Flynn nodded quickly. She could see that his mind was working at the same rate as her own, that he had already reached the same conclusion. “There must be a lot of planning in this.”
“I would like to see Stout,” Zoe said, following the coroner as he immediately turned and slid out one of the drawers on the far wall; the man lying inside it was just the same as she remembered from the crime scene photographs, if a little more gray and marked with the results of the coroner’s investigative tools.
There was nothing new to learn here. Zoe nodded once to signal that she was done, and the coroner looked to Flynn for his confirmation before sliding the door closed. There would be tox screens and blood tests, but Zoe didn’t think it was necessary to wait for either. Unless there was some unlikely mistake from the killer that had left their blood on Richards’s fingers—which, given the placement of the blood smear and the corresponding angle of said fingers when placed on the back of one’s own head, seemed highly improbable—there would be no useful information in them.
“We are not going to find any more answers here,” she said to Flynn, trying to fight the growing darkness that told her they weren’t going to be able to stop one more death tonight.
“Agreed,” he said. “We should start talking to family members, see if they can shed some light.”
He was right, so she didn’t argue.
“There is only one thing I am sure of,” Zoe said grimly, leading the way back out of the morgue with Flynn and Morrison in tow. “The killer has already chosen their next victim. And they will strike tonight, so we had better get those interviews done fast—no matter who we have to wake up.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
She didn’t need to fall asleep tonight in order to know what she was expected to do.
The dreams had been coming for months now, so vivid and bright that she could swear she wasn’t really asleep at all. It was more like she was visiting somewhere real, being taken somewhere outside of her own mind, leaving her body unconscious in the bed as she traveled. Yes, that was exactly what it was like. It made a lot of sense. There was probably no limit to how far a witch could take you from within your own sleeping mind.
The witch had been showing her things for a long time. At first, in the beginning, she hadn’t been able to understand. The dreams, though unsettling, had been written off as just that. Dreams. But as time had gone on, she had seen the pictures clearer and clearer, the same messages coming through again and again. They needed to be punished. Their souls needed to be released to the witch’s control. They needed to die.
She studied the photographs she had taken of the next man, all from a distance over the past days and weeks. She knew him inside out now. She knew his routes, his habits, where he would be and when. And the witch had guided her in that, too. Showed her visions of her own sisters hanging from trees and gallows, shown her how the men hoisted them high until they were kicking and choking, until they stopped moving at all, curses dying on their last strangled breath.
Just like how the men were dying now, kicking and fighting against the air, until they stopped moving at all.
It had all been the witch’s idea, but she had to admit that she liked the poetry of it. The way the symmetry came down across the years, from the witches to the men, from the men to the witches. And she liked the way that she didn’t need to think about it much, didn’t need to consider those details herself. The witch supplied everything. Told her where to look. And whenever she was awake, and felt like she didn’t know what she was supposed to do next, something would happen; a sign from the witch, she always knew, designed to keep her on the right path.
This one had been a little trickier than the first two. He wouldn’t do as she wanted him to; wouldn’t leave himself out and vulnerable in the dark, wouldn’t stray into alleyways or into shadows, wouldn’t separate himself from the crowd. It was irritating—she had to watch him for the longest, waiting for him to slip up, but he never did.
So, she’d had to come up with another plan. She cast her eye over the windows of his home again now, examining them for any signs of life. There did not seem to be any, which was deliciously ironic, because soon there really would be none at all. It was deliciously easy to lie in wait now, to trace back his route home and find that quiet place she had scouted before, where no one would see her in the dark until he passed by.
She made the walk because she enjoyed it. There were bus routes here, but he always walked home, and he did so past the monument that housed those fallen sisters (and one brother) who had lost their lives in the Trials. She could wait for him closer to his workplace, but this way, she had the chance to walk by it and honor them one more time.
The small graveyard housed the town’s old bodies, the gravestones cracked and tumbled now, leaning as if drunk or reduced to nothing more than nubs sticking out from the spare grass. So many tourists trampled here, people with no respect for the dead. No disgust at what they had done. Nothing but ghoulish amusement at the spectacle. She passed by the worn slabs of the memorial jutting out from the stone wall, each carved with a name, placing a single red flower on each of them, an act of remembrance. That done, she stepped on out of the so-called witch village and toward the place she knew she could wait for him, where he would pass by in less than an hour, leaving her free to do her work.
She took one last glance around and slipped into the shadows, the rope light in her hands even though it should have been heavy—light with the knowledge of the life it was about to take, and the justice that would be served to the man who deserved it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Zoe checked her watch, not at all surprised to see that it was already midnight. She felt it, in every line of her body. Looking at Flynn, she could also see the way his eyes were starting to droop, how his reactions were getting fractions of seconds slower. But they weren’t going to get any rest tonight unless they found out the information they needed to catch the killer. Exhausted or not, they couldn’t go to sleep and dream easy when there was a potential third victim at risk tonight.
Morrison ended his call and shifted in his seat, looking around at Flynn and Zoe, twisting so he could see to the back of the car and take them both in at once. “So, I have good news and bad news.”
Irritated at the delay of his needless melodrama, Zoe nodded sharply. “Go on.”
“The bad news is that Mrs. Richards, bless her soul, is totally distraught. After Frank’s body was found this morning, she had a bit of a turn. The guys who were sent to inform her said that she just went totally into shock. They had to call paramedics, get her over to the hospital, where she was sedated. So, asking her any questions about her husband tonight is out. It’s tomorrow at least before they bring her out.”
“And the good news?” Flynn prompted.
“The good news is that they have an adult daughter,” Morrison said, grinning. “She’s at the family home. I can take you there now.”
Zoe shook her head. “Just give us the address,” she said. She was getting tired of dealing with Morrison and his laissez-faire attitude. They needed speed, and they needed professionalism. “You go back into the precinct and make arrangements for us to meet with any relevant family members or witnesses for the first victim. People who knew him well. I will call you when we are done. Agent Flynn can drive.”