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By Root 4007 0

oh, my, God, how awful. The world narrowed down to a nickel-sized lump cupped in the hand. I saw what was there. The hand had long, carefully groomed fingernails, some broken off, as if she’d struggled. She. I looked to the ring finger and found a wedding band set that looked heavy and expensive, though to be sure I’d have to move the hand and I wasn’t ready for that yet. I registered all the information as if from a great distance because I’d found a clue. I concentrated on that like it was a lifeline, and maybe it was.

“There’s something in her hand. It may be only a piece of cloth, but . . .” I bent so low over it that my breath caressed the skin and brought a scent up from it to me. Musty, an animal smell. My breath did one other thing. It moved the edge of the thing in her hand. The one tiny edge wasn’t as blood-logged, and it moved as I blew across the hand.

I straightened. “I think it’s a feather.” I looked around the room trying to see where it could have come from. Except for the antler chandelier nothing else in the room seemed made of animals.

Bradford and Franklin looked at each other. “What?” I asked.

“What made you say her?” Franklin asked.

“The nails, the wedding ring set.” I glanced up at the rest of the body. The only other clue that this had been a woman was maybe the size of the neck, dainty. “She was small, about my size, maybe a little smaller.” I heard myself say it and felt nothing. I felt empty like a shell thrown up on the sand, empty and echoing. It felt a little bit like being in shock, and I knew that later I’d pay for it. Either I’d have screaming hysterics once I had some privacy, or . . . I’d broken something in myself that might never come back, might never fix.

“Besides the fact that it’s female, what else do you see?” Franklin asked.

I didn’t like being tested, but somehow I just didn’t have the energy to bitch about it. “The other vics were disjointed down to their finger bones. This one isn’t. When I first heard that survivors were being carefully skinned, then mutilated, and that the dead were all torn apart, I thought we might be dealing with a pair of killers. One very organized and in charge, the other disorganized and following. But the bodies weren’t torn up. They were very carefully dissected. It was organized, very thought out. But this . . .” I motioned at the thing on the table. “This was not organized. Either our organized killer is beginning to dissolve and become less coherent, or we have two killers like I originally thought. If we have two killers, then the organized one in charge has lost control over his follower. This murder was not well planned. That means mistakes, which will help us. But it may also mean that anyone that crosses paths with this thing is dead. Higher body count from here on out, more frequent kills maybe, maybe not.”

“Not bad, Ms. Blake. I even agree with you on most of it.”

“Thank you, Agent Franklin.” I wanted to ask what parts didn’t he agree with, but was pretty sure where we disagreed. “You still think this is a human serial killer?”

He nodded. “I do.”

I looked at the remains like lumpy red paint tossed across the table. The bloodstains had spread until I was standing in the edge of it. The cops hated to have you tracking blood everywhere. I stepped back, and the stain spread out towards me. I took another step back. My foot crunched in something. I knelt and found salt on the floor. Someone had gotten messy during lunch. I stood up.

“This is fresh kill, Agent Franklin, real fresh. How long would it take a person, even two people, to reduce another human being to this?”

His long hands played over his tie again. I wondered if he knew he did that when he was nervous. If he didn’t, I’d play poker with him any day. “I really couldn’t give an estimate, not and be accurate.”

“Fine. Do you really think a person is strong enough to tear someone apart like this quickly enough to have the blood this fresh? The damn thing’s bleeding like it’s still alive, it’s so damn fresh. I don’t think a human being could do this much damage this quickly.