V.
Three o'clock. Three-oh-one. Three-oh-two.
Tag. You're it.
There's a Catholic church on Level 302.
You're not Catholic--you barely even believe in God--but there you are, inside that church. There's a little black board announcing the hymn numbers: 9, 19, 24. And there's Jesus, hanging nailed to his cross above the altar. But the icon's wrong: there's not enough blood.
Why haven't you found me yet?
Inside the confessional, there's barely enough room to breathe, and the little red cushion is hardly worth sitting on.
"How long has it been since your last confession?"
"Since... never. I'm not Catholic."
"That's okay. I'm not a priest."
And he's right, because a priest doesn't have eyes that glint silver even through the confessional screen. Your hand presses flat against that screen, and you can feel the heat of his hand pressing back.
"Why haven't you found me yet?"
You burst through the flimsy door, but he's already gone. The only other person in the church is Marina, who is screaming. She's screaming because she's missing her hair and eyes, and she can't find them and so she's screaming--
* * *
Miller woke in a cold sweat as the bedside phone shrilled again. He picked it up, glancing at the glowing clock face that read 3:07, and his heart sank. Oh, God, not another one.
"Miller, get your ass down here. I'm about to fire your goddamn partner... Or else decorate her."
The department was buzzing, nightshift officers gathered around chatting bemusedly with each other in low tones. Spilling out of Miller and Lowell's office, pinned and taped to every available wall and desk, were scores of photographs and crime scene reports. In the middle of it all stood Marina, hands on hips and lips pursed in thought, and Chief Bonito, who looked at least as rumpled as Miller felt.
"Would you please," Bonito snarled, "tell me what the hell she's doing, so I can go back to bed?"
"We're missing something," Marina said before Miller could even open his mouth. She turned around to face him. "I don't know what it is, but we're missing it."
Miller looked over at the chief, who threw his hands up in the air and stalked out.
Marina ran her hands through her hair. "We know he kills more women than men, so let's look at those again. What do they all have in common?"
"They're all young, pretty, and white," called out a comfortably middle-aged black woman. A host of chuckles answered her.
A hollow feeling opened in the pit of Miller's stomach. "We already knew that," he pointed out. "but why does he focus on that type? Why's he got a penchant for young, pretty white women?"
"Maybe..." Marina began, but stopped. Then, "What if it's not a sexual thing for him?" she blurted. "Just throwing that idea out there."
"Then why the spread-eagled, naked pose for Cassie Branch? Why the blatantly sexual posing of the Otsus?"
Marina shook her head wordlessly, and Miller turned around to the wall where the male victims' photos and information hung. "You know what I don't see?" he said after a long moment. "I don't see any white males."
"Tommy Harper," Marina said. "Wait--no... We just figured he was beaten to death with the baseball bat because that's what he used to attack the killer. But what if the killer had some weird reason of his own to use the bat instead of the kitchen scissors?" She snagged the Harper boy's picture down, disappeared into their office, and came out a moment later with a photo that Miller knew far too well.
Marina slapped both pictures down on a desk, side by side. "What's the difference," she started. "What's the difference between Tommy Harper and your son Tyrell?"
Miller sagged into the chair by the desk. "Tommy Harper's parents were both white."
"All the females he killed were white," Marina muttered. "But none of the males he killed were--or at least none of the males he killed with a bladed weapon."
"And our man's of mixed race. Like Tyrell." Miller rubbed his temples, trying to will away the growing headache, the thoughts of scissors and knives and his little boy.
Marina grabbed her bag and the two pictures and started for the exit.
"Where are you going?"
"To pay a call on Dr. MacArthur. I want her to do a DNA test." She turned around and added, "And I want to talk to Darla Branch again later today, too."
A moment after her departure, the door slammed open again. Chief Bonito marched in, looking somewhat neater than before but no less aggravated, and announced, "This may be over, kids. Someone shot and killed what they thought was a burglar. Our guys on the scene say the body matches the description of the killer."
