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“I don’t like it,” he said.

“I know that, but that’s not what I asked. Can you handle my expertise helping you kill the monster? Can you take my help if it is the best thing for the job?”

“I don’t know,” he said. At least he was being honest, even reasonable. It was a start.

“The question, Olaf, is which do you love more: the kill or your hatred of women?”

I could feel Edward’s and Bernardo’s stillness. The room held its collective breath waiting for the answer.

“I would rather kill than do anything else,” Olaf said.

I nodded. “Great, and thank you.”

He shook his head. “If I take your help, it does not mean that I consider you my equal.”

“Me either,” I said.

Someone kicked me under the table. I think it was Edward. But Olaf and I nodded at each other, not exactly smiling, but I think we had a truce. If he could control his hatred, and I could control my smart-ass impulses, the truce might last long enough for us to solve the case. I managed to reholster the Firestar without him noticing, which made me think less of him. Edward had noticed, and I think, so had Bernardo. What was Olaf’s specialty? What good was he if he didn’t know where the guns were?

29

AFTER BREAKFAST WE HEADED back into the dining room. Bernardo had volunteered to do the dishes. I think he was looking for any excuse to get out of the paperwork. Though I was beginning to wonder if Bernardo had been as badly spooked by the mutilations as Edward had been. Even the monsters were afraid of this one.

Last night I’d been ready to look at the forensic reports next, but in the clear light of day I could admit that it was cowardice. Reading about it was not as bad as seeing it. I so did not want to look at the photos. I was afraid to see them, and the moment I admitted that to myself, I moved them to the top of the list.

Edward suggested we stick all the pictures on the walls of the dining room.

“And put pin holes in your nice clean walls,” I said.

“Don’t be barbaric,” Edward said. “We’ll use sticky putty.” He held up a small packet of the pliable yellow rectangles. He peeled off some and handed it to Olaf and me.

I squeezed the stuff between my fingers, rolling it into a ball. It made me smile. “I haven’t seen this stuff since elementary school.”

The three of us spent the next hour putting the pictures up on the wall. Just handling the sticky putty made me remember fourth grade and helping Miss Cooper hang Christmas decorations on the walls.

We’d hung cheerful Santas, fat candy canes, and bright balls. Now I was hanging vivisected bodies, close-ups of skinless faces, shots of rooms full of body parts. By the time we had one wall covered I was mildly depressed. Finally, the pictures took up almost all the empty white wall space.

I stood in the center of the room and looked at it all. “Sweet Jesus.”

“Too harsh for you?” Olaf asked.

“Back off, Olaf,” I said.

He started to say something else but Edward said, “Olaf.” It was amazing how much menace he could put into one ordinary word.

Olaf thought about it for a second or two, but in the end he let it go. Either Olaf was getting smarter or he was afraid of Edward, too. Guess which way I was voting.

We’d grouped the photos by crime scene in large clusters. This was my first glimpse of the bodies that had been torn apart.

Doctor Evans had described the bodies being cut by a blade of unknown origin, then disjointed by hand. But that had been a very clean description of what had actually been done.

At first, all my eyes could see was blood and pieces. Even knowing what I was looking at, my mind refused to see it at first. It was like looking at one of those 3-D pictures where at first it’s just colors and dots, then suddenly you see it. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. My mind was trying to protect me from what I was looking at by just simply not allowing me to make sense of it. My mind was protecting me, and it only does that when it’s bad, really, really bad.

If I had just walked out now before my eyes made sense of it, I might escape the full horror of it all. I could turn