7.3
“You heard about Seb?” Howie has a way of not beating around the bush.
“I heard,” I affirm. “I’m told to stay home today.” Tristan did the job of telling them for me, leaving a replica of his silver mask on Seb’s desk since even before our date. He knew he wasn’t going back. Between the mask and the pile of pictures left in front of the mask, it’s not long before they jump to the right conclusion.
An awkward pause. “You two weren’t serious, were ya?”
I smile a little. “No. I’m shocked, but that’s it.” It doesn’t escape me who this call is coming from, and who it’s not coming from. “Is Dirk…”
“Back at the old Needler scenes, helping get new samples. Anything Seb touched is obviously suspect now.”
I nod slowly. He could have made this call. He didn’t. Maybe I’ve finally burned this bridge.
“You two having problems?”
“Nothing terminal,” I say, sounding more hopeful than I feel.
“Partners are worse than lovers sometimes,” Howie tells me in his usual gruff way. “Either one’s as likely to get you killed.”
That squeezes a soft laugh out of me. I toy with the cord. “I’ll pass that on to Dean.”
Howie chuckles. “Alright. Take care. It’s a mess in here today. Poor Rosie…” He clears his throat. “We’ll get this cleared up.”
***
The call from Howie is the push I need to come back in. There’s only Friday left by then anyway, and I imagine I can get through just one day of work. I happen to reach my desk at the same time as Dirk reaches his, and I freeze as we make eye contact. His jaw set, and he looks away first.
I should go apologise. He’ll know about Seb, like everyone here. What can I say? ‘I know now you weren’t the Needler’, as ridiculous as it was to ever think that. But there’s a wall around him, one I’m afraid to build even higher with some clumsy words.
I get through to lunch like that, always in anticipation of trying to mend, and then not doing it. Dirk must feel my looks in his direction, but he doesn’t react and certainly doesn’t invite conversation.
The hunt is on for Seb now, and for Cocooner, their particular deadline setting the city on edge.
After a lonely lunch, Tawill comes onto the floor, looking over what must be a rather sad congregation of detectives and officers, slogging through to the weekend after a particularly trying week. She sighs before announcing, her voice carrying well enough across the entire floor to be understood loud and clear. “I know this is not what anyone wants to hear… But the entire office needs to pass self-defence today.”
There’s a collective groan, not unlike a classroom told they need to do beep tests for gym class. Tawill hushes us. “I know, but we’ve got a deadline. With everyone here, it needs to be met. And now more than ever, we need to stick to policy.” Ignoring any further demoralised sighs, she goes on. “Usual partners, broken into two groups. Check the board and report to the firing range, please.” And she leaves.
Dirk gets up and goes to the board along with most of the others. “Great, let’s all go make sure we know the perfect moves for if your attacker is in the perfect position,” he mutters.
I stare blankly at my screen for the next hour since I only have to go in the latter half. The desks are mostly empty, compounding the overall dreariness. Outside, the cloud cover is thick enough to make it seem later than it is. Then four o’clock hits—so me and the other slackers make for the range.
Inside the long, usually empty arcade used for firing practice, thick mats have been laid out, scattered around the windowless room with pairs of people from all over the office going through a set regime of attacker-defender moves and counters. It’s all overseen by the ex-army colonel commissioned to oversee and check us each individually off for passing self-defence. I walk in, just in time to see Dean, my usual partner, being helped back into the waiting area. He's taking small close-legged steps, hunched over in that position unique to men who’ve gotten a hit to the balls very recently. Andrea is following, looking concerned, “I’m so sorry Dean!”
“I’m fine, really…” he creaks, not convincingly.
Howie is there, taking Dean’s arm from Andrea’s, and patting him on the back, “Happens to the best of us, mate.”
I watch them set Dean down. Great, I’ll need a new partner then. Usually, I’m matched with Dean because he’s smaller, as far as the men in the office go, making the match more even. Which really kind of proves Dirk right on how pointless this exercise is.
I go up to them, sparing a sympathetic glance for Dean. “Howie, who were you supposed to be paired with for the second set?”
He looks up at me. “Dirk.”
Great. Just perfect.
The contractor-coach is retired Colonel Gillian, a guy with a square jaw and an indeterminable age somewhere above forty, also apparently with a knack for names. “Detective Ginsburg!” he shouts my maiden name, thank God. “On the mat.”
This is probably not the best way to face Dirk after the last time we spoke. Regretting even more that I didn’t take the chance to apologise earlier, I peel off my jacket and make my way down the arcade.
Dirk is already standing on the wide mat as I join him. Stripped down to a white singlet and his black work pants, he’s got a red mark on his neck, his hair looks like it’s been grabbed, and the fresh scar from the gunshot on his arm is circled in a newly forming bruise, like someone aimed for it.
Being bigger, he’s usually paired with other men, the street cops who often have something to prove against the mere detective. As such, he usually ends up roughhoused. But having seen those cops limping away, I’d have to guess his youth of street-fighting comes in handy.
“Okay! Ginsburg, this will be a good experience for you.”
I’m doubting that. “Are you alright?” I ask Dirk.
He touches his jaw, seeming to test its movement. “Having the time of my life,” he says without inflection. “I feel like I’m fourteen again.”
Stupidly, I almost apologise for that, a thing I have no control over. Instead of apologising for the thing I do have control over, which is my own stupid mouth.
“Time to break some holds,” Gillian announces in a much too loud voice, considering he’s standing right next to our mat. “Lancaster, let’s start with the choke grab.”
Dirk tilts his head towards the officer. “Really?” he sighs.
“Yes really detective.”
“Fuck’s sake.” He grumbles under his breath. I have to smile. That’s the thing about Dirk. He’s always Dirk. Whether he’s angry, tired, or playful, he’s still just him .
Dirk steps towards me, and I lift my chin a little as his hands, feeling very big, come up to my throat, loosely holding me there. I feel my cheeks redden as the touch, oddly intimate, immediately makes my mind go elsewhere. Knowing eye-contact right now will make this even more suggestive, I try to avert my gaze, an act made difficult by how much of my field of view he's taking up.
“Remember your training, Ginsburg.”
Dirk has basically let go by the time I bring my arms up inside his, supposedly breaking the hold.
“I’ve seen fish with a better grip than that Lancaster!”
“Yes sir,” Dirk groans.
“Mean it, next time!”
Don’t tempt him, I want to say.
“Alright, on the ground.”
By the time we’re on the ground, me resting back on my elbows and Dirk sat near my feet, waiting for when we need to get in position, Gillian has moved on to shout at another pair.
Since the timing is already terrible, I decide to make it worse. Clearing my throat, I start, “About what I said...”
Dirk gives me a look over my bent-up knees like now? Really?
“About you being…”
“You don’t need to specify,” he cuts me off. “I remember.”
“I know, I just…”
“This ain’t the time for chit-chat, detectives!”
Jesus, this guy. I sigh, shifting fully onto my back.
“Pin hold Lancaster!”
“I got it,” Dirk grumbles, and right then it occurs to me that if his hands around my throat felt sexual, then him being on top of me is going to be… interesting.
Dirk takes hold of my wrists, circling them easily before pinning them against my chest. My knees are pulled back against my own body, feet up against his stomach as he kneels in front of me. Almost subconsciously, he twists his hips, dislodging my feet and working himself between my knees, pushing my legs open around his hips as he leans over me. The movement, and the result, send a thrill through my chest.
I shift, uncomfortable for reasons other than the pin hold. I’ve never actually seen him shirtless, but now I’m imagining it. And with his bare shoulders, and the singlet loose enough to hang down slightly and leave a view down from his collarbone, it’s not hard.
I’m supposed to break his wrist-hold, then do something else. But I’m having trouble remembering that move, especially when my eyes catch on the front of his pants, pulled taut by the open position of his knees.
“Any minute now, Ginsburg.”
Right. I definitely don’t do the move properly, Dirk just rolls and I end up on top of him like I’m supposed to, straddling his hips. Seriously, who invented these moves? This is the last position I want to end up in with a guy attacking me. And it’s very warm sitting over Dirk, him looking up at me, dark hair fanned around his head. I scrabble off him, flustered.
“Keep making it a walk in the park for her Lancaster, and you’ll be doing laps of the park.”
Dirk groans as he climbs to his feet, straightening his shirt. “That would be the perfect end to a perfect day.”
Gillian has thankfully moved on for a beat. “I’m trying to apologise to you,” I say to Dirk, since my attempts so far seem to not have been obvious enough.
“Oh, is that what you’re doing?” he asks with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
“Look, I know I was an idiot. After everything you do for me…”
“Please don’t,” he says, flatly trying to brush me off. He doesn’t want to hear it, especially now. God, and he doesn’t even know what I was doing with Needler when I thought it could be him.
“Look, how about you just say something back to me?”
“What?”
“Tell me what you think of me, be mean! Then we’ll be even.”
“We won’t be even.”
“Why not?”
Finally, he snaps. “Because you’re you!” After a frustrated noise, Dirk adds, finally with a little vehemence, “You’re just so damn frustrating !”
Well, ‘frustrating’ isn’t the worst thing he could have called me, but he’s clearly not any happier because of this conversation. “Fine.” I spread my hands, giving up. “Let’s get this done, then.”
“I am trying,” he says drily.
Exasperated, I snap back at him, “Would you take it seriously then? I can do it. I’m not a child.”
His brow darkens. “You want me to take it seriously?”
“Yes!” I half-yell, not realising what I might be signing up for.
He reaches for me suddenly, a grab we’re all familiar with from these sessions, and I’m too thrown off to see it for the feint it is. I do the countermove, slapping his arm away, but his other hand snaps up around my wrist, using that to spin me around, bringing my back up hard against his chest. With his hold still on my wrist, Dirk pulls it hard against the front of my shoulder, my forearm between my breasts. Then his free arm pins my other, wrapping across my waist like a bear hug.
Nothing hurts, but it’s constricting, his arms thick around me, his body a solid mass along my back. I feel his breath through my hair as his chin presses to my ear.
“Argh! Let me go!” I push against his arms, but the way he’s got mine makes it impossible to get any leverage. This close, wrapped up by him, he smells sharply of man, sweat and something smokey underlying it.
“You wanted me to take it seriously,” he reminds me, voice gruff against my temple, bearing my wriggling with no benefit to me.
“This is not what I…” With nothing in the upper body working, I try the lower body, jerking my hips back so that I can bend forward and maybe overreach his arms. I hit his midsection, looking for a way to break free, but I find something else instead, something hard and obvious against the flesh of my butt. Having not expected that, I gasp, and feel as much as hear Dirk’s breath catch. His hold snaps off me so fast that I stumble forward.
I catch myself to spin around to face him, and for a moment we just stare at each other, breath coming fast. By his face he’s surprised too, either by his reaction or at the move I did to feel it.
But there’s defiance in the set of his chin, and I know he’s not about to apologise.
“Good job Ginsburg, passed!”
***
Having made things somehow worse with Dirk, I leave the gym but not the station. On impulse, I stop at the lab, and find Rosie in there, working late.
She looks up at me and gives a soft nod. Taking that as enough, I let the door tap closed behind me. “I wanted to check how you’re doing?”
With a soft chuckle, she asks, “You mean since my lab assistant turned out to be a serial killer?”
I look at the ground. “Yeah, since that.”
“Boring, would you believe? Just a lot of throwing out samples and cleaning everything he ever touched.”
“Was it you who found the mask, the pictures?”
Shaking her head once, Rosie says, “No, the cleaner did.”
I suspect Tristan timed it that way.
With her perceptive eyes big through her glasses, Rosie peers at me. “How far did you two get?”
“Not far,” I smile softly. And it’s true of Seb, at least. To say nothing of his other persona.
“I thought so many times there was something familiar about him,” she muses, gaze distant. “I never forget a face.”
“He changed himself,” I say by consolation. “You don’t seem mad.”
“Neither do you.”
I look away. She has a point. Trying a smile, I say, “Hard to find a good man these days.”
Chuckling, Rosie nods. “That it is.”
***
I know I'm going to look at the binder before the night's out. I've seen it all before, I remind myself. I know what’s in that blue binder. I’d locked it in a closet, then brought it back out. Back on the coffee table, where Dirk left it, before so much.
My shoulders want to shrivel inwards as I think about that. Believing that he could be the Needler, was it wishful thinking? I miss him more than is professional. And what I felt at training…
I shake myself. Why do I care so much? We’re partners, that’s all.
But then I have to ask myself, why does he care so much?
I call Olivia again. The second time this week. She should be home from her trip by now. At my insistence, she gave me the landline of the cabin she’d be staying in. But again, it rings out, unanswered. I bite my lip. I’m procrastinating, finding something else to worry about. It’s not unlike Olivia to go MIA, I remind myself. She’s probably just gone with her lover off somewhere else. I sigh and replace the phone in the cradle.
The binder is on my bedside table now, and the light on, as though not being able to see the crime scene pictures clearly was the problem. I’ve seen the evidence before, everything that’s in that binder. But I didn't know then, didn't have a face, -and such a familiar one at that- to put to the crimes. To imagine the very hands that I held and kissed, grasped at an altar, would go away and lay on plaster, to pull chains to lift bodies up into rafters.
Taking another swig- I have no illusions about being able to do this sober. I push those thoughts down and pull the binder into my lap as I sit up in bed. The information is in order, Caleb first, and now a red page before the second section. For when he died… when someone else took over. I remember these early cases, even when I started staying away, and working less, I still heard about them. He'd tell me sometimes, always so earnest, working so hard to save the next one. I feel sick, the scotch turning over in my stomach. But I take another sip anyway, and it burns all the more.
God, why am I doing this to myself? It’s nearly midnight, the hours sliding by while I put this off. I pull several pages across at once, over to the new Cocooner. Small differences, like the wings. Caleb never did the wings. Just the chrysalis. But the method, the materials, hell, even where the plaster and the strips of cloth came from, stayed the same.
I think of the possibility that the new Cocooner was trained by Caleb, or at least knew him. This, my mind rebels against. He could be doing this and coming home to me, but also doing this with someone, teaching them like some sick tutor. That somebody else knew what I should have known- that’s what eats at me.
The locations stay random, though once again, as I look at the maps, his, then new Cocooner's, something about them seems less random. The satellite view of the scenes reveals three dots in a row, but then one far above, almost on the very edge of the suburb, and another at an angle off from that. Then the last, perpendicular to the row again but on the other side. That one was in Downtown, in an attic. Then another, on an angle down the southern edge of Downtown this time. His last. Seven murders over a bit more than three years. There are some that can’t be firmly assigned to him in the years before, although that may change now that we know who was doing it.
I squint at the map. Seven points.
The spot where they found his body. I can never forget. I see it whenever I look at a map of Tregam, standing out like a dot that always wants to draw my eye. I see it now, with the other seven dots. It’s up towards the edge of Crennick again. We couldn't work out what he'd been doing there. Now, it seems he was about to make a kill. The charred body a would-have-been. Before Tristan became Needler and attacked him.
I see all the dots together now, joined by a line.
Abruptly I’m on my feet beside the bed, so quickly and subconsciously that it’s almost a surprise to me when I find myself standing, staring down at the binder where it’s fallen face-down on the carpet. Loose pieces have scattered, and one of them is a photo of the Copycat’s latest victim. With everything going on, I never even looked at that face. I think I avoided it, even. Too much of the same.
But I see him now, smiling up at me from the floor. Hand shaking, I lift the picture, sure I must be mistaken. But no, I remember him, the piercing in his chin, the spikey hair. That night I went out with Olivia, the man in the booth who she took up with.
Olivia, who I haven’t seen or heard from in over a week. I fumble for the phone out in the living room, dialling the number again, murmuring something like prayers under my breath. It goes straight to voicemail once more. I curse, dropping it. Back in my room, I frantically flip the binder back over, finding the page I want. The map of this year’s crime scenes. It takes a moment, but I see it just like I saw the pattern of Caleb’s kills, a new pattern reaching across the city, almost a zig-zag with varying lengths. And one point which I know is missing.
What had Tawill said? Any night now. What if it’s Olivia? Cocooner must be a mutual acquaintance between her and chin-piercing. Caleb had preferred victims he knew in person. It stands to reason whoever he taught is the same. And with how long it’s been since I've heard from her… all the publicity around his next kill coming up, it could have made more sense for him to kidnap someone and keep them for a time, until the right time, than risk nabbing someone tonight. God, what if this past week Olivia has been tied up in a basement somewhere, waiting? What if it’s because of me? If Cocooner wanted me like Needler suggested, but couldn't get me? No, I couldn't live with that. If there's any chance to save her, I need to take it.
***
Dirk isn't answering either, as I frantically call him from the car radio. His voice tells me to leave a message while I curse at the machine. I run a red light waiting for the beep , driving towards that missing point, the edge of the pattern I’ve stared at on the map so many times and only now seen for what it really is.
"Dirk! Answer the phone, for Christ’s sake! I've worked it out.” I’m babbling, probably nonsensical, but he’ll have to put it together. “The pattern, the crime scenes, they're fucking constellations! Caleb was obsessed with them, he knew all of them. I'm going to the next one now, meet me there, it’s…" I thump the horn at a car going too slow in front of me until they swerve into the slower lane. "Meet me at that old factory, the wooden one they busted a fireworks party in at New Year's. I think Olivia might be the next victim. I can’t explain… but she’s missing, and the last one was a man she was involved with. I hope I'm wrong, but it might be tonight. It might not be too late." I cut off abruptly. If he's not answering, or if he’s ignoring me, I need to call someone who isn't.
Dean's saved number is the next one I dial, but it rings out too, no voicemail. I'm driving like a madwoman, swerving into one-way streets, cutting people off. I'm at the edge of Crennick now, and I dial the station instead, to which the line goes dead, just a long droning buzz in answer. "What the hell!"
The number has never failed before, and now it has decided to have issues? Jabbing at the console only serves to turn it off, and by the time it slowly reboots again, I’m almost there. Dirk's number, apparently the only one working, dials through again. And again, voicemail.
"I'm almost there. No one else is getting through. God, please get this. I need you!"
The address is ahead of me, down a dead-end street bordered by crumbling pale brick walls. The same pale brick that makes up the old factory around the wooden beams and framing. It stands out against the night sky, not a window left intact, many of the wooden accents that once made it distinctive rotted and splintered. Cranking into park, I jump out and head for the iron gate.
Soon I'm passing the high-arched entryway into the building proper and the turmoil inside me is starkly at odds with how peaceful, how quiet it all is. Could I be wrong?
But no, I see a light ahead through the missing walls. And I know this has got to be it. The only question is, am I too late to save her?
I force myself to slow down once I’m inside the fence, my gun low by my side, footsteps quiet.
All I know about this Cocooner is that they took inspiration from my husband. If they're a man, they're stronger than me, probably armed as well to get their victim to co-operate. There's definitely light glinting around missing bricks. I slink towards it, sticking close to the shadows that hug the bottom of each wall. When it comes time to take the stairs up—better to be above, to have the advantage of view and height, I take the stairs fast, and thankfully the wood doesn’t creak under my weight.
The factory is tall, and up on the floating path, the floor is too far down to safely jump. I crouch low, creeping along the railing, in places, stepping around holes worn in by weather and rot. I’m yet to see movement, another brick wall falling away to my right. To my left, close to the corner of the factory, there’s just darkness, no light reaching in through the missing roof, and the light I’m creeping closer to, too faint to reach or see by.
Then the room with the yellow light is ahead, just around another wall. I can see the floor and a collection of things there. Things that make my hands clammy in my too-tight grip on my gun a paint tray like one used to paint houses, with a small, white-coated brush resting on the edge. But as I pause and squint, I see it’s not paint. The grey strips of cloth are bundled beside it. It’s plaster. Black feathers are dusted around the room as though a crow met its end in the rafters, and one has fallen into the white plaster.
My heart hammers, adrenaline making my feet feel too light. I want to run out of here and wait for backup almost as much as I need to know right now what I'm about to see. I try to prepare for the worst, to see Olivia already dead, drowned in plaster. But preparing for something so horrible proves impossible. It’s all fight or flight from here.
There is movement now. My gaze cuts away from the waiting plaster, the gun coming up. There’s a large x made of thick square wooden beams between me and the room, some kind of central support feature. I’m looking at it from the shadowed side. Chains glint in the light, sifting through the wedges, looped near the top. But it’s movement, small and maybe imagined, that draws my eye. Then it happens again, but this time I see it; a hand, near the top of one beam of the x . The fingers close into a fist, then go lax again, the muscles of the wrist bunching against chains.
I’m no longer breathing as I crouch even lower. Someone, someone alive. It’s not too late. The Cocooner. I need to be watching for them. Every nerve in my body feels hyper-ready, imagining him everywhere, in every shadow, of which there are infinite. If I'd been able to focus longer, to see through the fear, I'd have seen that hand, the bare arm, wasn't Olivia, wasn't a woman’s.
As it is, my attention is split in so many ways that I can only see and react. A large pylon temporarily blocks my view as I come around the front of the x, where the bright lantern light falls on its face and the face of whoever is chained to it.
I see the wings first, black and feathered and heavy enough to have their own chains holding them open against the x, ritualistic and antiquated at once. As I look on from the side, the glossy black feathers block my view of the one they’re framing. Stepping further around, my eyes dart everywhere. The plaster again, another shadow, hiding monsters that make my nerves thrum.
The pylon is out of the way. I'm facing the front of the cross, the person tied there. And it’s so much worse than I expected.
It’s Dirk.