Kate’s face hardened, the faint smile vanishing.“He was shot.Thirteen years ago.”
Torres blinked.“Christ.I’m sorry.”
Kate nodded, but her eyes stayed fixed on the mirror.“We’d moved to Maine by then; my Dad always had to follow the funding…” She blew her nose before continuing.“It was late — he was leaving a church in Portland; to this day, nobody knows what he was doing there.Someone came out of the parking lot shadows and shot him twice.Once in the chest, once in the neck.He was dead before the ambulance got there.”
Torres swore under her breath.“Jesus.”
“They never found the shooter,” Kate went on.“A few months later, a man in Indiana confessed.A religious maniac, said God told him to do it — that my father was playing God, interfering with creation.But he’d confessed to other murders that he couldn’t have done.They let him go and eventually the police stopped investigating.I think they assumed it was just another lunatic with a savior complex.Ironically, his victim had a savior complex too.”
Torres rubbed the back of her neck.“And that was thirteen years ago.”
“Yeah,” Kate said.“I was twenty-three, a year into my PhD.”
For a long moment neither spoke.The air seemed heavy with the smell of disinfectant and the low hum of the fluorescent lights.
Finally Torres said softly, “So when you sawGreen Gableswritten on that drawer, it reminded you of him.”
Kate looked at her reflection — pale face, damp hair clinging to her temples.“That’s what I thought, at first.Just a memory.But that’s not it.”
“No?”
Kate shook her head.“Nobody knows about that treehouse.Nobody.Not Marcus, not my Mom… well, I guess my Dad could’ve told her, but if he did, she’s never mentioned it to me.And we talk, you know?We drive each other crazy, but we talk.Not about Green Gables, though.I haven’t even thought about it in years.So how does it end up written under a murdered man’s desk drawer?How can anyone know that detail?”
Torres frowned.“Could someone from your past be involved?Maybe someone from the Bureau?”
“No,” Kate said.“It’s too specific.This isn’t in any record, not in my file, not anywhere.This was a private memory.Something that existed only between me and my father.”
Torres stared at her.“That’s… unsettling.”
“Unsettling?”Kate let out a brittle laugh.“It’s impossible.Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless he’s been there all along,” Kate said quietly.“The man who killed Brennan — maybe he’s not just a killer.Maybe he’s been watching me.Not just now, not just since the Commandment murders started.Maybe for years.”
Torres frowned.“Thewhatmurders?”
“Sorry.I tend to think everyone’s living it like I am.”
Kate explained the torturous events of the past year, beginning with the ritualized murder of a priest in a small Maine fishing town.Cox's seeming obsession with her past, his notion of her as some sort of witness to his deeds.Kate's last, mortal encounter with the man in the woodlands, the killer gravely sick but still possessed of an almost superhuman drive to survive, and inflict harm.Torres listened carefully, professionally, and reactions were kept to the bare minimum.When Kate had finished, her companion let out a long huff of air, the reaction of some who believed what they'd been told, but only just.
“That’s a lot to handle.”Torres shook her head, still half-incredulous.“And the guy behind it all… Cox?Now you think he’s been following you since you were a kid?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Kate said.“It sounds crazy.But it feels like he’s inside my life somehow.Inside my head.As if he’s been taking pieces of me, storing them away until he could use them.”
“That’s a hell of a theory,” Torres said, but her voice lacked conviction.
Kate looked at her.“It’s not even a theory.It’s more a feeling — the kind you can’t shake.I don’t even know for sure if Cox is still alive now.He was seriously messed up the last time I saw him.For all I know, he could have passed the mantle on to someone else, and he’s just sitting there, admiring the damage it causes.Or he could even be dead. But he’s certainly inhere.”She jabbed her forehead with a knuckle.
Torres exhaled slowly.“That’s all… pretty spooky.”
“It’s worse than spooky,” Kate said.“It’s invasive.He’s not just killing people — he’s rewriting the story of my life, one memory at a time.If he knows about Green Gables, then what else?”
They stood there for a moment, the sound of the dripping tap filling the silence.
Finally Torres spoke.“I don’t pretend to understand how this guy’s mind works, but I know one thing — you’re not alone in this.You’ve got me, and you’ve got Marcus.Whoever’s doing this, we’re going to find him.And when we do, I promise you, we’ll make him talk.”
Kate turned toward her, startled by the steel in Torres’s voice.
