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"Yes, please."
An arm went around my waist, and Hadrian pulled me close. "Take care, love." He gently brushed his mouth over mine, gave Jason another courteous nod, and then he was driving away.
Way to go, Man in Black. I had never seen someone handle Jason so with such diabolical ease, and it almost had me worrying. Diabolical was a little too close to demonic—-
"New boyfriend then?"
The curt sound of Jason's voice interrupted my musings, and I reluctantly turned to face him again. "He is."
"And is he also the reason why you haven't been answering my texts?"
"Uh...no. That's all on you." I made sure to speak lightly, not wanting Jason to have even the slightest reason to think that I was still bitter over his actions.
"Saoirse—-"
The heavy note in his voice warned me off, and I hurriedly interrupted him, asking, "Are you a client of Dr. Harris?"
Jason frowned. "You know him?"
"I work for him."
Jason's lips tightened. "I see."
"I don't recall having your name listed down for today, though." If memory served me right, Dr. Harris would currently be in session with a patient whose secretary I had spoken to, and whose name was listed as—-
"Alicia is Ms. Melons?" I gasped, and the sudden flush that darkened Jason's cheeks was answer enough.
According to her old records on file, Alicia had undergone breast augmentation to upgrade her B cups to double Ds. I was dying to ask Jason whose idea it was to use Ms. Melons as Alicia's fake name, but I swallowed the words back in time. Too snide, I thought, even for a bitch like me.
"Anyway..." I cleared my throat. "My shift's about to start soon—-"
"I'd appreciate if you'd keep her visits confidential," Jason said stiffly.
"Of course. You didn't have to ask. It's part of my job to keep my mouth shut."
"Thank you."
I nodded. "Nice seeing you." I turned away right after, wanting to end the conversation. I could feel Jason's gaze following me as I entered the clinic, and the tiniest ache squeezed my heart. I now had my answer to the question that I had been unconsciously afraid to ask.
For better or for worse, it was over between us, irrevocably.
Chapter Ten
Work that day was mostly spent overseeing deliveries, all of which were to be taken straight to the huge storage room at the back. Completely bare but well-ventilated, it was now home to a new industrial-sized freezer, an operating bed, and several equipment and machines that seemed to have something to do with cosmetic surgery. It made me wonder if Dr. Harris had decided to start practicing as a cosmetic surgeon again, and if he were - did that mean I was going to see Alicia and Jason more often?
The thought was a little depressing, but I told myself off for being shallow about it. There were more important things to trouble myself with, like tracking down a serial killer whose victims were now ghosts that demanded justice for their murders.
This was what I had decided on earlier. I was going to find a way to contact those ghosts and hopefully be able to prove that Hadrian as the Man in Black had nothing to do with their murders.
While having dinner, I decided to pull out my Notes app and type down everything I could think of related to the murders. I hit Google to read everything I could on the six corpses that had been so far recovered, and I made profile charts for each victim.
Tongues cut out, body parts seemingly torn off by hand, and corpses disposed of in various parts of the city.
I then moved on to write everything I could remember about the ghostly side of it.
Shadows.
It all boiled down to shadows.
That time in the bus, where I felt a shadow was stalking me.
The shadows from my nightmares.
And the shadowy figure of the Man in Black.
A part of me felt like all of these incidents could be connected together, but another part of me was worried I was only seeing what I wanted to see, just so I could absolve Hadrian from any wrongdoing.
My gaze flicked back to the top of the page, where I had listed the small number of similarities—-
Aha!
Since all of the women had their tongues cut out, could that be why the shadows in my nightmares - and even that time Melanie's ghost had tried to communicate with me through the TV - were completely incoherent?
My guts told me that I was on to something, and I could feel my heart racing as I opened a new browser tab and searched the Internet for ways to communicate with ghosts. There were suggestions aplenty, but most of them required use of objects no ordinary household or workplace would have access to. These were things like ouija boards and planchettes, pendulums and pentagrams, and even crystal balls (seriously?).
