Click. The filing cabinet to her right disengaged from the wall.
The twenty-one-gun salute inside Mary’s chest became a rapid-fire cannon.
She stood up straight and rushed to the cabinet before pulling it all the way open.
Just as before, the movement triggered the lights on the stairwell to activate, followed by those downstairs. Against the darkness of the office, the light coming up from the basement burnt at Mary’s eyes, but she didn’t care. Barefoot and only in her panties, she, once again, took the stairs going down to what she knew was a horror show.
‘Don’t waste any time, Mary,’ she told herself, already activating the camera on her smartphone even before reaching the basement under Quaddra’s office. She needed to stay focused on the task of photographing those walls. She wasn’t there to look at those Polaroids. If she did, she would get emotional, she knew she would, and that would make her lose valuable time.
The air down in the basement felt even colder than in Quaddra’s office, and Mary’s skin, which was already gooseflesh, seemed to enter frostbite mode. Her whole body began shivering, and she had to clench her teeth hard to stop them from clattering.
After circling the workstation at the center of the room to get closer to the wall, Mary held her cellphone at eye level and used her index finger to repeatedly tap the shutter button on her screen. As she did, she slowly moved the phone around, trying to capture the entire wall, but she was so scared and so cold that after just a few seconds, she didn’t seem to be able to tap the screen anymore – her finger becoming stiff and unresponsive.
‘Fuck this,’ she whispered, and she was sure that she could see her breath in the air.
With shaky fingers, she switched her cellphone camera into ‘video’ mode, tapped the shutter button once, and began shooting a clip.
Mary started at the far left of the wall, being careful to capture an entire column, from top to bottom, before moving on to the next one along, but as she moved her phone down to the bottom of the first column, she noticed something that she hadn’t noticed the first time – a small plastic container – about the same size as a shoebox.
Without pausing the recording, she peeled her eyes away from her cellphone screen to look at the container. Only then did she realize that there were similar containers, on the floor, at the bottom of every column, and they were all lidless.
‘What the fuck?’
She took a step closer, angling her body slightly forward, to look inside the first shoebox – the one at the far left, at the bottom of the first column.
Mary’s heart stuttered… re-engaged… then stuttered again.
Inside that first container, Mary could see a dainty silver bracelet, a hairbrush, a small compact powder case, and a pair of panties – black lace.
‘Oh, fuck me!’ The words came out strangled by tears, because Mary knew exactly what she was looking at.
Those were possessions – victims’ possessions.
In films – and Mary had seen plenty of them – the FBI called them ‘trophies’ and ‘momentos’. The reason why serial killers took them was because ‘trophies’ symbolized their power and victory over the victim, while ‘momentos’ were souvenirs that helped the killer relive his crimes as a fantasy – the killing… the rape… the torture… the abuse… everything – over and over again. The items in those boxes were used to preserve the memories of the victims and to fuel Quaddra’s twisted sadistic desires. The once victims’ belongings were now nothing more than Quaddra’s personal ‘fetish’ toys.
‘What in the actual fuck?’
Mary felt something somersault inside her stomach and she was forced to pause the recording and take a step back.
‘Don’t puke, don’t puke, don’t puke,’ she told herself, crossing her arms over her stomach and angling her torso forward just a touch.
It took her a few seconds, but the trick seemed to work.
Mary swallowed down the acrid taste in her mouth, breathed out despair, and nodded at herself, as if saying – ‘OK, let’s finish this and get the hell out of here’.
She tapped the record button on her screen once again, but as she tried to pick up from where she’d left off, she heard a familiar voice come from behind her.
‘You shouldn’t be in here, Mary.’
Ninety-Two
‘You look beautiful today, sweetheart.’
Those were the words that Mary’s stepfather used to say to her, every time he entered her bedroom, reeking of alcohol, roll-up cigarettes and stale sweat.
And no words had ever scared her more… until now.
As she heard Quaddra’s voice coming from behind her, Mary went rigid – every muscle in her body tightening almost to the point of cramping. She exhaled and it came out heavy, as if she’d just crossed the finish line at a marathon.
