Chapter 18 #3
“Going by the details of Adam’s and Brody’s murders, I’d say we’re dealing with the same person.
If a third body turns up in the same condition as victim number three from these earlier murders, we’ve either got the original killer, or an apprentice.
There are too many precise details for it to be a copycat, things that were never released to the press. ”
“There is something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Olivia took the file from him and pulled out the crime scene photos. “What do you think this is?”
She pointed to picture after picture of a blurry mark on each of the corpses.
“That looks like a brand, just like what the current victims were marked with, but it’s not very clear.” He squinted. The rest of the picture seemed to be sharply in focus; it was just the mark on the corpse that was unclear. “There should have been close-ups taken of the markings.”
“You mean these?” Olivia handed him another small stack of pictures.
“What the hell?” he murmured.
Every single shot of the mark, regardless of which victim it was on, was obscured by a bright light, like a flare.
“Hold on a moment.” Jake pulled out his phone. “I took a picture of Adam’s mark when I was in the morgue with Doc Hughes. It should be in here somewhere.”
He scrolled through his phone. “What the fuck?” he muttered, then he handed the phone to Olivia, Theo leaned over her shoulder to get a look.
The photo he’d taken of the mark on Adam’s corpse had the same light flare as the others.
“What does the mark look like?” Theo asked Jake.
“It’s circular.” Jake cast his mind back. “Inside the circle are two serpents entwined in an infinity symbol.”
Theo disappeared from the room and came back holding a sketch pad and pencil. Olivia and Jake both watched as Theo drew on the paper with quick, confident strokes. “Did it look like this?”
Jake’s gaze fell to the paper, his eyes widening and his jaw dropping. Theo had drawn the mark in exact detail.
“That’s it exactly! How do you know what it looks like?”
“Because I’ve seen this symbol before.” His expression was grave.
“Where?” Jake’s eyes narrowed.
“Salem, 1695,” he replied, and looked at Olivia. “You remember the cleric I told you about, Nathaniel Boothe?”
“Yes.”
“This was his personal seal, one he wore it around his neck. He was never without it,” Theo explained.
“What the hell is a seventeenth-century seal doing on the corpses of twenty-first-century murder victims?’ Olivia frowned.
“I have no idea, but I do know Nathaniel Boothe had a connection to your family, Olivia. From what I understand, he was the one responsible for the death of Hester and Bridget West’s mother. I also know he was after something he believed they had.”
“What was it?” Jake asked.
Theo shrugged. “All I know is it was called Infernum, but I don’t know what it was.
” His mouth twisted as he turned his gaze to Olivia.
“If you think about it, the murderer is linked to you somehow, whether it’s your father or not.
They are marking them with Nathaniel’s seal and dumping the bodies near your home.
I don’t know how it all fits together but it is a link. ”
“This doesn’t make any sense.” Jake frowned in frustration. “How can all this be connected to a cleric who lived over three hundred years ago?”
“Maybe the link isn’t to him but to a descendant,” Olivia mused thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Think about it,” Olivia said. “A lot of families from round here and Salem can trace their roots back to the earliest colonies. What if the murderer is a descendant of this Nathaniel Boothe, and the seal was passed down through his family from generation to generation? I know, for me personally, I have hundreds of years’ worth of history in this house, going right back to the towns founding. ”
“I guess it’s possible.” Jake scratched his chin. “But it could just as easily be that someone saw the seal in a book or something and recreated it.”
“Maybe,” Olivia conceded. “But I don’t think so. This symbol means something to the killer, something personal. If we can figure out its significance, maybe we can figure out who the killer is and how they’re connected to my family.”
“Okay.” Jake stood. “I’m going to take the file and the packaging it came in and see if I can trace who sent it and where it’s from. Why don’t you try to piece together the family history of Nathaniel Boothe and see if he has any descendants living in the area?”
Olivia nodded. “I’ll give Renata a call at the museum and see if she can help me.”
“I’ll take a look at the symbol itself,” Theo added. “See if I can find out the history of the seal, where it came from, what it symbolizes.”
“Good.” Jake hummed in approval. “If you guys find anything, call me straight away. No more playing detective, okay? It’s one thing driving into Salem to talk to a little old lady, it’s another thing entirely to go chasing after a psychotic killer.”
“We will,” Olivia promised.
Olivia walked Jake to the front door with Theo following behind her. Once the door closed behind Jake, she turned to Theo, and for a few moments, they stared silently at each other.
“I’m going to take a shower, then I’ll get started on the symbol,” Theo finally said.
“Fine,” Olivia replied stiffly.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to get much more from her with the mood she was in, he turned and left the room.
After a few more minutes of sitting in the silent empty kitchen, brooding into her cold tea, she got up and dumped it down the sink, rinsing the mug out.
She was startled out of her silent musing when her phone rang and the caller ID showed Mags was calling her again. Sighing, she declined the call.
She spent the rest of the day avoiding Theo.
She knew it was childish, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
He brought out a side of her she just wasn’t ready to deal with, so she concentrated on trying to find Nathaniel Boothe’s family instead.
She closed herself in her bedroom with her laptop like a surly teenager and spent most of the day going through every ancestry website she could find.
She also spent hours on the phone to Renata, the curator at the museum who’d taken on the challenge with relish.
However, several hours later, Olivia had come up with nothing but empty hands and a pounding headache.
Not only had neither of them been able to track down anything of Nathaniel Boothe’s family history, but they had been unable to find a single historical reference to the man himself. It was as if he’d never existed.
Frustrated and tired, Olivia stretched out the kinks in her spine, yawned, and unfolded her stiff legs from the bed. Her stomach growled and she glanced over at the clock. She listened but could hear no noise coming from downstairs, so she tossed her laptop on the bed and headed out of the room.
Wondering if Theo was still in the house or if he’d taken up her suggestion to go back to Jake’s, she padded down the stairs, trying to figure out how she’d feel if he had left.
She stopped in the doorway of the library and found him asleep at her desk, his head pressed to an open page, and a mountain of books stacked around him.
She crept quietly into the room. Stopping next to the desk, she ran her hand gently through his dark hair, letting the curled ends slip through her fingers.
“Theo,” she whispered. He lifted his head and blinked. Something in her chest throbbed and did a funny little roll. “Theo,” she murmured again.
He sat up, looking first at her and then at the clock on the mantel.
“It’s getting late,” she told him. “I guess we both lost track of time.”
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked quietly.
Did she? He would go if she told him to, she knew he would.
Just as she knew he wanted to stay. Her belly shifted and rolled again, her heartbeat knocking against her ribs so loudly she was afraid he’d hear it.
The way he made her feel confused her, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to do.
The sensible answer would be to send him back to Jake’s, but the thought of once again being alone was unappealing, to say the least. She’d survive—after all, she was used to being on her own.
It was the thought of him specifically not being in the house, not being close to her that she didn’t like, and she simply couldn’t explain it.
She’d never needed anyone before, but when he was near, it was like the warmth of the sun, and she yearned for him.
He was right. As confusing as things were between them, whatever was going on obviously involved them both, and it would be easier to figure it out together.
“Olivia?” He drew her attention from her thoughts. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” She sighed.
They sat in mutual silence, trying to figure out what to say, then Olivia simply held out her hand to him and watched as he took it. Her arm tingled the second their palms connected, like static electricity ran through her veins.
“Are you hungry?” she asked after a moment.
“I am.” He smiled slowly as his fingers entwined with hers.
“Come on then.” She tugged his hand, leading him out of the room. “I’m going to introduce you to the delights of Chinese takeout.”
The fire banked down as they left the room, but as the old house creaked and settled, one of the books that was balanced precariously on the desk slipped and toppled to the floor, falling open on an illustration of dual serpents in the shape of an infinity symbol.