“It’s the clothes,” she said, picking up her fork to twirl more pasta around before bringing it to her mouth and forcing a heavy swallow. “The clothes. They’re clean. He’s cleaned them. He likes to pretend that he takes care of them, that he protects them. They’re his art and his children at the same time. He doesn’t think he’s punishing them,” she said, feeling her vision go blurry and unfocused as she continued to speak. Her brain and her body were detaching themselves from each other, letting her look at the pictures without panicking. Good, she thought. It was better to be numb than to be alive, if the price of the latter was so high.
Gage nodded quickly, his eyes glued to the photographs rather than looking at Fiona. “Good. That’s good. I hadn’t…I hadn’t thought of that. What about…?” He paused as he pulled the first photo back and pushed the other four closer to Fiona. “What about those? Anything special about them?”
Fiona didn’t answer for a long minute; she just stared down at the four pictures. “The girls are different from each other,” she murmured out loud, her eyes flicking back and forth from the different photographs. “Black, white, Asian. He doesn’t stick to one type.”
Gage leaned over the table, at what must have been an uncomfortable angle for his back, as he pointed out a detail on the third picture. “He made a weird engraving here, on her skin, just below the knee. It’s not the best picture of it. Clearly whoever was photographing the crime scene didn’t notice it or he’d have gotten a close-up. But what do you think it is?”
Fiona hadn’t noticed it at first, either. She supposed that was probably the killer’s point, to make it hard to see. But now that she looked at it, she could see that it was a spiral, carved out of flesh, a looping figure that started with a small coil, then got bigger and bigger as the killer went on. “Too soon to tell,” Fiona murmured. “But it bolsters the idea that he sees what he’s doing as art. He’s an artist. He’s making a point, maybe a political point, to the world. He wants someone to figure him out. He wants to be appreciated.”
“Sick fuck,” Gage muttered under his breath, finally sitting back down across from Fiona and attacking his dinner with his fork and knife. Fiona stared at him for a long moment, watching how he messily ate, dripping pasta sauce and seasoning down the front of his shirt without even noticing. In the past, it would have made her giggle and wipe down his shirt for him. She would have leaned over him, just as he did over her a few minutes before, and given him kisses on his neck. Fiona practically shivered in her seat at the memory. It felt so real, so close, like she was watching her life unfold in front of her, looking back on her past.
She had to say something, do something, to erect a boundary, something that couldn’t be crossed, otherwise she couldn’t stay here. That much was clear. And Carl, she thought. What would Carl think, seeing me eating dinner with my ex like this?
Fiona cleared her throat before she spoke. “You can’t do that, you know, what you did earlier. Touching me like that, talking to me like that. You just can’t. I’m engaged now,” she reminded him.
Gage looked up from his dinner, his fork frozen in midair as he looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said again, but the words came out a little too quickly, like he’d been rehearsing them beforehand. “I just…I just wanted to help you feel better. That’s all. I promise.”
Gage was never much for promises, Fiona remembered. He’d always say, “What will be will be.” But now he was promising to respect her boundaries. It was the best she had, for right now at least. Maybe we can be professional, she thought as she resumed eating. Maybe we can really be friends, work friends. That would be nice. After all, she and Gage had started out as friends, at the courthouse where they’d met, both testifying against her captor. Gage brought pictures of his little sister to present to the court while Fiona brought her own scarred body as evidence. They’d bonded that day. It would be a shame to lose that connection forever, right?
Chapter Five
Gage’s heart thumped in his throat, pounding against his Adam’s apple. He stabbed at his food, eating as quickly as possible, willing his heart to calm the fuck down. But he’d been close to Fiona, really close to her—physically and emotionally—for the first time in over a year. How else was he supposed to react?
Underneath the table, Gage’s free hand sat in his lap, his fingers crossed. It was an old habit, an unfortunate holdover from his childhood that stuck around. Whenever he lied or wasn’t sure that he was telling the truth, he’d cross his fingers, as if that made it better. His fingers were crossed now for the sake of his “promise” not to push things with Fiona. He just couldn’t help it. It was like his fingers had their own agenda, and what they wanted was to touch her again. Even now, mere minutes after he’d comforted her, his fingertips itched like they physically needed to brush up against her skin.