It read: Am I beautiful?
“Mi–Miki?” Adam stuttered under his breath.
He opened the profile. It was devoid of pictures and friends. He went back to the message and read it again—then he re-read it three more times. He was sure it came from Miki. There was no other reason for a random person without a profile picture to ask him such an unusual question. He reached for his phone to call the cops.
“No, no,” he whispered as he pulled his hand back. “What if it isn’t her? What if I’m over-reacting? It could be spam. It’s spam, isn’t it?”
He opened Google and searched about recent spam trends. There had been an increase in cybercrime since the pandemic began. A lockdown couldn’t stop criminals from improvising. He read about scams from people posing as women trying to lure men into chatrooms. Every case featured a person with a fake profile picture and a link to a malicious website, though.
He looked at the message from ‘Mickey Miller’ again.
No profile picture.
No link.
He tapped his foot and bit his fingernails, eyes darting between his cell phone and the iMac. His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he considered responding to the message.
“It’s bait,” he said. He shook his head and closed Facebook. He muttered, “Don’t get paranoid. Don’t lose control.”
He visited a local news website to distract himself. The news about the pandemic always aggravated his anxiety, so he browsed the crime section instead. Although online scams were becoming more common, the Los Angeles Police Department had reported a decrease in regular crime due to the recent lockdown restrictions.
He read about a couple of burglaries, robberies, and murders—the usual. One article made his pupils dilate with fear and revulsion, though.
The headline read: Ten-year-old girl found dead in a Huntington Park public restroom.
The article read like a splatterpunk novel, describing every grisly detail of the murder. He was already upset by the fact that a child had been slaughtered in public, but a passage at the end of the article left his head spinning. It described the smile cut into the child’s cheeks and it announced the police’s investigation into a serial killer in the Los Angeles area.
The victim’s facial injuries reminded him of the article he had read earlier that month about a murder in Skid Row—and that murder reminded him of Miki. The pieces fell into place, creating a crystal-clear image in his mind.
“It’s Miki,” he whispered.
He grabbed a black marker and a stack of index cards from a drawer. He jotted down the date, the location, and a description of the murder victim on one of the index cards, then he pinned it onto a corkboard on the wall to his left. He raced back to his chair and searched for the article about the dead body found in Skid Row and repeated the process for that victim.
He scoured every local news website for articles covering similar crimes. He searched articles from March, then February, and then January.
“Holy shit,” he muttered as he filled out another index card.
He discovered an article about a child’s mutilated body found caught in a bear trap in Griffith Park. Again, the victim’s face had been mutilated. However, the article also featured an interview with a survivor of the attack—Sebastian.
It was reported that Sebastian was with a boy named Brian in Griffith Park when they were approached by a masked woman. Sebastian told the police that the woman had claimed to be a princess as well as the most beautiful girl in the world. He described the attacker as a woman with black hair, dark brown eyes, and scarred cheeks.
Lightheaded, Adam leaned back in his seat and held his hand over his chest. He could feel his heart hammering away at his sternum. He gazed at the monitor, eyes wet with tears as if he were staring at a picture of a long-lost love.
“It–It’s you,” he whispered, voice cracking.
He sat there and sulked for a few minutes before working up the courage to continue his investigation. He searched for another hour, going all the way back to June 2018. To his relief, he didn’t find any other murder victims with disfigured faces.
He reorganized the index cards on his corkboard. Brian’s death in Griffith Park was pinned to the top. Under it, he placed the index card detailing the murder in Skid Row. And at the bottom, he pinned the index card describing the death in the public restroom at Huntington Park. He was positive Miki was responsible for the murders. He couldn’t think of a motive, though. He didn’t know any of the victims, so revenge didn’t seem likely.
Regardless, he blamed himself for the murders. I turned her into a serial killer, he thought. But why doesn’t she just kill me?
Tap, tap, tap.
Adam ignored the knocking on his office door.
“Adam?” Amber said from the hallway. She knocked again, then she asked, “You okay in there?”
In a monotone voice, Adam responded, “Yeah.”
“You missed lunch. I thought you said you were going to take care of yourself.”
“Ye… Yeah.”
“Adam, what are we doing? This isn’t… communicating. Can I come in? Can we talk?”
Adam read the index cards again in search of a motive. Every piece of evidence reminded him of Miki, but he couldn’t imagine her doing such awful things. He sighed, then he went over and opened the door.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about something,” he said as he walked back to the corkboard.
Amber stopped in the doorway. She feared she was going to stumble upon a wrecked room—a broken iMac, torn books, holes punched into the walls. She was surprised to see his office in pristine condition. The corkboard caught her attention. Adam normally used it to keep track of his schedule as well as his marketing plans.
Amber said, “Riley’s sleeping. I’ll go back and wake her in a couple of minutes. You can come, too, if you want to spend some time with her.”
“I will.”
“You will?”
“I’ll, um… I’ll do it soon.”
“Do what, Adam?” Amber asked as she crossed her arms. “Are you even listening to me?”
Adam looked at her, then back at the corkboard, and then back at his wife. He couldn’t tell her about Miki and his last trip to Japan. Dallas knew about his affair, but no one knew about his evil actions in Miki’s apartment. He felt compelled to tell her something, though. Thoughts were clawing at his skull, eager to get out of his head.
He said, “I’m sorry. I’ve been busy with something.”
Amber looked at the board and asked, “Back in business?”
“No.”
“What is it then? You writing a book?”
Standing in a thinking pose, one arm crossed over his abdomen and a hand stroking his beard, Adam said, “I’m… I was reading the news and I saw a, uh… a pattern. I read about a…” He laughed nervously, then he said, “I read about a murder. And that murder reminded me of another murder I read about. And then I just… I guess I went down the rabbit hole.”
Amber asked, “What exactly are you saying? Murders and rabbit holes?”
Adam finally turned to face her. He could see the concern in her eyes. She was always optimistic, but she was obviously worried about her husband. He hadn’t contracted any viruses, but the pandemic still changed him. It was as if she were living with a stranger.
Adam pointed at his corkboard and said, “I’m talking about a serial killer in Los Angeles.”
Amber approached the corkboard and read the index cards. She closed her eyes, frowned, and lowered her head. The descriptions of the victims weren’t as graphic as they were in the news articles, but it was enough to unsettle her. The disturbing news made her think about her own daughter. What if it was Riley?—she thought.