

“Only the finest for the FBI,” Shelley joked. “That’s why they call us ‘special’ agents, right?”

Zoe grunted, turning back from her examination of the threadbare sofa in the lobby just in time to see the receptionist returning. “Here’s your key,” he said, tossing one plastic card onto the surface of the counter. It slid over toward them, stopping just before it teetered off the edge.

“Thanks,” Shelley said, picking it up and lifting her hand in a gesture of acknowledgment.

Zoe didn’t think his customer service skills warranted even that.

The man said nothing. He slumped back into his chair and grabbed up his cell from in front of him, resuming whatever activity he had been engaged in when they entered.

“You know where we can get a decent bite to eat at this time of night?” Shelley asked.

“Diner ’bout five miles down,” he said, lifting his chin in the approximate direction without looking up.

Shelley thanked him again, to as little response as the first time. They left him where he was, Zoe leading her away before she could try to start another conversation with the world’s surliest clerk, heading back out into the cold night of the parking lot.

“Should we go for dinner?” Shelley asked. “Or set up the room first?”

“We should put our bags in, at least,” Zoe said, sighing. She rubbed the back of her neck, stiff and sore from the long day and the driving they had done. “Then food.”

“So much for getting on a plane before the day was out,” Shelley remarked, hefting the key and examining it for the room number. She led them across the lot to a door much like all of the others in the long, low building, unlocking it with a swipe.

“It looks like this was more of a complex case than expected,” Zoe agreed. The mild words hid the anger she was harboring toward herself. She should have been able to solve this one, read the numbers and taken him down. Not leave him the chance to kill again. If someone died tonight, it would be on her.

The room was small, two single beds placed less than a foot apart with old-fashioned floral bedspreads. The kind that had probably been purchased in the eighties, or even earlier, and washed over and over again until they were thin and scratchy. At least, Zoe hoped they had been washed.

She kicked one leg of the bedframe, eyeing it warily to see how much it shifted. It felt good, but not good enough. Zoe could probably have kicked the whole place until her leg hurt, and it still wouldn’t work out the frustration she felt. She should have been home by now, not sitting in a motel and waiting for a killer to claim another victim that she could do nothing to prevent.

She thought of Euler and Pythagoras, and hoped they were all right. She had a delayed-release feeder set up for nights like these, but the cats were too clever for their own good. Once before, they had broken into it and eaten half a week’s supply in one night. She’d come home a few hours later to find them lying bloated and happy, so full they could only wave their tails in response to her voice.

“Ready?” Shelley asked, her voice quiet. Perhaps feeling that Zoe was not in the mood for this, for any of this.

Zoe nodded and allowed her partner to lead the way. It was with no great joy that she approached the diner, seeing the lights an oasis in the darkness of the rural area, already mostly shut down for the night. Only a few cars were parked outside in the small lot, and the large windows on all sides of the building allowed them to see just a few patrons sitting to eat or drink coffee. It made her catch her breath in her throat, memories flooding in unbidden of diner meals from her childhood.

Zoe stifled a groan of complaint as they walked inside. It was your typical small-town diner. Wipe-clean tables and green-covered seats and booths, an attempt at kitsch 1950s stylings that contrasted against the modern appliances and images of local sports teams on a bulletin board. The two tired-looking waitresses, both middle-aged women, wore nondescript uniforms that were neither stylish nor well-fitting. Her eyes told her that one was wearing one size exactly too small, the other one size too large. She blinked, shooing the numbers away. She just wanted to eat and go to bed.

Zoe slid into a booth and examined the menu. At times it could be soothing to see a familiar list of items and know what you wanted to order, but here it was grating. It was a standard, generic offering of diner fare, the kind of all-day pancakes and burgers you could get at any similar spot in the country. It could easily have been the precise menu offered by the diner in Zoe’s own hometown, where she had slunk sullenly after church, following her parents for their weekly celebratory meal.

Not that it had ever been a real celebration, for her.

She stared at the menu without reading it, feeling her mother’s hot gaze on the top of her head, the glare she would always look up to find. Silently, as she always did when faced with a menu, she let the numbers fill her head—telling her the predicted cost per weight of each meal, the number of calories to expect, which held more fat and which more sugar. A pointless exercise, because Zoe never used any of that to choose her meals. She had learned long ago just to pick something she liked and put the numbers away.

“Can I get you some coffee?” their waitress asked, pausing at their table with a jug in hand. Zoe held out her cup wordlessly to have it filled, while Shelley assented and gave her thanks. With a promise to come back for their food order soon, the waitress was gone again, heavy footsteps slapping the linoleum in flat shoes.

“What are you getting?” Shelley asked. “I can never choose. I’m so bad at picking what I want to eat. It all sounds good.”

Zoe shrugged. “Burger, probably.”

“With a side of fries?”

“Comes with it.”

Shelley scanned the menu again a few more times before nodding and closing it. “Sounds good enough.”

Zoe lifted her gaze to momentarily analyze the alcoholic, the long-distance trucker, and the family man with no desire to go home before deciding the other patrons of the diner were not worth looking at. She turned her eyes to the salt shaker, measuring the precise amount of salt left within it and comparing it with the sugar, before tuning out even that.

The numbers weren’t helping. The case was still unsolved, nothing left behind by the criminal that she could use even with her unique abilities. Now she was stuck in this two-horse town for at least another day, looking at things that reminded her of her childhood and all the things that her mother had been at pains to point out were wrong with her. All the while, somewhere, some woman might be fighting for her life, losing it in an empty parking lot or by the side of the road.

“If you don’t like it here, we’ll go somewhere else tomorrow,” Shelley said, offering Zoe an attempt at a bright smile. “Somewhere not so small-town. Maybe we can order takeout to the motel.”

Zoe glanced up. Once again, Shelley had surprised her with just how insightful she could be.

“This place is just fine. I apologize if I am being unpleasant. I was hoping we would solve this one quickly and go home. I do not want any more people to die.”

“Me, too.” Shelley shrugged. “We’ll get there. It’s all right, though. You don’t have to put on a customer service face with me. I can tell you’re not comfortable here.”

“I did not wish to distract us from the case by bringing up my own problems,” Zoe said, twisting her mouth. “I suppose I was not doing a great job of hiding it.”

Shelley laughed. “I’ve only been working with you for a little while, Z, but I’m starting to see the signs. There’s a difference between you being quiet because you’re, well, you, and then you being quiet because you’re not comfortable.”

Zoe looked down at her coffee, pouring exactly one teaspoon of sugar from the shaker without measurement and stirring it, careful not to clink her spoon against the side of the cup. “It’s too much like home here.”

“I’m not trying to push you. I meant what I said—you don’t need to tell me about it,” Shelley said, taking a sip of hers black. “But you can. If you want.”

Zoe shrugged. How much to tell? She had not changed her mind about reserving the details, except perhaps for the therapist. But her issues were affecting her work, and Shelley deserved to know why. At least a little bit of why. “My mother was manipulative,” she said, simply. Best to leave out the part where she accused her of being the devil’s spawn. “My father was a bystander, at best. I was legally emancipated as a teenager.”

Shelley let out a low whistle. “It must have been bad, if you had to go that far to get away from them.”

Zoe shrugged again. She sipped at her coffee, feeling the slight discomfort from the heat, setting it carefully back down on the table. She was never good at talking about herself. The few times she had tried as a child, her mother had made it clear that the things she felt and saw were not normal.

“I hope I’m never like that,” Shelley sighed. “Or even close to it. I want to be a good mother. Of course, I’m not going to be at home as often as I could be. But I still want to do well.”

Zoe took in Shelley’s face, pensive and distracted. “You have children?”

“One.” Shelley smiled, her face coming to life with warmth. “My daughter.”

“What is her name?”

“Amelia. It was hard, going into training and then coming to work. I decided to change careers after I went on maternity leave. As much as I think I’ve found my calling, it was tough to leave her at home.”

“Your partner is looking after her?” Zoe asked.

“My mother. During the day, at least. My husband works in an office job, nine to five. He’s always there for her on the weekends.” Shelley sighed. “We need both the money from working.”

Zoe considered her for a long moment. She ducked her eyes back down to her cup. “I do not think you could be a bad parent,” she said at last. “You will never be anything like my mother.”

“Thank you.” Shelley smiled. The relief in her expression was palpable. “I needed to hear that.”

Zoe thought about Shelley’s little girl, and the fact that each of the victims had a mother once, and fought the urge to go back out into the night to continue the search for their killer. She would be no help to anyone if she didn’t get enough sleep to think clearly, enough nutrition to keep her body going. That was what was important tonight, while they had no real leads to speak of.

Somehow, knowing that Shelley was a mother, and that she cared greatly about her little family—enough to worry about it so much—made her rise higher in Zoe’s estimation. The empathy that she had for victims and their families was not an act. Shelley had genuine compassion in her. It was something Zoe wished she had more of. Perhaps Shelley was exactly the kind of partner she needed.

Especially if, tomorrow morning, she was going to have to face the family of another victim, and explain to them why she had not caught the killer.

CHAPTER TEN

Rubie faded back into consciousness, the world coming into focus again. Soil underneath her face. Grass, short and sharp blades, uncomfortable under her cheek. She moved her eyes, seeing the lights of the town in the distance, and then around her, the trees, rising dark and tall, blocking her view to the left and right.

She must have stumbled into the woods. She barely remembered. All she had been able to focus on was the blood, falling hot and wet in pools down her body.

How long had she been out? It was still dark, still cold, and she was still alive. She pressed her hand to her neck with the smallest of movements and found it still liquid. Not long, then. If she had been bleeding for a long time, she would be dead.

Rubie’s ears pricked at a sound nearby, and she instinctively slowed her breathing, making a conscious effort not to exhale loudly. The slower she breathed, the less the blood pulsed out of her neck. It was so deep, the air rushed through. She pressed her hand harder against the red-hot line of pain, trying to keep it all in.

Footsteps. It was his footsteps. Slow, cautious, one foot after another. Not blundering through the woods but moving carefully. Searching. Searching for her.

A wild spike of fear dizzied through her and she fought to keep her breathing under control, to stay as quiet as possible. He was getting closer, moving right toward her. Oh god, if he found her again. Oh god, it would be over.

Rubie held on tight to her neck, feeling stars in her vision every time her grip slipped and the wound eased open again, letting out another flood. Every part of her body wanted to give in to the waiting darkness, to go once again into the sweet unknowing of unconsciousness. But she knew. Rubie knew that if she went down again, she would never come back up.

The footsteps were so close that she stopped breathing at all. She held herself still, as still as she could, until the only movement in her whole body was the blood driven heartbeat by heartbeat out of her neck. She waited. How long could she hold her breath before she had to make another sound? What if he could see her? How long until he killed her?

The footsteps kept moving, and when Rubie realized they were heading past her, into another direction, deeper into the woods, she gasped out a breath at last. Her body came back to life, all the aches and pains flooding her, reminding her of the cold earth and the cold air and the warmth seeping out of her pulse by pulse.

If she could stop the bleeding, she had a chance. She could stumble out of here, even crawl if she had to. It was a long time until daybreak, a long time before he would have the benefit of the sun to spot her with. She could be in town by then, at the hospital, safe and secure. She could make it out. She was strong enough.

If she could just stop the bleeding.

Rubie tried to think, forcing her dull and frozen brain into action. A bandage—that was what she needed. Her hands were slippery with blood, and weak from the loss of it. She couldn’t grip the wound closed, not well enough. A bandage would hold her together.

But where would she get a bandage?

Not a medical bandage—it could be anything. A strip of fabric. Duct tape. She’d seen that in a film. Staples, even. No, not staples or tape—think. Think. Think of something that she actually had access to.

Clothes! Her clothes! They were made from—made from fabric. What was she wearing? Jean shorts—that was why her legs were so cold. A tee, tight to her body and small. The only thing between her stomach and the cold ground. A zip-up hoodie, open, the hood pooled against the back of her neck, keeping her warm there.

Her bag! She had a scarf in her bag—but it was—no—back in the car…

Okay, think. The clothes she was wearing, these were all she had. The tee—the fabric was thin. Maybe easier to rip. She could tear it, take a whole section off the bottom. That was what they did in movies, right? Just tear it right off with their hands.

Rubie gathered her remaining strength, taking one hand away from her neck, and pushed against the cold earth. Damp soil pushed up between her fingers, oozing into the spaces, before she finally began to move. Slowly, and then in a rush all at once when gravity came to her aid, she flopped over onto her back. The impact rocked her back and forward, shaking the air out of her system.

There. One step closer. Now the blood was running back, trickling down across her neck and back toward her hair, and she felt she could let go for a moment to fumble for the fabric of her shirt.

She pulled and strained, but her normal strength was gone from her. Her movements were ineffective, her hands slipping and the fabric gliding out from between her frozen fingertips.

Think, Rubie, think.

The seams—they were the weak points.

She fumbled around for the side seam, finally finding it and taking hold of each side in her hands. She grasped and pulled, taking a deep breath and using everything she had—and the seam ripped, the stitches popping and unraveling with a sound like Velcro.

Rubie wanted to cry. She’d done it. But it was only the first step.

Step.

She heard it—his footsteps.

They were getting louder.

He was coming back.

***

He hunted for her relentlessly, with an energy born of twin flames of fear and anger. This was not the plan. She was ruining the plan.

This stupid girl should have died where he took her, where she was supposed to. Why did she have to run away like that? And into the woods, no less?

It was dark, but he did not want to risk turning on the flashlight on his cell. If he did, he might be spotted from the road. Someone could identify his car, then, and the police would crash down on him, APBs and roadblocks and records searches. He had switched off the car lights and the engine, left it sitting in darkness, where he hoped no one would pass by.

But even more of a risk than a driver or passenger happening to look over and spot his car was the girl. She would ruin the pattern if she escaped, but it was more than that. She knew his face. She would be able to describe his car. Maybe she had even gotten a look at the plates before she accepted his ride.

If she got out of the woods and got to the authorities, they would find him in no time at all.

He stalked through the trees with an ever-increasing sense of desperation, a growl rising in his throat as he moved further and further from the road. He couldn’t see anything. The splashes of blood on the ground near the car had been encouraging, but out here the light of the moon did not penetrate the branches, and he could no longer follow the trail.

He knew he had cut her—but how much? If it was only a shallow wound, she could make it all the way to town. Maybe before he found her. If he ever found her. Maybe she was halfway there, even now.

He stopped moving, standing still, listening to the swaying and rustling of the trees in a light wind that passed through. This was hopeless. If there wasn’t some kind of miracle, he wasn’t going to find her in time. It was all going to be over.

There—what was that sound? He whirled around, his heartbeat picking up pace, pounding so loudly in his ears he was afraid it would drown out any further clues.

He moved in the direction that it had come from, faster now, forgetting care in exchange for haste. What had it been? A ripping noise, he thought, like fabric coming apart. Not an animal noise. Not a bird or a squirrel or anything else—a girl.

He moved forward blindly in the darkness, seeing only the very nearest objects, holding his hands out in front of him so that he would not hit a tree while he concentrated on the ground at his feet. There—was that a blood splatter?

He took a glance behind him at the road and hesitated, assessing the risk. He switched on the screen of his cell, using that dim light only, and squatted down. Yes—blood! He moved the light, following it forward, tilting it up and up and up until—

The light hit her body, shining from her eyes, glistening in the wet pools around her and the trickle still oozing from her neck.

He smiled at last and rushed forward, squatting over her, careful to avoid stepping in the blood.

She was breathing still. But it was shallow and low, her eyes already taking on a glassy look. Her hands, which were down by the hem of her ripped T-shirt, were bloody and shaking, a minute tremble that twitched through them. She was staring up at him; with comprehension or not, he could not tell.

There was blood all around her. All over her. She was soaked in it. He had managed to cut deeply, before she hit him and escaped. It was still coming out of the deep slice along her neck.

Her hands stilled. He leaned forward, over her, closer and closer, until his face was only inches from her own. He concentrated, stilling his own body, staying as quiet as he could.

She was no longer breathing.

She had bled out, at last.

For one second he wanted to crow with victory, and in the next he wanted to erupt with rage. This was wrong—all wrong. She had died in the wrong place! The bitch had ruined everything, everything! The pattern was broken, wrong, destroyed!

He stood and kicked out at the body, hitting her in the side with a satisfying thunk, the noise reminding him of the sound meat made when hit with a tenderizing hammer.

Not quite satisfying enough, given that she had broken his pattern, and destroyed everything that he had been working for.

He stepped back, breathing hard, and let his eyes fall over the scene as he used the light from his cell to examine her. The blood would need some attention. There was too much evidence at the present moment, too many signs to direct the investigators where to go.

But—what was this…? Now that he looked closer… yes, she must have rolled away, pushing herself from where she had originally fallen. And there, blooming out in almost perfect symmetry, the blood had spilled from her neck. It was… beautiful. No, now that he looked even closer, it was symmetrical, a perfect blossom, like a Rorschach blot.

A pattern.

His breathing began to slow, to even out again, along with the pace of his racing heart. Here was a pattern, even now. A pattern to show him that everything was okay.

The girl had not ruined everything. No, this was only a small deviation from the plan. He still committed the murder exactly where he had planned to. She had run on ahead, but she was already dead from the moment his wire slipped around her neck—like a chicken, the body still moving after the head was gone.

The pattern was still intact.

It was just like the old man, the one they hadn’t found yet, up at the farmhouse where no one had seen him for days. He had tried to run, too. In the end, it had not changed a thing. The pattern began there, and here, it was able to continue. Like divine providence, keeping him on track, allowing him to realize his work fully.

His moment of celebration was short-lived. Now that he knew everything was going to be fine, there were steps he had to take. The pattern would continue, and that meant he could not leave behind any evidence for them to find and stop him before he finished tomorrow’s kill—or the day after, or the day after that.

The first thing was the blood trail. If he could take care of that, he could drive away before the sun came up, and no one would be any the wiser.

He stood straight, cracking his shoulders back, rolling them toward his spine. There was physical labor to be done again, which he did not mind at all. It purified the scene, made the pattern the only thing that was left. Removing all traces of himself was like an artist stepping back and allowing a painting to speak for itself. It was an act removed of ego, a reiteration of his devotion to the pattern, his belief that it was bigger than himself.

He found a dead branch nearby, the twigs and leaves still barely hanging on, a recent break. Perfect for sweeping away the marks from a crime scene. He hefted it and began to sweep away some of his own footsteps around the body, careful to walk backward, following her trail.

He stiffened as the gentle swish-swish of the branch was interrupted by another sound. He froze, stilling his whole body to listen again, pressing a button to deaden the light from his cell. What was that? A bird call?

No—there it was again: a human voice, and no mistaking it.

He listened intently, turning his head to catch the right direction of the wind, tuning his senses as much as he could. He peered ahead, as if seeing the source of the sound might make it clearer. There were voices, all right. Two men. Moving closer, maybe. Slowly, but surely.

“This is it, here.” One of the men.

Something from the other, too quiet to hear.

“Oh, rest your grumbling. Any critter worth its pelt knows we’re here already. They hear our steps. Bit of talking won’t make a difference. When we’re in the stand, I’ll be quiet.”

He squinted, analyzing the words. Hunters, most likely. Setting themselves up in tree stands to wait for the woods to adjust to their presence, for small and defenseless things to forget they were there. A long waiting game.

He couldn’t outwait them.

He had to get out, and do it now.

His tracks were still intact, the blood trail leading right from his car to the body. But there was no doing anything about it. He had to go, before they heard a cracked twig or a swish of the makeshift broom and saw him. Or even worse, shot at him, thinking him to be some kind of beast. It was time to leave, and there was nothing else he could do.

He fled back to his car in quick, careful steps, minding where he stood, never close enough to the blood trail to risk stepping in it and leaving imprints behind. He strayed to the side to discard the branch away from the path she had left, hoping it would avoid notice. One fallen branch among all the other fallen branches. None of this was finished—but it would have to be, or else he would have to stop now, before he was done with the rest.

His work was far from done. There were three more who had to die—and he wasn’t going to stop until they were all bled out on the ground, and the pattern was complete.