Dead of Night 5

“Did he use her blood to draw them?”

“We don’t know that yet, but I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.” He paused, gesturing with a gloved hand. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

She had. A long time ago.

A full-length mirror had been propped against the wall opposite the doorway and positioned so that the body could be viewed from certain angles. But Sarah’s gaze was riveted, not on the reflection of the victim, but on the wall behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the words that had been scrawled backward in blood.

uoy ma I.

She turned back to the mirror and read them again in the reflection.

I am you.

A rush of panic blindsided her, and she took an involuntary step back, right into Sean. His hands gripped her arms to steady her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just... I don’t know. That message on the wall kind of threw me.” She nodded toward the mirror. “Was that already here?”

“Not according to the workman. He said this room was empty when they knocked off work on Friday.”

“Why would the killer bring such a large mirror with him? Just so you’d be able to read his message?”

“I don’t think so,” Sean muttered. “I think the son of a bitch wanted to watch himself.”

Sarah moved toward the mirror, catching a glimpse of her own reflection. Dark, sober eyes stared back at her. Black hair tangled from the wind. Pale skin. Dry lips. No wonder Sean had commented on her appearance. She did look like hell.

From where she stood now, she could still see the strange message on the wall behind her reflection. I am you.

“Maybe I was wrong earlier when I said he wants you to know he’s watching. Maybe he’s trying to tell you that someone is watching him.” Sarah could see her lips move in the mirror, but it seemed as if someone else had spoken. She felt an odd detachment from her own reflection.

“What are you talking about?”

She shook her head, not really understanding her own thoughts. “Maybe I should just look at the tattoos.”

Sean took her arm and circled her around to the other side of the body, careful to avoid the blood on the floor. The victim’s pale, waxy skin provided a macabre canvas for the ink on her arms and legs.

Her head was turned to the side, but her blood-matted hair concealed her face. All Sarah could see was one eye, open and staring. Like the painted udjats on the walls and ceiling, it seemed to follow her as she knelt on the floor beside the body.

“Do you know who she is?”

“No, not yet. We’re checking with the neighbors, but so far no luck.”

“When did it happen?”

“According to the coroner, she’s been here at least forty-eight hours.”

It had probably happened on Saturday night, then, only a few blocks from Sarah’s house. She found herself wondering what she had been doing at the exact moment of the woman’s death. Had she experienced any kind of premonition, some inexplicable sign that evil had been that near?

She bent her head and tried to concentrate on the tattoos. Skulls, dragons, serpent-entwined crosses. Nothing creative or unique about any of them. The designs were typical of the flash found on the walls of tattoo parlors all over the city.

But the red-and-black symbol on the victim’s back...that was unusual. And it was fresh. Scattered on the floor beside the body was the familiar paraphernalia of Sarah’s art—thimble-sized ink cups, Vaseline, soiled paper towels. The killer had tattooed his victim at the murder scene. And he’d taken care to do it right.

That explained the barricaded windows, Sarah thought. He knew he’d be a while and didn’t want to worry about discovery.

She leaned forward, studying the blood that had oozed from the needle stippling and dried on the woman’s skin.

Behind her, Sean said, “She was still alive when he did that one.”

“Looks like it bled quite a bit. She may have been drinking before he brought her here.” The danger of excessive bleeding was why they never tattooed drunks at the shop. That and the morning-after regrets.

“We’ll find out when we get the toxicology report.”

Sarah paused, struck by something he’d just said. “What did you mean, she was alive when he did that one? The tattoos on her arms and legs are old. You can tell by how badly most of them are faded.”

“I was talking about the pentagram in her right palm. See here? Ink smears, but almost no blood.”

Sarah stared at the tattoo for a moment. Sean had called it a pentagram, but he was wrong. She started to correct him, but his attention was still focused on the victim’s back.

“That’s a pretty big tat. How long would it take to apply a design like that?”

Sarah shrugged. “Several hours, depending on the artist. But this guy’s no scratcher. He knows what he’s doing. Look how clean and sharp the edges are.”

“What about the ones on her arms and legs? Any chance you recognize the artist?”

She shook her head. “Nothing stands out about the style, and the designs are pretty run-of-the-mill. And like I said, they’re old. She’s had most of them for years.”

The creak of a footstep made them both turn. Danny came into the room and stood looking down at the body. He cocked his head, studying the strange design on the victim’s back. “Hey, I never noticed before, but from this angle, it looks like a pair of naked women.” He tilted his head the other way. “With really big breasts.”

“Very helpful,” Sean said. “It doesn’t look like much of anything to me.”

“That’s because you’ve got no imagination.” Danny squatted at the dead woman’s feet. “You know what it reminds me of? No, seriously. It looks like one of those inkblots that shrinks use to analyze their patients.”

Sean started to say something, but Sarah turned excitedly. “No, he’s right. That’s exactly what it looks like. A Rorschach inkblot.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means something different to everyone who looks at it. That’s the whole point. A patient’s spontaneous response is supposed to reveal deep secrets or significant information that can be used in a psychological evaluation.” Sarah turned back to the body. “There are only ten true Rorschach inkblots. Five black-and-white, two red-and-black and three multicoloreds. They’re kept secret to protect the integrity of the test. The inkblot cards you see on TV and in movies are most likely fakes.”

“What about this one?”

“I can’t say for sure. You’d need to show it to someone who’s an expert in Rorschach inkblot therapy, but that might be difficult. The cards aren’t used much anymore.”

“How is it you know so much about these inkblots?” Sean’s voice was deliberately casual.

Sarah met his gaze. You already know the answer to that. Aloud she said, “I read a lot.”

“I still say it looks like two women with big breasts,” Danny said. “What deep, dark secret does that reveal about me?”

“That you’ve got a one-track mind,” Sean said. “But I didn’t need an inkblot to tell me that.”

Sarah’s interpretation was very different from Danny’s. Instead of two bodies, she saw faces—one light, the other dark.

Her gaze lifted to the mirror propped against the wall. She wanted to glance away, but she couldn’t. This was the view the killer would have had when he looked up from his work. His own reflected face with the disturbing missive scrawled on the wall behind him.

I am you.

“Say it is real,” Sean said. “If these inkblots are secret, the perp would need insider knowledge about them, right? Either as a patient or a doctor, and judging by his handiwork here, I’m pretty sure I know which one. But we can start by checking with some of the therapists in the city who still use these inkblots in their evaluations. Who knows? We might get lucky and find one who likes to talk.”

“Shit,” Danny said in disgust. “Do you have any idea how much I hate dealing with those condescending assholes? Never met one yet who didn’t give me the creeps.”

Their voices faded as Sarah continued to stare at the mirror. Suddenly she knew why the message had hit her so hard. It reminded her of something that had been said to her a long time ago.

We’re the same, Sarah. Not outwardly, of course. But inside, our souls are mirror images.

No, she thought. It can’t be him.

Her throat constricted and a film of sweat coated her skin. She told herself to relax, breathe deeply, but it was too late.

The darkness was coming for her.

A little while later, Sarah stood shivering on the front porch as two beefy men negotiated the slippery steps with the stretcher. She didn’t want to stare at the body bag, but she couldn’t seem to look away. The victim had been someone’s sister or daughter or mother, and now she was gone, murdered by a psycho with a very dark compulsion.

Leaning her head against a newel post, she closed her eyes. Sean had asked her to wait while he finished up, but she was desperate to get home. She’d been outside for too long, and her face and hands were numb from the cold. But the frigid air had done nothing to dispel the dread still hammering at her chest. She recognized it for what it was—a memory trying to force its way out.

A therapist had once told her that every subconscious contained a special place—a vault—where lost memories were stored. Usually, those memories stayed locked up tight, but every once in a while, a song, a face or a seemingly random event could crack open the safe and provide a tantalizing, sometimes terrifying glimpse into the past.

The room upstairs had done that for Sarah. But the tumblers hadn’t been turned by the puddles of blood on the floor or even the tattoos on the victim. The vault had been breached by the killer’s message. And by the sight of her own pale face staring back from the mirror.

The door opened and Sean stepped out on the porch.

He moved up beside her. “Are you okay? You had me worried when you ran out like that.”

“Yeah, I was kind of surprised by that, too,” Sarah said. “I thought I had a strong constitution. Never considered myself the squeamish type.”

“Sometimes it hits you all of a sudden. I’ve seen it happen to guys who’ve been on the force for years.” Sean hesitated. “But maybe in your case, there’s a little more going on than a weak stomach.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were thinking about Rachel, weren’t you? Damn it, I could kick myself for dragging you over here like this. I should have thought about how it would affect you.”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a very big deal. I saw your face when you ran out. It was like you’d seen a ghost. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Here?” She glanced around. The professionals and onlookers alike were starting to disperse, but Sarah still had no intention of getting into something so private. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your time.”

“I can spare a few minutes. Besides...” Sean sighed. “It’s the same old story. Nobody saw or heard anything. Not a lot more we can do tonight except file the report and wait for the autopsy. And it might help if you told me what happened upstairs.”

He put his hand on the railing next to hers. Not quite touching. Just close enough for her to know it was there.

“I don’t think so, Sean.”

“Why not? You always refused to talk about Rachel because you didn’t want to drag your past into our relationship. At least that’s what you said. What’s stopping you now?”

“Why do you even care?”

“Sarah.”

The mild rebuke sent a shiver up her spine. She could feel his eyes on her in the dark and she wanted to move away, but not nearly as much as she wanted to stay.

She looked out over the darkened street where moonlight softly illuminated frozen treetops. The flashing police lights reflected off tiny icicles, turning them into sapphires and rubies and in the distance, the palest of amber. The glistening neighborhood looked clean and beautiful and deceptively peaceful in the dark.

Sean shifted restlessly, impatient as always to cut to the heart of the problem. “After you and I got together, I read every newspaper account of the murder I could get my hands on. I even put in a few calls, tried to convince the local authorities to let me have a look at the police report. The one thing that seemed consistent in every account was the county sheriff’s conviction that it was a ritual murder. They found satanic symbols at the crime scene, just like upstairs. Is that what hit you so hard?”