CHAPTER FOUR
Brittany Hall’s apartment building rose six stories against the cloudy sky, unremarkable in its design.
Riley parked her car in the open space across from the weathered brick facade.
She and Ann Marie exited the vehicle quietly, preparing themselves for what awaited them inside—another life cut short, another set of questions with no clear answers.
Detective Brookman stood near the entrance, hands thrust deep in his pockets, rocking slightly on his heels as he watched their approach. His expression remained impassive, but Riley detected a hint of impatience in the set of his shoulders.
“Didn’t expect to beat you here,” he said by way of greeting. “Traffic was lighter than usual.”
“We came straight from the Bennett house,” Riley replied, her gaze already moving past him to study the building’s entrance—a single glass door with a simple intercom system mounted beside it.
No security camera, no doorman. Just a basic lock that would present minimal challenge to anyone determined to get inside.
Brookman followed her line of sight. “Not exactly Fort Knox, is it? Let’s head up.”
The lobby was small and utilitarian—worn tile floor, mailboxes lining one wall, a bulletin board covered with faded community notices on the other. A single elevator stood at the rear, its doors scratched and dented from years of moving furniture and careless residents.
“Fifth floor,” Brookman said as they stepped inside. As the elevator groaned upward, he added, “Building’s about fifty years old, maintenance is spotty at best. Convenient for our killer.”
“No cameras anywhere?” Ann Marie asked, though the answer was already evident.
Brookman shook his head. “Nothing. No doorman, no electronic key fobs, nothing but standard locks on the apartment doors. The killer could have walked right in behind another resident or picked the lock on the front door. Either way, once inside, they had free access to the entire building.”
The elevator shuddered to a halt, and they emerged into a narrow hallway with faded carpet and walls that had once been white but had mellowed to an uneven cream. A uniformed officer stood outside a door midway down the corridor, nodding in recognition as Brookman approached.
“Still secure, Detective,” the officer reported. “No disturbances.”
“Good.” Brookman turned to Riley and Ann Marie. “Hall lived alone, worked from home as a freelance data analyst. According to what we’ve gathered so far, she was pretty reclusive. Building super said she rarely had visitors and didn’t interact much with neighbors—at least not in a friendly way.”
He pushed the door open, revealing a modest one-bedroom apartment where another officer was snapping photographs.
Riley stepped inside and immediately felt the familiar prickling sensation that often accompanied her first moments at a crime scene—her senses heightening, her mind reaching for patterns, connections.
But what struck her most forcefully was the origami.
Just as in Rachel Bennett’s home, paper creations populated nearly every surface—delicate birds perched on bookshelves, geometric shapes hung from light fixtures, intricate flowers bloomed from coffee tables and windowsills. The rigor and abundance spoke of countless hours of patient folding.
“This is...” Ann Marie began, her voice trailing off as she took in the paper menagerie.
“Identical to what we saw in the Bennett house,” Riley finished for her.
She moved deeper into the apartment, noting the desk in the corner with dual monitors and an ergonomic chair—Brittany’s workspace.
A laptop sat closed beside a coffee mug with dried residue at the bottom.
“Detective, what do you know about these origami figures?”
Brookman rubbed the back of his neck. “Not much, honestly. We’ve been asking around, but nobody seems to know when she started making them.
She was a data analyst, worked remotely for various companies.
Kept to herself. Super said she was here about two years, but he didn’t know much about her personal life. ”
Riley carefully examined a complex geometric shape on the bookshelf, its dozens of precisely folded triangles forming a perfect sphere. “This level of skill takes practice, dedication. It’s not something you pick up overnight.”
“When we tried to reach out to her next of kin,” Brookman continued, “we found out that her father was dead, so we contacted her mother in Maine by phone. She said been estranged from Brittany for years. Said she hadn’t spoken to her daughter in over a decade and couldn’t tell us anything useful.
She said there were no other family members. ”
“No friends? Colleagues?” Ann Marie asked, jotting notes in her small notebook.
“None that we’ve found locally,” Brookman replied. “Her phone records show minimal outgoing calls. She did have regular Zoom meetings scheduled, but we’re still working on accessing her computer to figure out who with.”
Riley’s attention was drawn to a corkboard mounted above the desk.
Unlike the rest of the apartment, which was well organized, the board displayed a chaotic collection of sticky notes, business cards, and what appeared to be prescription reminders.
One phrase, scrawled in urgent capitals across a yellow Post-it, caught her eye: “REMEMBER: brEATHE FIRST, ACT SECOND.”
“Let me show you the bedroom,” Brookman said, gesturing toward a doorway on the right. “That’s where we found her.”
The bedroom was smaller than Riley had expected, dominated by a double bed with a plain navy comforter. Here too, origami figures had colonized the space—dragons with scaled wings guarded the dresser, tiny stars were strung across the window like paper constellations.
Brookman pulled out his phone, swiping through to find a specific image. “This is how we found her.”
Riley studied the same photo Brookman had shown them earlier.
Brittany Hall lay on her back in the center of the bed, arms at her sides, eyes open and vacant.
The position mirrored Rachel Bennett’s perfectly.
Placed over her heart was what appeared to be a folded paper fan.
The similarity was undeniable, down to the serene positioning of the body.
“No signs of struggle,” Brookman continued, scrolling to another image that showed a close-up of Brittany’s upper arm with a small, reddened puncture mark.
“M.E. confirmed succinylcholine injection, the same as we think killed Bennett. The drug would have paralyzed her almost instantly, but she’d have been fully conscious as her respiratory system shut down. ”
The thought sent a chill through Riley—to be fully aware while your body betrayed you, unable to fight or even scream. Both women had experienced that final, terrible helplessness.
“And the fan?” she asked, though she already knew what Brookman would say.
He showed her another familiar photo—the paper fan opened to reveal the message written along its interior pleats: “Do Not Unfold.”
“No prints on it,” Brookman added. “Not a trace of DNA. Whoever this killer is, they’re careful.”
Riley glanced around the room once more, her mind working to assemble the pieces. Two women, both creating origami as some form of therapy or control, both killed with the same method, both left with paper figures bearing cryptic messages.
“I’d like to speak with the building superintendent,” she said. “The person who found her.”
Brookman nodded. “Sure. Lester Pike’s office is in the basement. He’s been cooperative, if not particularly helpful.”
They made their way back through the apartment, then headed down to the building’s basement.
The basement was dimly lit and smelled of laundry detergent and damp concrete.
Lester Pike’s office was little more than a glorified closet, with a metal desk, a filing cabinet, and walls covered in building schematics and maintenance schedules.
Pike himself was a thin man in his sixties with wispy white hair and permanently oil-stained hands. He stood as they entered, wiping those hands on a rag that seemed to make them dirtier rather than cleaner.
“Agents,” he acknowledged them. “Detective Brookman said you might want to talk to me.”
“Mr. Pike,” Riley began, “we understand you were the one who found Ms. Hall’s body.”
Pike grimaced, the memory clearly unpleasant. “Yeah, that’s right. Wish I hadn’t.”
“Could you walk us through what happened that morning?” Riley asked, noting the way Pike’s eyes darted nervously around the room, never quite settling on any of them.
“It was around ten, I think. Mrs. Levinson from 5C called down to the office, said Brittany’s door had been standing open since early morning.
” Pike rubbed at a spot on his knuckle. “Said she’d knocked, but no one answered.
I figured maybe Brittany had run out for something and forgot to close it properly, but when Mrs. Levinson called again an hour later, saying it was still open, I went up to check. ”
“And what did you find?” Ann Marie prompted gently when Pike fell silent.
“Door was ajar, like they said. I knocked loud, called out her name. When nobody answered, I pushed it open wider and went in.” He swallowed hard.
“She was just lying there on the bed, staring at nothing. I knew right away she was...” He trailed off, then continued, “I backed out and called 911 right away. Didn’t touch nothing. ”
Riley nodded encouragingly. “Can you tell us anything about Brittany? What kind of tenant was she? Did you notice any changes in her behavior recently?”
Pike let out a short, humorless laugh. “Brittany Hall was trouble with a capital T. Not the kind you’d expect, mind you. She paid her rent on time, kept her place clean. Didn’t throw parties or make noise. But she had a way of getting into it with just about everyone in the building.”
“Getting into it?” Riley asked.
“Arguments, confrontations. She’d fly off the handle over the smallest things. Someone using the washing machine when she wanted it, someone’s music being too loud—though usually it wasn’t.”
“Can you describe one of these incidents?” Riley asked, noting how this matched with what they knew about Rachel Bennett’s bipolar disorder. Another connection—both women struggling with mental health issues that affected their interactions with others.
Pike’s expression darkened. “There was this thing in the laundry room about six months back. Brittany came down to do her wash, but all the machines were full. Mrs. Hernandez from 2B was there, folding her things. Brittany just...exploded. Started screaming, threw Mrs. Hernandez’s clean clothes on the floor, kicked over her laundry basket.
I had to physically intervene.” He rubbed his arm unconsciously.
“Got a nasty bruise for my troubles. Almost evicted her then and there, but she begged for another chance.”
Riley exchanged a glance with Ann Marie. “And did her behavior improve after that?”
“Not really. She’d be okay for a week or two, then something else would set her off.” Pike reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small paper object—a perfectly folded crane. “That’s why this was so strange.”
Riley leaned forward. “What was strange, Mr. Pike?”
“A few days ago, Brittany comes down to my office. Smiling—never seen her smile before. Polite as you please. She gives me this little bird, says it’s a peace offering.
” Pike turned the crane gently in his weathered hands.
“Said she wanted to apologize for being such a difficult tenant. Told me she’d ‘turned a corner’ and things would be different from now on. ”
“And were they?” Ann Marie asked.
Pike nodded slowly. “Like night and day. Suddenly, she’s greeting people in the hallway, helping old Mrs. Levinson with her groceries. Even baked cookies for the tenant meeting last month. It was like she became a completely different person.”
Riley’s mind was racing, connecting dots. “And all those origami figures in her apartment? When did those start appearing?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Pike admitted. “First I saw of them was when I found her...” He cleared his throat. “When I found her that morning. Never been in her apartment before that, except for the annual inspection. And last year she didn’t have any of those paper things, I’m sure of it.”
Brookman, who had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, straightened. “What I don’t understand, Mr. Pike, is how the hell your building doesn’t have a single security camera. Not in the lobby, not in the hallways, not even outside the main entrance. This isn’t 1975.”
Pike’s expression hardened. “You think I haven’t asked the owners for upgrades?
Every budget meeting for the past three years, I’ve requested cameras, better locks, and a proper intercom system.
Know what they tell me? ‘Not in the budget, Lester.’ They’d rather spend money on repainting the lobby every two years than on actual security. ”
“Well, maybe now that someone’s been murdered in their building, they’ll reconsider,” Brookman said dryly.
“Maybe,” Pike conceded, though he didn’t sound convinced. “Too late for Brittany, though.”
The radio on Brookman’s hip crackled to life. “Detective Brookman, this is Officer Mendez at apartment 5E. We have a situation here you need to address.”
Brookman grabbed the radio. “What kind of situation?”
“A woman is here. She’s pretty insistent about getting into the apartment.”
Brookman looked at Riley and Ann Marie. “We’d better head back up.”
They thanked Pike for his time and made their way back to the elevator.
As they rode up, Riley considered what they’d learned.
Two women with mental health issues that affected their relationships with others.
Both becoming enthusiastic about origami, both suddenly finding stability and peace.
Both murdered in the same distinctive way.
They found Officer Mendez engaged in what appeared to be a standoff with a petite, dark-haired woman in her early thirties.
“Ma’am, as I’ve explained, this is an active crime scene,” Mendez was saying with the stressed patience of someone who had been repeating himself for some time.
“And as I’ve explained,” the woman replied angrily, “I’ve just flown down here from Buffalo.” She looked around at the newcomers and snapped at them, “I want to know what happened to my sister.”