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“It makes the most sense,” granted Keenan. “But … why would they?”
Knox snorted. “I have no clue. I can’t think why anyone would want to remove someone’s eyes, ears, and tongue—nor why they’d prop them up against the wall in a very specific way. Is it some sort of message to the victim? Is it supposed to be somebody’s fucked-up idea of poetic justice?”
Poking his tongue into the inside of his cheek, Levi rubbed at his jaw. “It comes across as a punishment to me. The killer mutilated them while they were alive.”
“You know, other ex-Ramsbrook kids could be dead,” said Larkin.
“Yes,” agreed Knox. “But there’s no fast way to trace the whereabouts of all of them to find out—there was simply too many of them. Kids came and went from there all the time.”
Some were adopted, some died, some ran off, and some even committed suicide. Ramsbrook was no easy ride. “It’s possible that the killer’s just randomly picking off ex-Ramsbrook kids and employees, but it seems unlikely,” said Tanner.
Nodding, Larkin idly toyed with her braid. “There must be a specific reason why Harry and the others were chosen. It could have been something they did or something they failed to do. Something that made somebody feel the need to track down and kill them.”
Tanner perched himself on the arm of the sofa and folded his arms. “Either something occurred there that we don’t know about, or we’re making the mistake of thinking the killer is operating on logic.”
“You think they might be deranged or near-rogue?” Larkin asked him.
Tanner shrugged. “I’m just making the point that the motive only has to seem logical to the killer.”
Lips pursed, Knox inclined his head. “True enough. We know from our experiences with other near-rogues like Crow that, even though their minds are splintering, they truly believe they’re rational and in the right.”
“Personally, I don’t see how Mattias, Harry, Joseph, and Dale could have been jointly responsible for some sort of crime or accident that they were recently ‘punished’ for by some fuckedup vigilante.” Keenan took a long swig from his flask. “Neither Dale nor Harry had any time for Mattias or Joseph. No one had time for Joseph—he was almost as bad a bully as Mattias.”
“If the victims were staff members, I could understand it,” said Knox. “The punishments that some of them dealt out were quite severe. Severe enough to leave scars. And they were constantly fucking preaching at us …”
Knox’s voice faded away as something in Tanner’s brain clicked. His eyes fell shut as realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He rubbed at his face. “Shit, I should have seen it before.”
“What?” asked Levi.
Unfolding his arms, Tanner said, “I thought that gouging out the eyes, slicing off the ears, and cutting off the tongue was a symbolic punishment for being a plant. But it’s not that at all. What did the tutors always preach to us? See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”
Keenan’s mouth fell open. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, we all should have seen that.”
“But what does that mean?” asked Larkin, leaning forward.
“It means the killer has to be someone from Ramsbrook—either one of the kids or one of the staff. Nothing else makes sense to me.” Levi looked at Knox. “I know it’s unlikely that Dale and the others were involved in something as kids, but it might be worth asking Muriel. If something did happen, she’d probably know about it—Dale confided in her a lot, from what I remember.”
“Does anyone know if Ernest Milton is still alive? Or Milton, as he preferred to be called?” asked Tanner, referring to the home’s caretaker. “Very little went on in that place that he didn’t know about.”
Knox’s eyes sharpened. “I’ll look him up. If he’s alive, we’ll pay him a visit tomorrow.”
“What about the Primes of Matthias and the other victims?” Keenan asked Knox. “Have you spoken with any of them about the murders?”
“Briefly,” replied Knox. “They’re each looking into the deaths. I thought about bringing them in on our investigation, but none are our allies, and I don’t trust them enough to work closely with them—especially when it would mean disclosing a lot of information to them about our pasts. Besides, they’d more than likely be offended that I’d suggested they needed my aid. And unless Primes get along well the way Jolene and I do, coming together on something often isn’t very productive.”
They spoke for a few more minutes and made plans to meet at Knox’s office in the morning. The Prime then pyroported the other sentinels away, and Tanner headed back upstairs to Devon.
*
Squinting up at them from his bunk in the cramped quarters of the fishing boat the next day, Milton echoed, “Secrets?” He grunted, scratching at the stubble on his tanned cheek. “Yes, there were secrets at Ramsbrook. Secrets I didn’t even know of for what might have been a long time.”
