The bedroom door was open, the space beyond crowded with crime scene technicians still documenting evidence.The room itself was tastefully decorated in neutral tones, with a large bed dominating the center.The covers were disturbed but not chaotic, suggesting Rachel either had been attacked after lying down, or had been arranged on the bed after death.
“Here’s where she was found,” Brookman said, showing them another photo on his cellphone.This image showed Rachel Bennett posed much like Brittany Hall had been—lying on her back, arms at her sides, eyes open.And centered on her chest was an intricately folded paper crane.
“The fan was left on the first victim, and the crane on the second,” Riley observed, her mind already tracking patterns.“Both traditional origami forms, but different choices.”
“Both deliberately placed on the chest, though,” Ann Marie pointed out.“Positioned over the heart.”
Brookman nodded toward the bed, where the paper crane still sat on an evidence marker, untouched.Riley could glimpse writing in ink among the folds.Something had been written on the paper before it was unfolded, but it was unreadable right now.
“We left it in place, figuring you’d want to see it,” Brookman said.“I was about to have the tech unfold it when you arrived.You can see that something was written on it.We need to find out what it is.”
Riley studied the crane.Something about it triggered a whisper of intuition—a faint, familiar sensation she’d experienced many times before when confronting killers’ minds.A warning prickled along her nerves.This one was playing with them, setting a trap they were about to spring.
“I wouldn’t unfold it,” she said abruptly.
Brookman turned to her with raised eyebrows.“Why not?The message in the fan was meaningless—just the killer’s idea of a sick joke.”
She was about to protest again, but Brookman had already said to a technician wearing gloves.“Go ahead, carefully.”
The paper resisted at first, then gave way with an audible sound—not the soft whisper of paper yielding, but a brittle crackle.Then the origami fan began to disintegrate, crumbling between his fingers like ancient parchment.
CHAPTER THREE
As Riley watched in dismay, potential evidence was reduced to fragile red shards and powder scattered between the technician’s gloved fingers and the bedspread where the body had been found.Within seconds, the origami paper crane had disintegrated completely.
“I’m sorry,” the technician stammered, flushing beneath his face shield.“I was being careful, I swear.It just...fell apart.”
Brookman’s expression darkened.He’d been so insistent on unfolding the crane, and now the evidence lay scattered across the bedspread like crimson confetti.He cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest in what Riley recognized as a defensive posture.
“Well,” he said gruffly, “that’s a new one.”
Riley studied the red particles.Paper, even delicate origami paper, didn’t simply crumble into powder at a touch.“This wasn’t an accident,” she muttered.“It must have been designed to self-destruct.”The killer had revealed something important about himself—his methodical nature, his attention to detail, his desire to control every aspect of the investigation.He was several moves ahead, anticipating their responses and incorporating them into his design.
Ann Marie leaned closer to the bed, careful not to disturb the fragments.“It looks like it was treated with something.Maybe a clear, brittle acrylic that would set the paper in position but make it extremely fragile.”Her voice held a note of controlled excitement that Riley had come to recognize—the thrill of encountering something new, unusual.“A booby-trapped clue.He wanted us to find it, but not to read it.”
Riley allowed her mind to slip sideways into that space where connections formed, where intentions sometimes revealed themselves to her.The delicate crane, positioned so deliberately over Rachel Bennett’s heart.The fragility of the treated paper.The message hidden within is now lost to them.It spoke of impossible choices—look but don’t touch, know but don’t understand.
The message had to do with fragility itself, perhaps about how the most beautiful things crumbled under examination.Like a life.Like Rachel Bennett’s carefully constructed existence, filled with paper creatures that had somehow offered her stability.Or Brittany Hall, living alone with her emotional disorder.Both women had struggled with mental health.Was this about forcing themselves into shapes society found acceptable, only to be reduced to crime scene photographs and evidence bags?
“Any ideas, Agent Paige?”Brookman’s voice pulled her back to the room.
Riley met his gaze evenly.“Just thinking about what this means.Whatever message was written on that paper, it’s unreadable now.”
“Unless,” Ann Marie interjected, “the message is the destruction itself.The killer could be saying that some things can’t be known without being destroyed in the process.”
Brookman snorted softly.“That’s a bit philosophical for a murder case, don’t you think?Let’s stick with the evidence we can actually collect.”
Riley and Ann Marie exchanged a look that Brookman didn’t notice, and Riley silently communicated that she thought her partner was onto something, no matter what the lead detective thought.
Brookman turned to the technician, who stood frozen, still holding his gloved hands awkwardly over the bed.
“Gather up those fragments, carefully,” Brookman said.“Put them in a separate evidence bag.Maybe the lab can reconstruct something useful from them.”
The technician nodded, relief washing over his face at being given clear direction.He reached for a small brush and an evidence envelope, then began the painstaking process of collecting the tiny red particles without further damage.
Riley stepped back, giving him room to work.She knew the likelihood of reconstructing anything legible from the fragments was slim to none, but Brookman was right about following procedure.They needed to document everything—even a dead end.
“I wish we’d photographed it from more angles before trying to unfold it,” Ann Marie said quietly, just for Riley’s ears.“We might have been able to see if there was writing visible through the paper.”
