“ . . . we are currently working with the FBI and Boston PD to help bring justice to those affected,” the buzz-cut man said into the microphone.
“Should we take the presence of the FBI as reason to believe that the suspicions of the Bone Carver residing in Rockport are founded?”
“The citizens of Rockport should take the presence of the FBI as reason to believe that their men and women in uniform will do all they can to keep them safe,” the police captain dodged.
“The body has since been identified as a mister Richard Burrows. Unlike the Bone Carver’s other victims, Mr. Burrows has not been involved with any sort of political office or notable artificial intelligence affiliation. Is the Bone Carver changing their M.O.? Or are the police worried about a copycat case?”
“I’m afraid I cannot speculate on motive and will not comment on Mr. Burrows other than to grant my condolences to his family and loved ones.”
That conversation was going nowhere.
Jo’s eyes drifted to a back room where a woman, shell-shocked and pale, was hunched over a table. Not even looking to see if Wayne was following, Jo stopped at the small window into the interrogation room.
She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she didn’t need to.
Mutilated pictures spread out on the table were quickly collected by the officer who had only laid them out a moment ago after the woman burst into hysterics. She nodded between her sobs as another officer in the room moved to comfort her.
“I bet that’s Mrs. Burrows.” The raw husk of Wayne’s voice startled Jo back to life. She wasn’t sure how long she had stood there, watching but not seeing, like a ghost in the shadows. But when Wayne placed a hand on her shoulder, it felt like it might have been an awfully long time.
“Yeah . . .” What else could she say? What else was there to say?
The more she observed the room, the less she began to make sense of it. So many people suffering because of what the Bone Carver had done, and this was only one stop on his killing spree. How many more departments were exactly like this one. filled with the families and friends, the loved ones of the victims, begging for sympathy and revenge?
And it wasn’t just them either. Keeping the peace didn’t stop with a hunt for a serial killer.
There was the belligerent teen in the drunk tank, banging on the bars and demanding the latest names of the victims like it was some television show they got to make a cameo on. An elderly woman was hunched at the front desk, asking if it was possible to locate her granddaughter, make sure she was safe. There were officers who looked as though they’d seen hell and come back, only to have to share it with others in every document and photograph they had to tag, catalog and file.
Even if the Bone Carver hadn’t been involved physically in their lives, his very presence was causing people pain, sorrow, terror.
“So.” Wayne cleared his throat, squeezing her hand once before letting go. “Where do you want to start, dollface?” The hesitation in his voice, the forced casualness beneath the nickname, left Jo feeling a bit guilty, but it also managed to reawaken her original sense of purpose. So she clung to that and dove right in.
“Follow me,” she said, skirting the perimeter of the room and taking a good look at the layout. Their best bet would probably be an evidence locker—something that would give them access to physical data unavailable anywhere else. As busy as the precinct was, however, it would be difficult to find a place or time to jump back into reality without being seen. They could pretend to be a couple looking for information on one of the victims; Wayne could probably bet to make someone believe they were from another station—
But no, with stakes so high, no one would even give them the time of day, let alone entertain such a thing. Furthermore, they only had ten hours each spread over two weeks to lessen the Severity of Exchange; now was not the time to take risks.
Her mind continued to whirl. Wayne could pose a distraction, get one of the higher-ups out of their office long enough for Jo to sneak in and look into their files for the current orders—
But what distraction? There was so much chaos already going on within these walls, no one would even notice him. It was a breakdown of all order, and not in the way that Jo had begun to find more and more calming—the orderly sort of tearing apart that her magic engaged in. This was a chaotic and maddening disarray.
As Jo pulled Wayne along the edge of the room, eyes scanning for unoccupied offices or the storage locker, a rogue command gathered her thoughts like a dog to point. Jo stopped short, placing a hand on Wayne’s chest to make sure he did the same.
“ —ective Madani! Are those the case files I requested?”
The booming voice, Jo identified quickly, belonged to the captain from before, finally freed of the interview. He had a hand already outstretched towards a prominent office door as if expecting the documents to get there quicker that way. Jo’s hope perked up at his desperation alone. The woman in question, Detective Madani, appeared to be carrying a rather impressive pile of folders (the physical kind Jo was looking for), her stride quickening at the bequest of her superior.
When she walked into the captain’s office, Jo wasted no time following, grabbing onto the collar of Wayne’s coat in order to make sure they made it inside before the door closed.
“This is everything my team had, including some documentation we managed to finagle from our sister department in New York City.” Madani dropped the stack on the captain’s desk, then took a moment to readjust some stray hairs beneath her hijab.
Jo could see by the bags underneath her eyes that she and her team had probably been working on this request for a while. Far longer than the reports let on. She couldn’t help but wonder when, exactly, they’d found the body in relation to when the news of it actually broke.
“Thank you, detective,” the captain said, his head already buried in the file on top of the stack. “That will be all.”
“Yes, sir.” Madani straightened some and nodded before retreating just as swiftly from the room. Through the captain’s office window, Jo could see her bustling back towards a group of men surrounding another desk filled with papers, her job nowhere near done. Jo couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
But just as she glanced back to the files, the captain flipped to a new page, and Jo rushed behind him to make sure she was there to witness the rest. Wayne did the same just to the man’s left, and for the next few minutes, they all read in silence.
After what felt like an hour, Jo’s brain threatening to drill its way out of her skull by the feel of it, the information in the documents became a little more enlightening. Jo perked up at once.
