“And if you could go back,” he wondered, “would you?”
No, Avery thought. She would never go back. That life was over. But this new life…it wasn’t yet complete. She was still disgraced, still fighting from the shadows. Memories of her dark, empty apartment returned, of her life without friends or family – a daughter that wanted nothing to do with her. Suddenly, Avery felt herself slipping off a mental ledge, to a place she’d been only once before, a dark place.
“I can never go back,” she said.
“So,” Howard realized, “the past is gone, but the future is not yet bright. I can help you Avery. I want to help you.”
Avery looked up, back in the room again, sitting before Howard Randall and immersed in a case that already seemed cold.
“I need your help,” she admitted.
“And I need something from you, Avery.”
His small brown eyes opened wide with passionate intensity, and he leaned forward as far as he could go and repeated: “I need something from you.”
“What do you need?” she asked.
Randall’s entire persona changed. Hands slapped on the table and he leaned forward and practically yelled in her face with intense, rapid-fire words.
“Father,” he said, “Grover Black. Alcoholic. Rapist. Beater. Molester. Murderer.”
The words, like shots to her heart, launched Avery back to the past and she was there again, with her father and mother in that house in Ohio.
“No,” she declared.
“Mother. Layla Black. Alcoholic. Drug addict. Insane!”
Avery had been to therapists, lots of therapists, after the incident with Randall, but it was nothing like this. She’d been guarded then, in control the whole time. Now, Randall had reduced her to a six-year-old child with only a few words and incredible passion.
Tears came, the instinctual tears of a young girl that wanted to save her mother from a gun-toting father that knew no bounds.
“Father! Alcoholic. Shamer. Murderer!”
Desperate, out of her head, Avery stood up and banged on the door.
“Let me out,” she called.
Randall closed his mouth. He leaned back and raised a brow.
“Your killer is an artist, yes?” he said. “The bodies are positioned like lovers? He’s an introvert, a dreamer. Not someone that would pick girls randomly off the street. He has to find them, watch them, know them from somewhere. Think, Avery. Think…”
The guard opened the door.
Avery rushed out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Avery sat hunched over the wheel of her car, still in the prison parking lot, destroyed, a mess, a husk, tears streaming down her face. Horrible sobs broke free from her throat. At one point, she jerked up and screamed and slammed the wheel.
Words.
Every time she heard one of his words, she cried harder.
Molester. Alcoholic. Murderer.
“No, no, no.”
She banged her head to get the images out: her father in the woods, gun in hand. The body behind him. Varicose veins. Gray hair. That green dress.
“Get out, get, out, get out,” Avery begged.
She’d almost forgotten until then. So many years had been spent trying to forget the past, to get out of Ohio and wipe away her terrible history. In only a few words, Howard Randall had brought it all back.
You’re just like them, she cried in misery.
Murderer.
Alcoholic.
Just like them…just like them.
No! She mentally rallied. You’re nothing like them! You’re no murderer or drug addict. You’re not sick in the head. You do your best every day. Mistakes? Sure, but you try your hardest, all the time.
Get him out of my head.
Get him out of my head.
Fists rubbed away her tears.
Sobs were stifled.
Pull yourself together, she commanded.
Tears came again, only this time, they were softer, gentler – not about her old, painful past, but her new life, her lonely, tormented existence.
She hit the wheel.
“Pull it together!”
A detailed clarity came to her in that moment. Everything felt sharp and focused: the border of the windshield, her arm, the cars parked around her, the sky. Not exactly herself but fully in control, Avery picked up her phone to call Finley.
“Yo, yo,” he answered.
“Finley,” she said, “where are you?”
“I’m in the office working my ass off. Where the hell are you? I should get a raise for this, you know? Aren’t I supposed to get the day off for finding a psycho? I just had one of the greatest chases of my life and now I’m stuck in an office. I should be out there having a beer.”
His entire monologue had come out like a single word.
Avery rubbed her eyes.
“Finley, slow down. What have you found so far?”
“Why are people always telling me to slow down?” he complained as if he were truly upset. “I talk just fine. Everyone in my crew understands me perfectly. Maybe other people are the problem, ever think about that? My mother used to say.”
“Finley! The update.”
“The body is with the coroner,” he said, calmer and slower. “Crime scene wrapped up. They found some fibers but it looks like they’re the same ones from Jenkins: cat hair, a few dabs of plant extract on her clothes. Last few hours I’ve been looking for connections, like you asked. Different majors: economics and accounting. One a junior, one a senior. Different sororities, no family connections at all. Blah, blah, blah. Talked to Ramirez. He said Cindy’s parents mentioned an art class she took in Cambridge last semester. Place called Art for Life. Located on Cambridge Street and Seventh. Called Tabitha’s friends for a connection. Waiting to hear back.”
Artist, Avery thought. He said our killer is an artist.
“Who teaches there?” she asked. “Who owns the studio?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Do I have a thousand hands, now?” he barked. “You gave me like, a hundred jobs. I have no idea who teaches that fuckin’ class. I told you, I’m waiting to hear back.”
She closed her eyes.
“OK,” she said. “Thanks.”
“You coming back to help me out or what?” Finley complained.
“I need to tie up some loose ends,” she said. “You have Cindy’s address? And Tabitha’s? I want to swing by their dorms and see what I can find.”
“I was already at Tabitha’s dorm. Just some chick room. Fancy clothing and stupid posters. Nothing there.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Cindy had lived in a house not far from the Kappa Kappa Gamma suite, or from her boyfriend. The two-story white Tudor with blue trim housed two people. Cindy rented out the first floor; the second floor was inhabited by another Harvard senior.
Avery called ahead to ensure Harvard officials would let her inside.
A spare set of keys was under a rock by the front porch.
Cindy’s apartment smelled like stale air. There were four main rooms: living room, bedroom, a spare room she’d converted into an office, and the kitchen. A few pieces of modern art adorned the walls.
The office was filled with a slew of library-issued texts, along with a number of paperback romances. Papers were stacked on the desk.
Avery checked through the files. Medical bills, class folders, job interview letters, resumes. Everything was neat and orderly. Avery took notes on her phone: Cindy’s medical provider, every teacher she’d had, the places she’d interviewed, and her current employer: Devante Accounting Firm. The letter of her acceptance as a junior accountant in their firm was proudly displayed on the desk.