Page 27 of Girl, Unmasked
‘Fine.I’ll read it.’
‘Excellent.And I want you toreallyread it.Note anything that stands out.Characters, settings, M.O.Pay attention to the victims and the places.If you notice any familiar names, note them down.’
Ripley rolled her eyes.‘Whatever you say, captain.I’ll have your book report done within the hour.’
‘Perfect.I’m gonna see what the coroner’s found, and if you find anything useful, call me immediately.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He was Cain now.
Not the snivelling weakling he’d been before.The one who’d let the world kick him in the teeth and grind its heel into his spine.That man was ashes in the wind.In his place stood someone new, and he was ready to unleash his mission upon the world.
Cain.The name felt right.Like a new skin stretched over old bones.Last night’s events had finally cracked open the chrysalis and revealed the monster within.
He reclined in a creaky diner chair and sipped a coffee that tasted awful but cost a dollar for unlimited refills.He'd been coming here for years, ever since he'd washed up in this nowhere burg with holes in his socks and a head full of bad wiring.It was familiar and unchanging.The burnt coffee, the sticky menus, the bored-eyed waitresses.This place was a known quantity in a world full of variables.
Today, the morning crowd milled about as they jabbered on phones.But Cain was an island unto himself, adrift in his own thoughts as the plebs flowed around him like water off a duck's back.
Because today was the first day of the rest of his life, the first day he could walk in the daylight with his head high and his conscience clear.
Cain's fingers twitched towards the folded newspaper on the faux-wood table.Tucked between the Metro section and the funny page birdcage liner was his pride and joy – a photocopy of the manuscript forHalo of Blood.He'd pored over those pages so many times the words were burned into his brain, but he never got tired of drinking in that sweet poetry.Sometimes he’d just pick a page at random and start reading, and every time he struggled to pull himself away.
But it wasn't just a book now.It was a road map.An instruction manual for what had begun but certainly hadn't ended.
The girl last night had been the first, and now, in the cold light of day, the whole thing felt like a fever dream.These calloused hands of his, they’d been the instruments that had stripped that woman of her human skin and transformed her into a fallen angel.A blade to her back, a scalpel to her eyeballs – he’d pulled it off without a hitch and left her for the police to find.Art had become creation, melded together until no one could tell where one ended and the other began.
But if that was the case, why was no one talking about it?
He'd scanned every inch of this damn newspaper as he searched for some acknowledgment of his work, but there'd been nothing.No screaming headlines or bolded bylines.Merely the usual parade of human misery, like car crashes, political scandals, celebrity DUIs, and Middle Eastern strife.
It was okay, he told himself.Everything was fine.If the body didn’t get people talking, then the little gift he’d left behind surely would.Cain had to think that it would take any detective a while to find his secret addition to the crime scene, because unlike the wings and eyes and halo, this one was lodged out of sight.
Cain imagined the looks on the cops' faces when they found his calling card.They'd know they weren't dealing with some garden-variety nutjob.No, this was a connoisseur's crusade, and he was the ringmaster of his very own circus macabre.
So lost was Cain in his revelry that he didn't notice the frumpy waitress at his elbow until she clattered his coffee cup onto her tray.Almost didn't register the tinny voice needling into his reverie like a drill.
‘Was everything okay for you?’
With her pursed lips and sour disapproval, the woman had a face like a pickled walnut.The crooked nametag on her uniform readGladys – 30 Years of Service!
Thirty years too long, by the looks of her.Another drone, another worker ant skittering through her prescribed paces.Running her maze for a pat on the head and a peanut at the end.
Cain pasted on his best good ol' boy grin, the one that belonged to the man he'd been before.The spineless simpleton.Just another face in the crowd.
‘Great, thank you.Best brew in town, I tell you.’
Gladys didn't smile back.Her gaze had wandered to the papers fanned out in front of him, the manuscript tucked amongst them.Cain startled as his hands reflexively clutched the manuscript to his chest.
'Whatcha readin' there, sweetheart?One of them, Harlequin romances, my Suzy's always going on about?'
He hated when people called him sweetheart, sweetie, baby, like he was some doddering grandpa in the bingo halls.
‘It’s a novel,’ was all he could muster.
'You write it yourself?That's why it's on A4 paper?'
Cain felt his innards clench like he'd swallowed gravel.She’d seen it.This menial nobody had laid eyes on his bible.He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he’d been violated in a way that went beyond the physical.
