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A profile shot. Same jawline, same smiling eyes.
Same dog.
Fuck.
It’s her.
Paigelynn is one of the virgins.
"She's attached to that yorkie,” I say calmly, mind racing to calculate what to say, what to do, next.
"Yep. We've run a ton of searches for dog licenses and veterinary records. Everything's come up empty, though."
"Dog looks healthy. Someone's taking care of it." The yorkie's fur is soft and silky. It is thinner than you'd think. It is the color of honey with white and dark patches and seems to glow in the low light of the photo.
"That's how the group works. They make these women think they're princesses. Give them an attachment object. Some have dogs, others have cats. One even has a ferret. It's like their emotional support animals, but I think the cult leaders use the animals as leverage.”
I shudder to think what that means.
Because I know exactly what it means.
Cult leaders use anything against you if it means they maintain control over you. I can imagine some asshole threatening to hurt Paigelynn’s little dog in an effort to force her to comply with an order.
And in a week, those orders are going to threaten her life.
“We've pinpointed a cluster of genetically related family members near Cleveland, all related to Helga.”
“Poor Helga,” Lauren mutters. We name all the dead women. Helga, Judit, and Marisol.
I don’t want a fourth dead Virgin.
“I’ve seen the homicide pictures,” Newman snaps at her. “Never knew the human body could have so many holes. Both kidneys, liver, all those sections of skin.”
My stomach turns. Lauren throws a pen at him.
It bounces off his forehead, leaving a dot. He storms off, then I hear keys clacking.
“We're scouring every photo-heavy database possible. Hacked into a few that are unhackable, working on the rest.” Newman's booming voice comes from the other room.
“Cleveland? Then why the hell are we here in Los Angeles?”
“Your code took us here! You know there’s supposed to be one of them here, dumbass.”
“You know what I mean, Newman. Cleveland?”
He shrugs. “Trying to match anything from that shitty Mexican tourism database. The dog's a bonus, though. Might get a hit on it before the woman. That piebald coloring is really unusual.”
“Any hit is better than nothing,” I tell him, keeping my replies neutral.
“No shit,” he grunts, the keyboard clicks making it clear he's writing more complicated database queries. That's like breathing for Newman.
I use code as a means to an end. For Newman, the code itself is the end. It's who he is.
I am more than an assemblage of syntax constructs, but I'm pretty sure Newman isn't.
The picture of Paigelynn from the database haunts me. She's ethereal and glowing, happy, yet something's restrained about her smile. It's a paradox.
Her whole life is a paradox.
