To say that I wasn't relieved when a fifth murder didn't take place within a few days of the fourth would have been a lie. I was relieved. And it was quite obvious when I looked at Abby, Tim and Kay that they were, too. It was four days into the new month, and we still didn't have anything, but there hadn't been any more murders.
"He's taking too long." Abby's voice broke into the silence that had fallen over us barely two minutes before as we sat there in the back of some random coffee shop that we'd found and walked into. "There should've been another by now."
"Don't tell me you want there to be another one," said Tim, and Abby gave him a look.
"Of course I don't," she said, "I'm just saying that it seems kind of odd that he hasn't moved yet."
"Those notes are all we have to lead us to him," said Kay. "He's been leaving them with every crime scene...they've been getting more specific since the first."
"That's a good thing," I said dryly. "We need them to get more specific. How the hell else are we going to find him? There's nothing else to go on."
"There's got to be something," said Tim. "You can't tell me that this guy has managed to pull off a so-called 'perfect crime' with each murder he's committed."
"So far, he has," I said. "He's gotten smarter at this. And since he knows Abby and Kay are both here, it's going to be a lot harder."
"He said the 'stakes have risen'," said Abby, "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means he's changed his pattern," said Kay. "Last time we dealt with him, we figured out that he's got some sort of fetish with even numbers. There were two murders a month last time..."
"And this time, there were four," said Abby, cutting her off. "This even numbers thing doesn't really tell us anything."
"Yeah, it does," I said. "His weakness. Anything to do with even numbers."
"So, what?" Tim asked. "He gets off on knowing that there are four girls dead and four people working the case?"
"Probably," Kay muttered. "I wouldn't put it past him, honestly. But that's not it. There's something..." She trailed off there, and turned so that she was staring out the window at the people passing us by.
She was right, though neither Abby nor I said anything. There was something else. It wasn't just the even numbers thing anymore. The notes...to make a long story short, it was almost as if they were being left to spite us. Like we really weren't as good as we thought we were at this sort of thing.
"It's another mind game," I said finally. "He knows we're still beating ourselves up over the last time and he wants to play on it."
"Hasn't that bastard done enough damage as it is without making us feel even more like failures?" Abby muttered sarcastically. She reached for the file that I had just closed and sighed, shaking her head. "This is getting ridiculous."
It had been getting ridiculous ever since the second murder. I looked at my watch and sighed, before glancing out in the direction that Kay was looking.
"What's that look for?" I asked. She turned so that she was looking at me, still frowning slightly as she motioned back towards where she'd just been staring.
"Have you ever seen that guy before?" she asked. I looked to where she was pointing and shook my head.
"No, why?" I asked.
"Because he's been watching us for the past twenty minutes." Kay shifted slightly in her position before turning to look at the shadowed figure on the sidewalks again. "I don't think he's up to anything good."
"Neither do I," said Abby, who was looking in the same direction, a disgruntled expression on her face. "How long did you say he's been watching us?"
Kay looked at her watch. "Twenty-four minutes now," she said. "We should get out of here."
"Yeah, we should." I reached into my pocket for my wallet and drew out enough to cover the bill we'd managed to rack up before rising to my feet "Let's go." I started out of the coffee shop and the others followed. Cold air greeted us as we stepped outside; the streetlights had long since flickered on and darkness had already fallen. The figure that had been watching us noticed and started walking away, as if watching us had been something he did on a regular basis.
"You think he was working for whoever's killing these girls?" Tim asked as we started to walk.
"It's likely," I replied. "But that'd be a change...it was only him the last time, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, it was," said Kay, still looking more than slightly disgruntled. "I can't imagine why he'd have someone working for him this time."
"Well, Baltimore's smaller than Manhattan is, population wise," Abby said, almost thoughtfully. "Maybe he thinks he'll be able to keep us off his trail?"
"We don't even have a trail to follow yet," I muttered. "How the hell does he think this is going to help?"
"It's probably how he knew that we were here," said Tim, motioning to himself and then to Kay. "I've got the feeling he's had someone following you since this began."
That in itself was a startling thought. I stopped in my tracks then, causing Abby to run straight into me, nearly knocking the both of us over.
"What was that for?" she demanded, but I wasn't listening; rather, I was looking at my watch, and then in the direction that our mysterious follower had just walked off in.
"I...I think I'm just going to head home," I said. "It's getting late." Abby gave me a skeptical look and glanced down at her own watch.
"What the hell are you talking about, it's getting late?" she asked. "It's not even ten o'clock yet."
"That's beside the point," I told her vaguely. "I'll see you tomorrow." We split up at the corner of the sidewalk we'd been heading down; they went in one direction, I went in the other. And as I walked, part of me wished that Kay hadn't noticed that guy watching us. The other part was yelling at me that it was a good thing, that this time, there might be more to everything than any of us had thought.
When I got home, the front door was unlocked. As much as I wanted to attribute it to the fact that Rowan could, when she wanted to be, be quite absentminded, seeing that guy watching us had made it so that I couldn't. So I drew my gun and listened. No sound came from inside, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. I waited for a few more seconds before turning the knob and stepping inside; everything was dark. All the lights were off. One of the windows was wide open, and the wind that had just started to pick up was blowing the curtains in every direction. I put my gun back in its holster and walked over to close it; the sound it made when it fell echoed. And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned, half-ready to draw my gun again, only to find Rowan standing there behind me.
"When did you get home?" she asked. I turned back to lock the window and then faced her again, sighing.
"About two minutes ago," I said. "The front door was unlocked."
"Couldn't have been," came the reply. "I locked everything right before I went to bed…even went back to check."
An uneasy feeling settled over me at this; I reached out and turned a light on so that I could see her clearly as I continued.
"What about the window?" I asked. "It was closed when you turned the lights out?"
"Yeah, it was closed." Rowan fell silent then and eyed me for a long moment before going on. "Are you all right?"
"No," I replied, "I'm not. You're sure everything was locked when you went to bed?"
"I already told you they were." That answer only served to confirm my suspicions. Someone else had been there.
"You didn't hear anyone out here, did you?" I asked. Rowan shook her head, glancing at the watch that was still on her wrist before moving to take it off.
"No, I didn't hear anyone," she said, "But I do think you're being paranoid. When's the last time you slept?"
And there was one of the questions I didn't want to answer, but the look she was giving me left me without a choice.
"I don't know," I said. "Honestly, I don't want to know, either, because I've got too many files to go through again to be worrying about that..."
I knew the argument was as good as over before I'd even started; Rowan, Abby and Rose were all very much alike in that aspect, and it really wasn't worth it to waste time arguing with any one of them. So I didn't. Instead, I turned the light out and walked off after Rowan, back towards the bedroom.
"You've got to quit doing this to yourself," she said, and I looked at her, bending down to untie my shoes and take them off, without bothering to turn the lights on.
"You've been talking to Abby," I said slowly, unsure of where she was going to go with this. She shook her head.
"I've been talking to Rose," she admitted. "Abby wouldn't tell me anything."
"Wait a minute," I said, straightening and looking over at her. "You're telling me that you went behind my back to find out what all of this is about?"
"It's not as if you'd have told me yourself," Rowan said dryly, without looking me in the eye. "How else was I supposed to find anything out?"
"There's a reason I wasn't telling you anything," I replied. "I can't believe Rose would actually...what all did she tell you?"
"That the folders you and Abby have here are all old case files..."
"You looked through them, didn't you?" Silence met this question and I gave an exasperated sigh, coming to sit on the bed and deciding to concentrate on the clock on the bedside table. "I can't believe this."
"What did you expect me to do?" Rowan asked, sounding annoyed. "You think I enjoy watching you like this?"
"Honestly, I didn't think you cared one way or the other," I muttered dryly, "And I sure as hell didn't want you to see those files."
"If you're going to keep them here, they're going to get looked at. What I don't see is why you couldn't have just told me about it." she retorted.
"For the same reason I didn't tell the unit until a few days ago," I shot back. "It's bad enough that they know it's my fault this is even happening. Did you really think I wanted you knowing that, too?"
And again, there was silence. After a few minutes went by, I forced myself to look back at her; she was staring at me as if I were more of an idiot than she'd previously thought.
"Let me ask you something," she said finally. "Did you really think I was just going to sit here and watch this without asking someone what was going on?"
"I don't see why you care so much. This is mine to deal with, Rowan, it has nothing to do with you."
"Then do you want to tell me why you were asking about the door and the window?"
"No. I don't. It's nothing you need to worry about...not yet, anyways." A skeptical look crossed Rowan's face at this, but she didn't press any further. Instead, she glanced over my shoulder at the clock and sighed.
"You really ought to sleep," she said. I shook my head, moving so that I was lying beside her and sighed.
"You're one to talk," I said. "Both of us have to work tomorrow, not just me." She rolled her eyes, moving so that her head was resting on my shoulder.
"You need it more than I do," she replied, and when I opened my mouth to protest this, she shook her head. "I don't want to hear it, all right? At least try."
"All right," I said, "All right. I'll try. But I'd better not wake up to find out you turned the alarm off again."
"What makes you think I'd do that?"
"The innocent act isn't going to work. You've done it before, and I wouldn't put it past you to do it again, so just don't."
"Fine. I won't...but only if it looks like you've actually been to sleep when I get up to go to work."
"Since when does it ever look like I've been to sleep?" No answer came. I moved so that I could see her clearly, only to find that she had already drifted off.
At least she didn't have anything to worry about...other than hormonal teenagers and grading papers, that is. Orange lights filtered in through the window, the product of nearby streetlights, casting shadows over the ring on my finger. I figured then as I looked at it that I should have told her about my suspicions, but she was already asleep and I didn't want to wake her up again. Besides that, I had no proof that my suspicions were anything but that.
Shadows drifted across the ceiling when I looked up. I couldn't make out any of the shapes, but for some reason, they were oddly comforting...probably because they were there every time I did this at night. I waited, then, for sleep to come, and when it did, I found myself floating backwards in time...again.