“Because of his outstanding character?”Jake asked, taking the seat across from her.
“Derek made it his life’s mission to antagonize everyone in Trentville.Assault charges, bar fights, neighborhood disputes—there’s a whole file cabinet of complaints against him, going way back before you started working here.You and I have both had our run-ins with him.Half the town had reason to dislike him.”
“True enough,” Jake acknowledged.“But this wasn’t just another bar fight gone bad.”He pulled out his phone and swiped through to a folder.“This is...different.Stark called it ritualistic.And I agree.”
A cold current of unease traveled through Jenna’s body.“Show me.”
Jake gave her the phone.The first image showed a body sprawled on concrete, face-up, in what appeared to be an alley between two abandoned mill buildings.
Jenna swiped to the next photo, taken nearer the body.Red yarn—vivid, almost lurid in its brightness—was wrapped around the victim’s limbs in elaborate patterns, crisscrossing his torso like a macabre art installation.
“What the hell?”she whispered, looking more closely.The yarn wasn’t simply thrown over the body; it had been methodically wound around his arms and legs, then across his chest in geometric designs.
“Wrapped in red yarn,” Jake said quietly.“There’s more.Keep going.”
The next several images showed close-ups of the yarn work, the patterns more intricate than she’d initially realized.One photo captured Derek’s face, his eyes staring sightlessly, his features frozen in an expression of surprise rather than terror.Around his neck, visible beneath the yarn, was a thin, dark bruise—the mark of the garrote that had ended his life.
“Red,” Jenna said, looking up from the phone.
“Is that significant?”
“Jake, Piper said something right before you called.She had one of her...communications.”Even now, Jenna struggled to find the right word for her sister’s experiences.“She said, ‘Red is for rage.’She said it twice.”
Jake’s eyebrows shot up.“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were.”Jenna set the phone down on her desk, the images still glowing on its screen.“It happened minutes before you called.She was wide awake, seemed perfectly normal.Then she went rigid, her eyes unfocused, and those words just came out of her, almost like she was in a trance.”
“And now we have a body wrapped in red yarn.”Jake said.“That’s one hell of a coincidence, if it is one.”
“My gut says it’s not,” Jenna admitted, the knot in her stomach tightening.“And that worries me, Jake.If Piper is somehow...connected to this, sensing it, what does that mean?”
“Has she ever had these communications about murder victims before?”
“We don’t really know,” Jenna said.“We’re still figuring out how her abilities work.She told me she felt really isolated for a lot of those years.I doubt that she had any way of finding out if her visions were connected to anything that actually happened.”
Jake leaned forward, elbows on his knees."Melissa Stark thinks the murder weapon was a cord or something like that.And speaking of the staging—Stark says Derek had been dead for hours when the body was found at 7:30 a.m., since between 1:30 and 3:30, probably.The killer probably took their time with those yarn patterns."
Jenna turned back to the photos, studying the elaborate winding of the yarn.“You’d need time for this, yes.But not necessarily any exceptional strength to overpower Derek.”
“Probably not,” Jake confirmed.“According to Aaron Hopper, Derek was wasted last night—barely able to stand by closing time.And years of heavy drinking had taken their toll.Derek wasn’t the tough guy he used to be.”
“So our suspect pool is not limited to people who could overpower a fully alert adult man,” Jenna said, thinking aloud.“Which leaves us with...almost anyone.”She paused, focusing on the interview Jake had mentioned.“What else did Aaron Hopper tell you?”
Jake pulled out his notebook, flipping it open.“I caught him at the bar while he was setting up for the day.He said that yesterday Derek had been belligerent from the start—came in already buzzed, kept demanding doubles.Around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., Derek tried to pick a fight with another patron—a guy in a blue shirt.”
“Any reason why?”
“None that made sense to Aaron.I interviewed a few of the patrons from last night, found out who the guy was.His name’s Lester Marks—was just sitting at the bar, minding his own business.Derek kept giving him looks, then started mumbling something about ‘guys like him’ thinking they were better than everyone else.Aaron had to step between them when Derek tried to take a swing.”
“Did you speak with Marks?”
Jake nodded.“Found him at Hank’s Derby across from the Twilight Inn, where he was staying.He’s a long-haul trucker, was just stopping in Trentville for the night.Says he had never seen Derek before in his life, has no idea why the guy targeted him.”
“Could he have followed Derek after the bar closed?Maybe decided to teach him a lesson?”
“Extremely unlikely.I checked the surveillance cameras at the Twilight Inn.Marks returned to his room at 1:13 a.m.and didn’t emerge until 6:45 this morning.Based on the timeline Stark gave us, Derek was most likely killed after Marks had gone back to the motel.”
Jenna leaned back in her chair, processing the information.“So Aaron throws Derek out at closing time, which would be what—1:30 a.m.?And Derek starts walking home, likely taking a shortcut through the textile district.”
