CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Screw it,” Marcus said, getting to his feet. “I’m going for a walk.”
Kate nodded, still staring at the photographs, or rather, the image of the photographs on her laptop screen. They’d elected to remain in St. Louis. Kate didn’t expect to find Cox here, but she didn’t want to waste another four hours on a flight home.
So I’ll waste four hours staring at pictures instead.
Ethan Foster had evaporated within hours of looking for him.
The name was fake, the social security number stolen from a man who had died five years ago, the driver license fabricated, the credit card registered to a nurse in Poughkeepsie who had no idea her credit was being used to facilitate serial murder.
Poppy had even checked back with the previous scenes. No one matching Ethan Foster’s descriptions had rented a car or a hotel room within the time frames of the murder.
The door to the room closed behind Marcus, leaving Kate alone with her thoughts. What was Cox trying to show her? How many times had she asked that question and found herself no closer to the answer?
Her phone buzzed. Gabe. She felt a spark of hope. Had he found something? “Hello, Gabe. Please tell me you have information for me.”
His heavy sigh quenched her spark. “I’m sorry, Kate.”
Kate sighed and lifted a hand to her forehead. She caught an acrid odor wafting off her arm. When was the last time she showered? “It’s all right. We’re not getting anywhere either. We figured out that he’s working with a companion, but his companion isn’t leaving a trail either.”
“Wouldn’t that make it not all right?”
She chuckled but didn’t really mean it. “Well, it’s not your fault.
I don’t know what Cox is trying to say. I thought he was trying to tell a story about repentance and returning to God, but our latest victim threw that on its head.
I’m starting to wonder if he’s trying to say anything or if he’s abandoned that angle entirely and is just trying to get away with killing as many people as possible. ”
“He’s definitely trying to say something,” Gabe replied. “He wouldn’t take the time to position those objects if he wasn’t trying to make some sort of point. The question remains: what is the point?”
“Hell if I know,” Kate grumbled.
Gabe was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, he was slightly tentative, as though afraid of hurting Kate. “There might not be one.”
“There has to be,” Kate insisted. “There always is.”
“You said it yourself. He may have moved on from that.”
“I was just venting,” Kate said, “I didn’t actually mean that.”
She got to her feet and paced the small room, walking a circuit from the wall-length swamp cooler to the tiny kitchenette and back again. “In one of the homes, there was a photograph stolen, an object a lot more valuable than the thimble Cox chose to use. Why would he choose that thimble?”
Her heartbeat quickened, and the soft voice that warned her she was spiraling only increased its speed. “Maybe the objects reference Bible verses or something. The thimble… God talks about the eye of a needle, right? It’s in one of Jesus’ parables.”
“Kate…”
“The music box… maybe it’s related to one of the Psalms?”
“Kate…”
“Gabe, damn it, it has to mean something. Do you understand? It can’t be pointless.”
She collapsed onto the edge of the bed, her hyperventilating heart weakening her. She closed her eyes and forced her breath to slow. It helped but only a little.
“Kate, I have spent days scouring every resource I have looking for iconography as accusatory objects, and I can’t find anything.
Other than those stolen objects being prima facie evidence of theft, there’s nothing.
No hidden meaning, no reason why he’d select those items and place them where he did.
And since you’re telling me there’s no meaning associated with your childhood, I can only infer that there’s no meaning at all other than the simple one that Cox is showing people why he’s chosen to kill these individuals. ”
“But he didn’t write a commandment,” Kate protested.
“I think the commandment is obvious.”
Kate got to her feet again. “Then what? He’s just killing?”
“He is a murderer.”
“Yeah, but he’s a particular kind of murderer, Gabe. He has a rigid code. He kills only when he can justify it.”
“So the guard at Northbridge SMU fit into Cox’s code?”
“Yes. He was engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an inmate while he was married. He broke the seventh commandment.”
“And the drivers of the transport vehicle taking him to the hospital the last time he escaped?”
Kate’s lip trembled. “He had to escape.”
“Of course he did. And in that case, God’s sixth commandment didn’t matter. Likely, he justified it to himself by claiming they were standing in the way of God’s justice, but that’s not a code, Kate.”
“Cox doesn’t kill people for no reason. Even if it’s a bullshit reason, there’s some meaning to it.”
“I’m sure there’s meaning to Cox’s actions with these most recent victims, but I’m not at all sure that the meaning has anything to do with you.”
“So he just stopped being obsessed? Out of nowhere? He just decided he wasn’t interested in me after all?”
“Maybe. You’ve caught him twice. You’ve caught his disciples several times. You’ve proven a formidable adversary. He might not want to have an adversary anymore. Obviously, you’re going to be his adversary no matter what, but you understand my point.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It can,” Gabe replied with uncharacteristic firmness. “Most likely, it is. You just don’t want it to be true.”
“Of course I don’t want it to be true,” Kate snapped.
“If it’s true, then… then… we’re just going to keep chasing our tails until we get lucky.
Do you know how much damage Cox can do? It’s been ten weeks since he got out, and he’s already killed seven people.
If he’s not leaving behind anything we can use to find him, then what’s going to stop him from killing even more people.
I’m not going to run around the country taking pictures of his mess while he slaughters people at will! ”
Her voice rose in pitch until it was nearly a shout. When she finished, the quiet was deep enough that she could feel her straining heart thump against the inside of her ribs.
“Oh, Kate,” Gabe said, his voice filled with compassion. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”
There was nothing wrong with that statement and nothing wrong with the tone in which it was delivered, but Kate hated it all the same.
It was a walking-on-eggshells tone, a be-careful-not-to-upset-her tone, a dance-around-the-truth tone that people used because they didn’t think Kate could handle it.
“Thank you, Gabe,” she said in a clipped voice. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, it’s late out here. I’m going to bed. Talk to you later.”
“Kate—”
She hung up.
She didn’t go to bed, though. She changed out of her uniform into a pair of joggers, a sports bra, and a light pullover.
She hadn’t gone on a proper run in a while.
Ever since Cox escaped, she’d been worried about jogging, afraid he would pop out of the shadows and snatch her up to complete his promised sacrifice.
Well, let him try. At least she’d know where he was.
She considered sending Marcus a text but decided not to. He might worry and try to find her, and she wanted to be alone right now.
So, she laced up her shoes, left the hotel, and started to run.
The night sky was overcast, a matte black blanket over the city. It contrasted well with the soft white blanket of snow on the ground. Three inches had fallen that afternoon, carried by a surprise cold snap that now bit through Kate’s coat and chilled her skin.
She kept moving. The run would warm her up soon enough.
The snow crunched underfoot, keeping the beat of her footsteps while the gentle crest and trough of light and shadow between the streetlamps counted the measures.
Their hotel was located near city center, so Kate’s quiet lasted only a block or so before she reached the scattered groups of people—most of them young—enjoying the nightlife despite the fact that the weekend was over and most of them would have to be at work within ten hours.
She navigated smoothly through the crowds, only twice needing to step off the curb to avoid colliding with tipsy clubbers.
From time to time, catcalls floated her direction.
She ignored them. She wasn’t even sure they were meant for her, but whether meant for her or not, she wasn’t interested in them right now.
She tried to think back to a time before Cox, back when…
She laughed, and there was no humor in the sound.
Before Cox. Back when nightmares of Robert Denton left her unable to sleep through the night without soaking her bed through with sweat.
Back when memories of her father grayed her daylight and drove her to run in the first place, run as she was running now, run and run and run but never escape.
Her life had always been hemmed in by evil.
Maybe that was why Cox was so obsessed with her.
After all, it was fascinating to see someone who existed as a lightning rod for all of the evil in the world.
Maybe he didn’t even know why he wanted to hurt her so much.
Maybe he couldn’t help himself. Maybe God did exist, and maybe He had put her in this world for no other reason than to make her suffer.
“Hey!”
She looked up and cried out, jumping to the left just out of the way of an older couple walking arm-in-arm from a restaurant to their car. The husband glared at her and flipped her off while the wife clung to him in alarm.
She called back an apology and turned left at the next intersection. This street was even busier than the last, so she slowed to a walk. The run wasn’t helping anyway.
Somewhere out there, Elijah Cox was planning his next murder, taunting Kate, daring her to find him while leaving behind none of the breadcrumbs that would ordinarily lead her to him.
And all Kate could do was keep struggling, like a fish on a hook, until she asphyxiated and hung limp on his reel.