Author's note: thank you everyone, let's see if Bella is one to trust or not; we're near the end, now.
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Icy Geometry
Five different colors. On paper, it could have looked sweet – some sort of art work over a map of the city – but behind the plastic drawing pins, the only thing that Jane could see was a series of corpses and disfigured faces.
The joyful spectrum of colors almost seemed incongruous, as a matter of fact. Way too far from the reality that lay behind their primary purpose.
Like most of serial killers, the man they were looking for was organized yet the different crime scenes – spread over Boston – didn't seem to make much sense. Most of the times, the victim had been killed somewhere else, though. The fact he had taken the time to move them from one spot to another had thus its importance.
Frustrating detail that probably played a key-role in all of this.
"You need to eat something. You skipped lunch."
Jane forced a smile at Frost as he held a sandwich out to her. She politely accepted it but put it down on her desk - the plastic wrap resounding too loud in the quietness of the evening – without even casting a glance at it.
She had eaten half an apple since the last head had reappeared the previous night. Adrenalin had done the rest and closed the door to her primary needs. She wasn't hungry nor tired. Her brain had plunged into a loud turmoil and nothing else mattered anymore. Even Cavanaugh hadn't said a word when she had showed up at the crime scene with Maura. She was still officially off the case but couldn't care less about administrative statuses.
In her own head, she had always been in charge of it.
"Ah... Dr. Isles... Perhaps you will manage to put some sense in my partner's head. She hasn't eaten a thing since forever!"
Maura looked tired. Her features had deepened and her impeccable makeup didn't manage to hide the paleness of her complexion. A cruel game of lights made her look shorter, more fragile; her shadow on the floor way too thin. Her brow furrowed at Frost's comment and she locked her eyes with Jane's. In a perfect silence. Not heavy nor full of reproach but apologetic.
She felt guilty.
"Do you have anything new?"
The question was rhetorical. Maura knew it but she couldn't help herself, probably in a vain attempt to find comfort in her fragile hopes. She crossed her arms against her chest – repressed a shiver – and let her feet guide her to the glass wall where the evolution of the case hung there and seemed to mock their lack of lead. She observed the photos she knew by heart and was now recognizing as being part of her life. The depth of the wounds, the blood that had dried on the hair. The bruises on the cheekbones.
The corpses hadn't talked much to her. Apart from the suddenness of the death. At least they had not suffered. None of the victims had had enough time for that. Thankfully.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. This freaking penta-murder is getting on my nerves and I swear the moment we catch that guy, I will let a scream of pure satisfaction come out."
Jane's words passed underneath her skin. Blankly. They ran through her veins in a perfect neutrality – numbing her silent hopes – until they reached her brain and something caught her attention; made her frown. Her eyes stopped on the map, the different pins.
One color per victim.
"What did you say?"
Her whisper brushed her lips but the feeling abdicated to the whirl of confusion her mind had lost itself into without any warning. Laughter rose somewhere in her back, far in the distance. In an effort of deep concentration, Maura squinted her eyes at the map then passed her finger over each pin.
The plastic was warm and the contact soft. Yet burning as another kind of image made it to her head in silence. She felt the seconds fly away and was about to repeat her question when Jane finally spoke.
"That I'd scream of delight...?"
Maura shook her head and didn't hide her annoyance. Her sudden impatience. Biting her lower lip, she waved at Jane and sighed loudly.
"No. Before that. What you said about the murders."
But not waiting for her partner to repeat her sentence, Maura turned around – grabbed two pens on the nearest desk – and proceeded to take off each pin one by one, replacing them by a dark spot. She heard the complains in her back but swept them away immediately with a gesture of the hand.
"I said that this penta-murder was going on my nerves... Maur', what are you doing?"
Her hands were shaking in anticipation. Another reason why she hated succumbing to her instinct. She couldn't control herself by then, even less the feelings that seemed to rise from the chemical reactions of her body. A quiet frenzy embraced her and as she finally made a step backwards to have a full view on the lines she had just traced, she thought about Catherine Banks. And Bella Hartman.
All the victims she had only got to know once their hearts had ceased to beat.
"A pentagram... He has drawn a pentagram through the different crime scenes... It finds its balance – its geometrical center – right on... At the corner of Beacon Street and School Street by the Athenaeum..."
Intrigued, Jane – Korsak – and Frost approached the glass wall. Now that the pins had been replaced by spots and Maura had joined each of them, the symbol appeared clearly on the map. Too much to be an odd coincidence. An uncomfortable silence floated over the room, like the quiet electricity that charged the air before letting explode its strength in a summer storm.
Jane emerged from her trance before her colleagues and swallowed hard.
"I need a full team to secure the area. Now!"
Long after she would have left along with officers and detectives, Jane's voice would keep on haunting the open space. It had hit the air with a unusual high-pitched tone. Fear melting in the excitement of a couple of hopes. The hasted steps towards the elevators would also keep on echoing against the walls. Fuzzy ghost of a blaring sound, pale reminiscence of a sudden frenzy.
Maura would remain on the unit floor. Leaned against the Italian's desk, she would stare at the pentagram and let the minutes fly away in silence. She wasn't alone, didn't feel that way. But the latent fear that it may not go as she wanted it to kept on weighing heavily. It wasn't her instinct talking but a rational thinking. She was safe at the BPD, nothing would happen to her as long as she stayed in the building.
But Jane was out – in the night – at the mercy of an icy game of geometry.
"I have always despised these moments. How many times have I assumed that it might have been the last time I saw her leave, disappear behind a door? I hate the feelings. I can't stand the whole thing."
Her murmured confession slid on her lips almost shamefully. She looked down at the floor then took a deep breath before locking her eyes with Cavanaugh's. He would only leave the BPD for the address a red spot pointed loudly on the map if the crime unit called him.
"She is an excellent detective."
Maura nodded. Calmly, slowly. In a few hours, the moon would vanish away and – defeated by the sun – the darkness would abdicate to the bright light of the day. Warmer temperatures. Delicate shades. She hoped so. Yet what if by the first hours of the morning her life decided to remain in the obscurity?
"She is. Yet that doesn't prevent the worst from happening."
Something hurt in her heart, the power of words she had never dared to say out loud. As they passed her lips, a lump formed in her throat and made her swallow hard. Her breath turned rough, difficult. She hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to Jane, hadn't had a chance to give her a last kiss; the mere embrace. Instead, she had looked at the brunette run away from her and within a second everything might have been over.
