Chapter 12 #2
Their bickering has the well-worn quality of a routine they both enjoy. My chest feels tight.
I accept a glass of wine from Oakley and take a sip to hide whatever expression might cross my face.
Xander got lucky.
No, that’s not it. Luck implies randomness, a lottery win. What Xander found is a statistical anomaly, a cosmic fluke. Someone who knows him and stays anyway.
The parade of nameless bodies in my bed has dwindled to nothing in recent months. Even casual sex requires a performance I’m too tired to give now. I’ve made my peace with having nothing more.
I prefer the simplicity of solitude, the safety of distance. The Gallery Killer has no room for romantic entanglements.
“Earth to Calloway.” Xander waves a spoon in front of my face. “You planning to join us for dinner or just stand there looking creepy?”
“Sorry.” I push off from the counter. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous pastime.” Oakley slides a bowl toward me. “Especially for men who arrange corpses for fun.”
“It’s not for fun,” I say.
“Right. It’s art.” She rolls her eyes, but there’s no real judgment there.
The richness of the coq au vin is a revelation. Wine-soaked chicken falling from the bone, the earthiness of mushrooms, the sweet depth of caramelized onions. I set my fork down.
“Holy shit, Xander. You can cook.”
“Don’t sound so shocked.” Xander tears off a piece of bread and drags it through the sauce on his plate.
“I just didn’t know you could cook.”
“Cooking is just chemistry,” he says. “Controlled variables, predictable outcomes. It’s calming.”
“Like photography.”
Oakley points her fork at us, a piece of chicken on the end. “Or murder,” she says with a grin so wide it crinkles the corners of her eyes. “Same basic principle.”
Xander sets down his fork and reaches for his laptop. “Speaking of which, let’s get to why you’re really here.”
The air in the room shifts.
“Your gallery cameras were useless, by the way. Wiped clean. The sabotage moment is completely missing.”
“What?”
“You should really let a professional handle your security.” He doesn’t wait for a response, his attention already consumed by the data streaming across his screen.
“Anyway, I’m already cross-referencing public feeds from around the incidents.
Public transit, ATMs, traffic cams... Anything with lens. ”
I lean forward, stunned into silence by the sheer volume of data pouring across the screen.
“Facial recognition running on three zones, cross-referencing for anomalies. The robbery, the lighting rig, your morning run. Give me a minute.”
“You think the robbery has something to do with it all?”
“Can’t rule it out.” His fingers fly across the keyboard, the rapid-fire clicking the only sound in the room. “If they’re targeting you, we need to check everything.”
I push my plate away, my appetite gone. The screen is a blur of grainy footage. A bus pulling away from a curb, a man walking a dog. Then, Xander stops.
“There.”
He zooms in on one feed. The pixelated image resolves into a blurry figure standing across the street from my apartment building an hour before the incident.
I lean closer. The figure is obscured. Hood pulled up, head down, face hidden in shadow.
“It’s a dead end,” I say, disappointment lacing my voice. “You can’t see a face.”
“Not yet.” A ghost of a smile plays on Xander’s lips. “I’ll walk them back.”
His fingers dance. The screen splits, showing a dozen different camera angles. He moves the figure backward in time, block by block, a phantom gliding through the city’s digital memory. The figure is careful, always keeping their face angled away from the cameras.
“Two blocks from your building...” Click. “Three blocks...”
He freezes the footage. “And then…this.”
On the screen, the figure is mid-stride. A car horn blares from off-camera. For a single, reflexive second, the person’s head snaps up toward the sound.
The air leaves my lungs. The room seems to tilt on its axis.
Xander’s algorithm has already locked on, a green box appearing around the face, but I don’t need it. The image is perfectly, horribly clear.
“Algorithm confirms this individual was present at all three locations,” Xander says, his voice sounding distant. “I’ll find who she is.”
“Wait.” The word is a choked whisper. I point a trembling finger at the screen. “That’s…Jiya.”
Xander glances up. “Who?”
“Jiya. The bartender from Penumbra.” The words spill out, frantic and disjointed as my mind races. “She works at the bar. She was at the gallery, she came to say hello. I know her.”
Xander stops typing, his fingers hovering over the keys. The analytical focus in his eyes shifts to something else. “And you didn’t think to mention this?”
“No, because it’s Jiya,” I insist, as if the name itself is a shield against the evidence on the screen.
“Ah.” Xander leans back in his chair, a slow, infuriating smirk spreading across his face.
“What?” I demand.
“You have a crush on her.”
“Don’t be absurd.” The denial is instant, automatic, and hangs in the air like a lie.
Xander doesn’t even grace it with a response.
He taps a few keys, his smirk gone, replaced by a cold, analytical focus.
Another set of images fills the screen. “She was near your apartment an hour before the gargoyle fell.” He clicks, and a clearer frame appears.
“She went into the building across the street.”
He enhances the image, zooming in on the figure we know is Jiya as she enters the building that faces mine.
“Does she live there?” he asks, his voice flat.
I stare at the screen, my mind a frantic scramble of mismatched puzzle pieces. Jiya. Across the street. The same day that something nearly took my head off. Why?
“No,” I say, the word feeling flimsy. “This is ridiculous. Maybe she was visiting someone.”
“At five in the morning?” Xander snorts, a sound of pure disbelief. “A woman who just happens to be at multiple scenes where you nearly die?”
“I think we found your suspect,” Oakley agrees, her voice quiet.
I take a large swallow of wine, but it does nothing to warm the ice forming in my gut. “No. That’s not… She’s not…”
Xander clicks again, loading more images.
Jiya entering the building, carrying a long, slender duffel bag.
Another click. Jiya at the gallery, her eyes not on the art, but on the lighting rig above my head.
Jiya at the bar, her gaze fixed on my reflection in the mirror when she thought I wasn’t looking.
“She’s hunting you, man,” Xander says, his voice softer now.
“The question is why.” He leans closer to the screen, his expression darkening.
“If she knows about your kills, what else does she know?” He looks up, and for the first time, I see a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes. “Does she know about The Society?”
The words suck the air from the room. Oakley’s fork freezes halfway to her mouth, a mushroom impaled on the tines.
“If she’s figured out you’re The Gallery Killer,” Xander continues, his voice a low, urgent whisper, “she could know about all of us. If she’s connected you to Thorne…we’re all exposed.”
“You think she’s targeting The Society?” Oakley asks. “You?”
“I think we can’t afford to assume she isn’t.” Xander runs a hand through his hair. “Every single member might be on her hit list.”
Her easy laugh, the way she pushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes, the warmth in her gaze that felt... It felt good.
All this time I was just a name. A target. A loose thread that could unravel everything because of a warm smile I wanted to believe was real.
“What do I do?” The question is a raw, broken sound.
“We kill her first.”