AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?” I looked back at the pictures in front of me. Sure they had similar hair, but that was about it. Their face shapes were all varied, eye colors didn’t match mine at all, their heights as listed under their pictures with their ages all ranged from tiny to tall. It wasn’t until I quickly looked between the people in the room and the women on the screen that I picked up what they meant. Only by glancing quickly was I able to see how the women could have been mistaken for me. But only with a passing glance. The moment attention was paid to the actual pictures, the similarities ended.
“Right, so let’s just rip this off like a band-aid,” Kasey said, standing only to cross the room and back me up until the back of my legs hit the couch and I was forced to sit, surrounded by papers I couldn’t even see at that moment. Kneeling in front of me, he grabbed my hand and held it tight. “This is the current list of women who vanished from nightclubs you were in at the same time. The actual number increased when we added women found to the list.”
“Found?” I looked at him hopefully. I felt the little breakfast I had eaten threaten to come up when he gave me a sad shake of the head, telling me that they hadn’t been found alive.
“So what’s in Provins?” Avery broke the small silence as she began to pace the length of the office.
Kasey looked to Fitz who closed his eyes and tilted his head back as if he were praying for some divine intervention. He strode over to me and sat on the couch next to me, not even caring that he was sitting on piles of papers.
“Bailey’s body was found in Provins. Decker and Cabot are heading there now; they’ll call in with any information.
Bailey’s body. Bailey was dead. That small light of hope that had kept burning, refusing to blow out in the face of statistical probability, seemed to finally be swallowed up by the darkness. Another wasted life because she had the misfortune of knowing me. I looked back up to the screen of women; their faces becoming blurry as my eyes filled with tears. 20 women were killed just because they might have looked like me at first glance. The dread filling my heart was overwhelming to the point that I was sure I couldn’t breathe through the pain. My vision seemed to tunnel for a moment, and I was afraid I’d pass out from the stress. Instead that disconnect came, severing my hold on reality as I just went numb.
I remembered nothing of the trip back down to Decker’s apartment. I didn’t even recall being sat on the couch, the blanket draped over me, the hot tea set in front of me on the table, or the television turned on low to some baking competition. But there I was, cozied up between Avery and Evan, while Fitz continued to work on a tablet in the chair across from us and Kasey did something in the kitchen. Apparently no one felt comfortable leaving me alone.
They could have. I’d checked out. Lake Harrington had left the building. It was peaceful in the numb nothingness of my body, even if it was cold. Maybe that was shock, but the numbness was the sweet surrender of a mind that had taken too much and just crumbled under the pressure. It made me weak, sure, but I had little control over it, so I was just making the best of a situation.
“Okay,” Avery said finally, causing me to jump from the sudden sound breaking over the hum of the TV. Hypersensitivity to noises, Fitz had told me, was common. “Can someone run this down for me.”
“It's a giant clusterfuck, huh?” Kasey called from the kitchen.
“Confusingly so, but I just got to this party, so I’m still trying to get the gist of it all.” She patted my hand reassuringly, but if I hadn’t watched her do it, I wouldn’t have known. I couldn't feel anything.
“I think the puzzle master, Dr. O'Rourke should handle the rundown. I still get confused trying to figure out what’s real and what’s a game to this asshole.” His voice sounded muffled and I could only guess his head was deep in the refrigerator hunting out more food.
“Am I allowed to include my opinions?” Fitz asked, looking to me for an answer.
“Add ‘em if you got ‘em,” Avery said, sitting back against the couch and pulling a throw pillow into her lap.
“As far as we can tell, someone became fixated on Lake over four years ago. I’m going to guess it goes further back since stalking cases rarely start with killing surrogates.” Avery raised her hand, and Fitz rolled his eyes. “Not a surrogate mother or anything. In this case it’s a replacement for the object of this guy’s obsession. He couldn’t get to Lake, so he found someone close.”
Ice shot down my spine and I shivered despite myself. I could hear the words, but it felt like he was talking about someone else. I didn’t feel any attachment to this conversation or even myself. It said something that Fitz hadn’t tried to help me ground and let me stay disconnected. It had to be bad for him to decide it was healthier for me to check out.
“Offenders usually escalate from watching to something like reaching out. This person watched, acted when he could, and didn’t reach out until a few months ago. And even then, it wasn’t about Lake at first. It was directed at Robert Harrington.”
Avery gasped, “A Red Harrington!”
Kasey choked from his spot behind the couch and Fitz shot her a withering look. “Not the best time for puns, Avery. Christ.”
“You know humor is my crutch, Fitzpatrick! Evan let me borrow yours,” she said, grabbing one of the crutches that had been propped against the couch.
“You’re almost 40, act like it,” Fitz bit out; his soft brown eyes now dark with anger. She silently placed the crutch back in its place and pulled the pillow closer. During the entire exchange, I felt nothing. No humor at her attempts at lightheartedness, no secondhand embarrassment for Fitz’s scolding. I was just void of everything.
“So it was all about me to begin with? All the people who have died? They all died because of me?”
“No,” Fitz said sharply, making sure he’d caught my eye before continuing in a stern but much softer tone. “The only person to blame here is the sick individual who is using you as an excuse for his depravity. If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. The result is still the same.”
It sounded like a well rehearsed lie, but I nodded blankly anyway, anything to get him to continue.
“Now that we’ve been able to rule out any fanatical groups, I’ve been going back over the letters as well as going through people who showed up in your life in the year before the women started vanishing. If I can’t find anything a year before, I’ll go back further. But he’s unraveling, Lake. Killing his hired assassin, taking Bailey and Monica, he’s devolving and it’ll only help us catch him.”
I blinked at him for a few moments before shaking my head. “Bailey’s gone and Monica probably is too. How many more people have to die before he’s finally caught?”
“No more if I can work it out.” There was conviction in his words. Fitz wasn’t just telling me he was trying, he was telling me that he wouldn’t rest until he’d figured it all out. I looked back to the TV, ignoring the scared little girl in the back of my mind, warning me that I’d lose a whole lot more before the end of this.
CHAPTER 30
DECKER
