Short chapter is short. But I promise to update more often now – probably every weekend, if all things go well.
In other news, AP Chemistry should die. In a corner. Crying, like I probably would be if I wasn't restraining myself.
And then, almost before Mello gather the even barest facts, it happened again: another murder, another note.
The same town, too, as the other, unmarked murder and - and this is what stops Mello, what catches the breath in his throat.
Zodiac's victim was the wife of the previous victim. The woman and the children had been there, had cowered and whimpered as the man slashed strokes across a husband's face, a child's mother.
They had been in police custody.
And now the police had failed.
And now the mother was dead.
And now the child had seen both parents die.
Matt, of course, has heard everything, has known everything for a long, long time: he is not stupid, after all. He follows the news, and there is always, of course, Mello.
So when Mello tells him that this time it's Sanders Sully, the former drug lord, Matt already knows or course; but he feigns ignorance anyway, because he liked to see the excitement in Mello's eyes, likes to see Mello talking and working and so tenuously alive.
And so Matt knows, of course, long before Mello or official news circuits, of the double murder in Bradford, and it is why one chill Tuesday, he hurries back to his apartment, umbrella-less through rain and puddles and slick mud until he is there, there and dripping puddles onto the concrete as he fumbled for his keys.
With shaking hands, Matt unlocks the door to his apartment, and finds no one there. His eyes, Wammy trained, scan the room: kitchen conspicuously slightly less of a mess, books shoved under tables in a haphazard form of housekeeping.
His way, really, of being apologizing.
The bastard. He had left, left without even a note -
But Matt knows where Mello was, knows before he has even time to be aware of it.
Bradford. Mello had gone to Bradford.
"Son of a bitch."
It is raining, the sky a night darkened grey and the water coming down in sheets when they finally arrive, stop in front of a cheap modern motel with a green-tiled roof that shakes under the rain.
He walks inside, a trail of wet footsteps trailing up to the shoddy structure.
"Name?"
"Alexander Campbell. Leeds police. Single room, no preference."
Quiet. The click-clack of hands on keys.
"Twenty pounds a night."
Devoid of suitcase, devoid of coat, devoid of everything except wallet and gun and chocolate bar, Mello hands the manager the money.
The manager smiles, briefly, and hands Mello his keys.
A few hours later, another boy arrives in Bradford, tall and gangly and red-haired and driving far too fast in a green car that hardly looks as though it could hardly survive the speed at which it is moving. Behind their goggles, his eyes have no gaze for the lush wildlife or the gingerbread house villages that surround the city; they are driven, emerald green pinpoints of focus.
His eyes are furious.
His hair is red, and soaking in the pouring rain.
Matt slams the car door shut, and throws his cigarette into the street. Where it lies, hissing wetly, smoldering in the November rain.