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“What else do you know?” Asa asked.
“This is the primary location. But they were tortured elsewhere first. Too much equipment to bring in and too dark for what he did to their eyes—removing them then suturing the lids. Hoping they weren’t awake for that. Our most recent victim ripped out the sutures and went into a frenzy based on the wild muddy shoe prints and sludge caked to her boots. But he killed her here.”
For all that was good. “I want to see inside.”
“Bears in there?” Ty asked, scratching his head. “I’ll take my chances with a serial killer. Not so much a bear.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Owen said. “I’m not underestimating either one.”
They headed for the mouth of the cave.
“Who identified the most recent victim?” Asa asked.
“Homicide detective for the sheriff’s office Criminal Investigations Division. A Regis Owsley. When the partiers found the bodies, they called 911. He came out with a couple of deputies. She’s a local,” Agent Pulaski said. “Atta Atwater. Sheriff says she cleans houses for a living. No family except for a brother.”
Local deputies provided them with helmets with attached lights, and they set off for the cave. “We have floodlights set up inside too. Help collect evidence,” Agent Pulaski said.
Inside, a glow from farther in the cave gave them a small amount of illumination. The air was chilly, and the smell of decay and copper thumped Violet’s gag reflex.
Water trickled down the rock and flowed into small crags, leaving pools of water.
As they continued deeper into the belly of the cave, the walls narrowed to single file; their boots sloshed and kicked up water. “I wouldn’t think most partiers would come back this far.” Too cramped. It was possible the killer thought he had hidden them well after all. But some inebriated young adults had gotten brave and explored. Violet had to shift to face the wall and move sideways. “Not a claustrophobic’s paradise,” she muttered as they all pivoted and groaned.
“Watch your step,” Agent Pulaski said. The opaque rock was slick and slimy. Finally the passage widened, and they stepped up into a cavern. “This is where we found the most recent vic. In that crevice. The other two were about ten feet back.”
Violet studied the rock walls and squatted, shining her light near an evidence marker noting scratches in the mud-caked wall. Upon closer inspection, she noticed the other piece of evidence—a human fingernail embedded in a small crack of the rock, proving the marks were human, not animal.
Violet let her mind drift until she was the Blind Eye Killer. “He wanted her confined, afraid and clawing for a way out. The crevice may have given her false hope that it was a tunnel leading to freedom. Or the killer placed her here after killing her. Hide her better.”
Why would the killer remove their eyes, suture the lids closed then leave them here only to come back and kill them later? It was risky. She closed her eyes, inhaled. What would she have done?
“I don’t want them to see. See their way out? See me? Their final moment?” Not sure. “I want them blind and afraid. Panicked. I want to watch that. See them come to if they’d been put under, which I tend to think they would be. It would heighten my delight when they realized they couldn’t see. Weren’t in the place they were before. Couldn’t open their eyes. Then it would dawn that their eyes had been sutured. They’d touch them, panic. Go into a frenzy.” She looked at the rest of the team. “He wouldn’t want to miss that.”
“Go on,” Asa said.
She closed her eyes again. “I’m here. Tucked in a quiet corner where I can have my fill. I have light. I can see them. But they won’t be able to detect light because their eyes aren’t simply closed.”
She walked back toward the narrow opening. Far enough he would be out of reach but have the best view.
“I watch them claw through the pain and hysteria as they rip the sutures from tender, sore eyelids, and it’s a thrill. But not as big a joy as when they finally have them out and they still...can’t...see. It’s possible the meds that put them under or knocked them out have them groggy enough to not even know they only have empty sockets.”
“That’s sick!” Ty shuddered.
“Keep going, Vi,” Asa said and hushed Tiberius. “Stay in that place.”
A place she hated but that came easily. A dark place—like a cave in her own mind.
She closed her eyes again, then repeated her initial thoughts. “He wanted them to know that the pain was for nothing. It changed nothing. They were still blind. Alone. Afraid. Without rescue.” She opened her eyes. “That’s why he didn’t kill them at the secondary location. But here. He wanted the ambiance of the cavern to mimic their literal darkness. Wanted them to grope along the walls, hunting for false freedom. They’d call out, cry out. But it would be utterly useless.”
Fiona rubbed her chin. “He enjoyed that. Watching them have hope they could get out, survive. He needs control and power, every single second down to their death belongs to him. As if they owe it to him. He’s probably a man who has little control in the real world, where he can’t entertain his fantasies.”
He took their lives and left them to rot in this outer darkness. As if they were nothing more than garbage for the wild animals.
Asa turned to Ty. “And the numbers? Anything in this cave give insight into them?”
Tiberius adjusted the helmet on his head and surveyed the conditions. “The numbers themselves don’t, but I’d like to see them—see how they’re etched and discover the type of instrument he used. It may be significant. Offhand, Violet said something that rings a bell religiously. ‘Grope in darkness.’ There’s a verse in the Holy Bible. In Isaiah, I believe, about the corrupt being blind and groping in spiritual darkness. And there’s one in the book of Job about making them grope in darkness and there is no light. Also, in the book of Genesis there’s the angels striking the men at Lot’s door blind because they wanted him to send out his visitors—who were angels—for the men of the town to sexually abuse.”
Violet pinched the bridge of her nose. “Anything else? In any other religion?”
