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He sounded like he was on the edge of pleading, and Teo was agreeing with him, and it was...bizarre. I waited a few seconds before I nodded. ”Okay,” I said. ”Fine. But you have to tell me everything.”
Grayson took a deep breath and began to explain what he had found. ”The victim is a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties. She was strangled, just like all the others. But there's something different about this one.”
”What do you mean?” I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.
Grayson hesitated, glancing at Teo before continuing. ”She's been...posed. Like the killer wanted her to be found a certain way.”
”Like with a white orchid?”
”Yes,” he replied. ”Except this time, he, uh, sawed it into her.”
”Excuse me?”
”It's stitched into her mouth,” he said. ”Like, onto her lips.”
I turned to look at Teo, who had clasped a hand over his face. He looked like he was going to throw up.
Grayson continued, his voice low and pained. ”And that's not all. There's a note.”
”A note?” I asked, my heart racing in my chest.
Grayson nodded. His gaze drifted over to Teo again. ”Maybe we should talk about this in private.”
”She has full access,” Teo said. ”Tell her everything.”
Grayson sighed, rubbing his temple with two fingers. ”It's not great,” he said.
Teo squeezed his hand on my shoulder. ”It's about her, isn't it?”
Grayson nodded, his gaze landing on my eyes again. ”Yes,” he said.”It's addressed to you, Sofia.”
”To me?” I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper.
Teo stepped forward, his eyes intense as he put his body between us. ”What does it say?”
Grayson pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. It was crumpled and stained with blood. He unfolded it slowly. I could see that Teo was fighting the urge to look away.
”Be careful what you wish for,” he read aloud. ”You might just get it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three: Sofia
”Again,”Teosaid.
We were sitting around in the living room of HQ. Jace had his laptop open on his knees, taking quick notes as we spoke. Teo paced around, running his hand through his hair, something I noticed he only did when he was nervous. Grayson was leaning against the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze burning into me. Victor sat next to Jace and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward to look at me.
”I don’t know what else you want me to say,” I said, fidgeting in the seat across from them. We’d gone over what had happened several times, though I didn’t really understand why; I’d gone over it in my head over and over again and I couldn’t find anything that provided any clues. It was hard to focus on that right now. I thought about the victim, about the fact that she seemed to have died to sendmea message specifically. ”Can we talk about her, instead? I don’t see how going over what happened to me that night again is going to help.”
Grayson looked up at Teo. Teo nodded, slightly, and Grayson uncrossed his arms. ”What do you want to know, Sof?”
”Everything you know,” I said. ”Talk me through it, and tell me who she is.”
Grayson sighed. He sat on the arm of the sofa and I watched as his throat worked when he swallowed. ”Alright,” he replied. ”I woke up this morning, went to do a sweep, and she was there. She was propped against the garbage cans in the back toward the loading entrance, sitting up, her arms over her lap. The rest of the bodies have been placed in garbage bags by the killer.”
”He’s such a fucking creep,” Victor muttered, just audibly enough for me to hear.
Grayson ignored him. ”When I approached her, I noticed that there was something white, but it wasn’t, you know, in her mouth as usual. It was around her mouth. I got closer and realized he’d sewn it shut.”
His jaw hardened as he looked away from me. Jace silently handed him a gray and white bottle from the coffee table in front of him and Grayson took it, taking a long sip.
