YOU
Every hour, every day, you think about The Girl. But its not time for the grand finale. Not yet. Instead, you find another toy at a little shop in Dupont Circle. Youve had your eye on her for a while, but resisted the urge to add her to your collection. She was too close to home, in an area that was too densely populated.But right now, the so-called Madame Selene is just what you need. Bodies are bodies, but a palm readertheres a certain poetry to that. A message you wantneed have to send. It would be simpler to kill her in the shop, to drive a knife through each palm and leave her body on display, but youve worked so hard this week.
You deserve a little treat .
Taking her is easy. Youre a ghost. A stranger with candy. A sympathetic ear. When Madame Selene wakes up in the warehouse, she wont believe that youre the one whos done this to her.
Not at first .
But eventually, shell see .
You smile, thinking about the inevitability of it all. You touch the tips of her brown hair and pick up the handy box of Red Dye Number 12. You hum under your breath, a childrens song that takes you back to the beginning, back to the first.
The palm readers eyes flicker open. Her hands are bound. She sees you. Then she sees the hair dye, the knife in your left hand, and she realizes.
You are the monster .
And this time, you deserve to take things slow .
CHAPTER 17
A real killer .
For a long time, Locke didnt say anything. Briggs and I hit a brick wall this weekend, she said finally. Weve got three bodies, and the killer is escalating. She ran a hand through hair that looked like it had been only haphazardly brushed. Thats not your problem. Its mine, but this case has reminded me that the UNSUB is only half the story. Dean, what can you tell Cassie about victimology?
Dean stared holes in the countertop. I hadnt seen him since Truth or Dare, but it was like nothing had changed between us, like wed never kissed.
Most killers have a type, he said. Sometimes, its a physical type. For others, it may be a matter of conveniencemaybe you focus on hikers, because no one reports them missing for a few days, or students, because its easy to get ahold of their class schedules.
Agent Locke nodded. Occasionally the victims may be serving as a substitute for someone in the UNSUBs life. Some killers kill their first girlfriend or their wife or their mother, over and over again.
The other thing victimology tells us, Dean continued, flicking his eyes over to Agent Locke, is how the victim would have reacted to being abducted or attacked. If youre a killer He paused, searching for the right words. Theres a give-and-take between you and the people you kill. You choose them. You trap them. Maybe they fight. Maybe they run. Some try to reason with you, some say things that set you off. Either way, you react.
We dont have the luxury of knowing every last detail about the UNSUBs personality, Agent Locke cut in, but the victims personality and behavior account for half of the crime scene.
The moment I heard the phrase crime scene , I flashed back to opening the door to my mothers dressing room. Id always thought that I knew so little about what had happened that day. By the time Id gotten back to the dressing room, the killer
was gone. My mother was gone. There was so much blood.
Victimology , I reminded myself. I knew my mother. She would have foughtnail-scratching, breaking-lamps-over-his-head, struggling-for-the-knife fought . And there were only two things that could have stopped her: dying or the realization that I was due back in the room at any second.
What if she went with him? The police had assumed she was deador at the very least unconsciouswhen the UNSUB had removed her from the room. But my mother wasnt a small woman, and the dressing room was on the second floor of the theater. Under normal circumstance, my mother wouldnt have just let a killer waltz her out the doorbut she might have done anything to keep her assailant away from me.
Cassie? Agent Locke said, snapping me back to the present.
Right, I said.
She narrowed her eyes. Right what?
Sorry, I told Locke. Could you repeat what you just said?
She gave me a long, appraising look, then repeated herself. I said that walking through a crime scene from a victims perspective can tell you a lot about the killer. Say you go into a victims house and you find out that she compulsively writes to-do lists, color-codes her clothes, and has a pet fish. This woman is the third victim, but shes the only one of the three who doesnt have defensive wounds. The killer normally keeps his victims alive for days, but this woman was killed by a strong blow to the head on the day she was taken. Her blouse was buttoned crookedly when they found her.
Putting myself into the killers head, I could imagine him taking women. Playing with them. So why would he let this one off easy? Why end his game early, when she showed no signs of fighting back?
Because she showed no signs of fighting back .
I switched perspectives, imagining myself as the victim. Im organized, orderly, and type A in the extreme. I want a pet, but cant bring myself to get one that would actually disrupt my life, so I settle for a fish instead. Maybe Ive read about the previous murders in the paper. Maybe I know how things end for the women who fought back .