“For showing me that it’s okay to let go.”
His brow furrowed, but in the end, he decided not to ask what Kate was talking about.Once more, he showed the maturity to know when to let go.“Happy to help.”
He left the room, leaving Kate to wonder if she’d ever be able to walk away the way he did, or if she’d let the job grind her into dust until there was nothing left but a cracked paper shell.
The door opened again, and Marcus came in carrying two coffees.He handed her one and said, “Here.Doesn’t taste like shit.”
“What a wonderful tagline,” Kate said, accepting the paper cup.“You should go into marketing.”
“Maybe I will.Being a detective sure sucks on the heart.”
Kate looked at him and saw the grief in his eyes.She didn’t understand why this death in particular had hit him so hard, but her heart broke for him all the same.“I’m sorry, Marcus.”
He looked at her, and for a brief moment, the façade cracked.Tears formed in his eyes, but he blinked them away and said, “Yeah, well… I’ll cry on your shoulder later.In the meantime, we’re drinking coffee at quarter past ten, so I don’t think we’re getting sleep tonight.Might as well keep working.”
She reached forward and placed her hand over his.He flinched and looked at her, a cross between wariness and shock with just the slightest sprinkling of hope.How ironic that this was the first time in a while she’d felt sympathy without an undercurrent of romantic tension.
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
There was no way to know that, of course.There was never any way to know that.But sometimes it was good to hear anyway.Marcus smiled at her, placed a giant, rough bear paw over hers, and said, “Thank you.”
They remained that way for a short but wonderful moment.Then they pulled their hands to themselves, and Marcus asked, “Anything from the new cipher?”
“Well, the killer’s close to done.”
He raised an eyebrow.“You’re sure?”
“Yes.Their hands were shaky when they carved this one, and the content is more spastic and disjointed.Listen to this.”She pulled up the translation on her phone.“Thou shalt not kill.But so many have.They’ve spilled their seed on the ground and that blood has cried to God.God has placed His mark on me, and I have killed for Him.I have corrected the errors in the ways of Man.Only one remains.My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
“That it?”
“That’s it.”
He whistled.“Okay, yeah, they’re getting tired of this.That part about spilling seed on the ground.That’s… not about blood, is it?”
“Not in the Bible, no, but I don’t know if it matters here, or if the killer’s just losing self-control.”
“Hmm.And that part about God placing His mark on the killer.That’s Cain, right?”
“Yes.Rather than executing him for killing his brother Abel, God chose to put a mark on Cain instead.That mark made him unwelcome anywhere.He was cursed to wander the Earth and never have a home.”
“Is the killer saying they’ll never have a home?”
“I think so,” Kate said.“I think now that they’re closing in on whatever thepièce de résistanceis, they’re feeling their doom approaching.That quote at the end of the cipher is Jesus’s final words before he died according to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.”
“Huh.Does the killer think they’re going to die?”
“It’s possible.They know that serial killers almost never escape the death penalty.They’ll probably end up getting life in a mental facility if they’re as crazy as they seem to be, but they might not know that.”
“So, what’s thepièce de resistance?”Marcus asked.“I’ve gone through the research, and there aren’t any other cases bigger than these ones.Honestly, the Santos trial was the biggest one of the three.The other ones are all drug, prostitute, and gang related.”
Kate’s upper lip curled.“Worthless people in other words.”
“As far as the law-abiding people of Chicago are concerned.”
Kate crossed her arms.“This is ordinarily when I’d say the endgame is me or something related to me, but I don’t see any indication of that in this case.”
Marcus looked at her in surprise.“Wow.That is a shockingly mature admission coming from you.”
