Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
“Keep trying,” she says. “We must be at the back of the on-campus housing now, and hopefully someone has left a gate unlocked. We can hide in a garden, stay out of sight while we take a quick breather to calm down.” We try every gate we pass and eventually hit the jackpot.
“Get in here,” Izzy whispers, pushing the gate open and ushering me inside. I creep into the yard.
There’s a tall weeping willow against the opposite wall, and as Izzy locks the gate behind us, I duck beneath the boughs.
I can barely see the building from here, so if there are people inside, hopefully the foliage affords us some privacy too.
I let Izzy wrap me in a hug as tears stream down my face and I sob quietly.
There’s just so much in my brain, it’s such a jumble, and my suppressed emotions deciding to surface now is not helpful.
I try to push them aside so I can concentrate on getting out of the situation we’ve found ourselves in.
My thoughts start to find order, and my whole body tenses up.
“What’s wrong?” Izzy whispers, stiffening too. “Did you hear something?”
“No, but you said something.” I replay the conversation we had in the alleyway, but whatever triggered the itch is still just out of my reach. “Repeat what you said before I had my freak-out?”
“That Noah is a psycho, and I never saw it coming?”
“No, just before that.”
“I don’t know, something about the look in his eyes?” She shudders. “He looked so scary, Fliss.”
“That’s it!” I hiss, grabbing her arm. “You said he looked like he was on drugs.”
“Yeah, I was shocked. I didn’t think he was into that.”
“He’s not!” I say, remembering the party at my dad’s. “He told me he wouldn’t dream of messing around with drugs because he had a heart condition when we were kids.”
“He did?”
I nod. “Yeah. We were talking about it, and he told me it wasn’t worth risking taking drugs in case it came back.” I shake my head. “So it doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if there was a ritual involved,” Izzy whispers. I level her with a look. “I’m not saying I still believe it, but he might! What if he was trying to cure himself and had to take something as part of the ritual?”
“I don’t know,” I say slowly, even though I had the same thought in the gallery. “How easy was the website to find?”
Izzy leans against the trunk of the tree. “I found it after a few searches, so not too hard.”
I groan. “None of this makes sense.”
“Then make it make sense. You said you wanted to profile the killer, so now is the time to do it, Fliss.”
“You’re right.” I close my eyes, exhaustion flooding my body as it strains to stay alert for any tiny noise in the dark.
I rub my temples and dredge up everything I know about serial killers.
“Okay, based on the victims’ ages, the killer is probably a young male, late teens to early twenties.
” I start checking off the traits on my fingers.
“He will have chosen women he could easily overpower, and based on the profiles of most serial killers, he’s probably white, fairly intelligent and hunting within his comfort zone. ”
“Hunting,” Izzy echoes, shuddering. “I don’t know if I agree with the easily overpowering bit, though. I know you think he caught Helen by surprise, but we knew Jen and Alessandra. They both strike me as people who would put up a fight.”
I nod. “That’s true. Although the victims didn’t seem to have any defensive wounds, and when you look at the first kill, you can see it was frenzied but that Helen didn’t seem to fight back.
That means he’s incapacitating them early to keep them compliant.
Then with Jen and Alessandra he’s escalated.
He’s refined what he’s doing, and the posed scenes have become more elaborate.
He could have been in the gallery for hours before we showed up tonight and he still wasn’t finished.
” I recall the spectacular crown on Alessandra’s lifeless body, and I start to shake again.
I don’t know how I thought I could dissociate this time. “I can’t believe it’s Noah.”
“Here.” Izzy moves closer as she shrugs out of my jacket. “Put this back on. You’re shaking.”
“Thanks.” I put it on, and one side hangs lower than the other, so I reach into the inside pockets. It’s the tarot deck. “Izzy, do you remember what The Four look like?”
“Unfortunately.” She grimaces.
I hand her the top two cards and then shuffle through the deck until I find the Empress.
It shows a blond woman sitting on a throne of cushions.
She’s wearing a long white dress decorated with red roses, and there are jewels at her throat.
She holds a scepter, but the most striking detail is the crown of stars atop her head.
It’s so hard not to see Alessandra’s face that I have to avert my eyes as I hand this card over too.
“The final portrait has some kind of light behind her, as if she’s in front of a fire or has a halo. Do you know what card that might be?”
“Could it be the Sun?” Izzy asks, flicking through the deck. I shake my head.
“No, that card didn’t look right.”
“No, not the card the Sun. Like, could the light represent the sun itself?”
“Erm, yeah, I guess. But the sun or moon is present on every other card.”
“Not like this.” She hands me one and I hold it close, the moonlight illuminating a picture of a tall, blond figure in a white robe. “See the headdress?” I nod, looking at the yellow band with a circle at the center. “It’s the sun.”
“Temperance.” I read the title of the card out loud. “What does that mean?”
Izzy shrugs. “I don’t know, but I remember the card because the artist’s note said that the figure is meant to be seen as gender-fluid. I thought that was pretty progressive for the Edwardian era.”
“So it could be male or female?” I ask slowly, plucking the other cards from her hand.
We sit in silence for a few seconds, as I crouch and lay all four cards on the ground.
“The original artist only painted women, from what we know, but this copycat is creating more modern versions. The first three cards all appear to be women, but this one? What if this is where they diverge from his vision?” I tap on Temperance, my voice speeding up as I realize what we’ve just done.
“Izzy, we have to go back to the gallery.”
“What?” she squeaks loudly, catching herself and lowering her voice. “No, we have to bang on doors and ask for a phone so we can call the police.”
“You’re right.” I nod, pocketing the cards and climbing to my feet. “You have to call the police. I have to go back.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” she hisses, following me to the garden gate. I unlock it and we slip out before I pull her into a spontaneous hug.
“Because we were wrong,” I say, letting her go. “Noah’s not the killer. He’s the next victim.”