“Can you send a picture to my phone?”
“Will do.”
“How far from the body was it?”
“About ten feet. I must have walked over that rock twenty times. Good thing I tripped, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Good thing. Send the picture.”
I hang up and my phone dings. I pull over to the shoulder. The symbol was crudely scratched into the rock. Davis took the photo with a ruler to show size. The rock itself is about the size of a toaster. The symbol is a circle with a triangle inside and an oval shape inside the triangle. I have no idea what I’m looking at.
I show it to Ronnie.
“Any ideas?”
Ronnie gets on her phone and taps and slides and taps her finger over the screen until I’m ready to scream. I hate it when people do that. She turns her phone toward me. “The Internet says it’s the all-seeing eye of God or the Eye of Providence.”
The Internet is never wrong.
Ronnie goes on. “It represents the eye of God watching over humanity.”
Organized killers plan their killing. They stalk a victim, decide when, where, and how to dispose of the body, and cover their trail. Disorganized killers are more likely to kill in the heat of the moment or on impulse. They select a target of opportunity, leave them where they kill them. Minimal attempt to cover their trail. No planning. This killer was definitely organized. He left the body where it wouldn’t be discovered quickly but knew eventually it would draw attention. He posed it. Maybe he left behind the symbol as well. After all, the posing of the body was symbolism. What it meant to the killer I don’t have a clue. It may mean he is watching out for the body. Watching the body. Was he watching us find the body?
Possibly.
Killers also get a kick out of seeing people horrified, or in pain, or at their worst.
I’m pulled out of my thoughts by Ronnie tapping my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“I’m just thinking about this case.”
“I looked up news media accounts of other deaths that occurred around the area.”
I’m slightly interested but now she doesn’t speak. I’m not playing this game.
“Ronnie, you have my permission to tell me things before I ask.”
She smiles, missing my point by a mile.
“I’ve jotted down the details, but the long and short of it is they are mostly boating accidents and accidental drownings, RV fires, stuff like that. Nothing ever happens on Marrowstone Island.”
Something has happened now.
“Should we go back and see what Crime Scene and Captain Martin come up with? Maybe they found some new evidence.”
Ronnie doesn’t give up very easily. Both are characteristics of a stalker and a good detective.
As I drive, Ronnie sits back and is silent for a change. No doubt planning my demise and imagining being swept off her feet by Captain Marvel and living happily ever after. I know there isn’t any happily ever after, but I don’t tell her. Instead, I notice that her suit is wrinkled.
For some reason that makes me smile.
Eight
The mattress is lumpy. Something is jabbing into her ribs. Sharp pain. She doesn’t know where she is. Her eyes fly open and she swings her legs over the side. She intends to get up but lands flat on her face. She can’t lift her legs. Something is tight around her ankles.
She pushes herself up from the floor to see and pain shoots through her ribs. She sucks in breath through clenched teeth and doesn’t dare move until the pain subsides. She wonders if she has broken her ribs. What is happening?
She twists her head and looks around but even moving her head causes a throbbing pain behind her eyes. Her first thought is that she’s been in a car wreck. But this isn’t a hospital room. The floor is sticky, grimy linoleum that was a light marbled color at one time but is now cracked all over and ripped up in places. A rotting wood floor peeks out from underneath.
She tries to draw her knees under her to get up. She can’t move them more than an inch. She lies on her chest again and is immediately sorry. She was right about the broken ribs.
“Where am I?” she says, first to herself and then louder. “Where am I? Is there anyone there?” She listens. No answer. Not even footsteps. A chill runs through her. She’s alone, hurt, unable to get to her feet. Even breathing causes lightning bolts of pain to shoot through her side and head, paralyzing her.
The pain subsides a little and she opens her eyes. Carefully, without moving her head, she looks around. She’s in a room with a high ceiling. She’s in an older home. There are piles of things stacked against the walls and rows of junk surrounding her. Piles of clothing, plastic packaging, dolls, picture frames, blankets, rugs, cloth that may be coats or more clothing or just bolts of material with narrow pathways between them. A portable sewing machine is half buried in one of the piles. The piles are set so close together, it would be impossible to get between them unless she moves sideways. Straight ahead, she can see part of a boarded-over window.
“Hello! Is anyone there?”
She screams this as loudly as she can, but her breath is short, and it comes out no louder than conversation.
How did I get here?
A dim light plays in the room.
She shifts her chin toward her left shoulder. Despite the pain, she moves a little more, feeling a crack in the linoleum scrape her cheek. Her vision sweeps a side of the room and there are more and more junk piles, some that must be over eight feet tall, with only inches between some of them. Boxes everywhere. Some are nothing but boxes of kitchen appliances, a FryDaddy, a Mr. Coffee, a Crock-Pot, a tall box for a Dirt Devil vacuum with an extra-long cord and twelve extra bags included. Randomly, Lego blocks of all sizes and colors are embedded in the floor, as if someone stepped on them, pushing them into the deep black grime.
She lifts her eyes toward the ceiling, ignoring the pain. She is looking for the top of a door or a window that isn’t boarded over. What she sees makes her breath catch in her tortured lungs. The tops of the walls and the ceiling are covered with Styrofoam sheets several inches thick.
The room has been soundproofed.
Hot tears run down her face, and her chest seizes up. She lies still for a time, afraid to move, afraid period. She starts to call out again but stops herself.
What if whoever answers is not there to help her?
The young woman has always been independent. She knows that the way to overcome any threat to her survival is to get angry. Angry enough to fight back. She’s a fighter. Her mother taught her that. But that was before. In the life she used to have before she became pregnant. Before she went against her mother’s wishes and gave the baby away. She made the right choice. Her mom didn’t understand. Disowned her. She has been totally on her own since. Moved to another town. Gotten a new job. Made new friends. Dealt with the loss alone.
Her thoughts bring another round of tears and she gives in to it, sucking up the pain. She is crying for her baby. The one she never knew and now doesn’t think she’ll ever know. She has always thought she can fix things with her mother, given enough time. She defied her mother but is still a good daughter and a good woman. Unlike the father of her child. That man was a ghost. She got a new phone number and changed her appearance. It was enough. He wouldn’t look for her too hard. He wanted nothing to do with a child. He made that clear. He looked trapped like an animal when she told him she was pregnant and then said—like he was doing her a great service—that he’d pay for the abortion.