Page 19 of Follow Her Down
“You don’t,” I say, stepping carefully around a pool of congealing blood and the remnants of a broken mirror.“You just learn to hold it in until you’re alone.”
Margot has blonde hair, dyed bright red, now matted dark at the roots.Her face is slack in death, but her eyes are open—wide and blue and utterly vacant.There are ligature marks on her wrists, deep purple bruises that speak of a struggle.Her ankles show similar abrasions.She fought.Hard.But not hard enough.Red Hands always wins this particular argument.
Sheriff Vincent appears at the door, his face a mask of grim authority.“Crowe.Took you long enough.Did you stop again to help a couple raccoons cross the road?”
“Something like that.”
I have a bit of a reputation for being a softy towards those in need, whatever the species, but in a world that more and more lacks empathy, I don’t plan on changing anytime soon.
I kneel beside the body, careful not to disturb anything.“Who found her?”
“Anonymous tip called into dispatch thirty minutes ago.”Vincent’s gaze sweeps the room, lingering on the blood-spattered wallpaper.“Male voice, muffled.Said we’d find ‘truth’ here.”
Classic Red Hands.He loves an audience.He wants us to see his work, to understand the message he’s carving into flesh and bone.His calling card—the red handprint—is smeared on the wall above the victim’s head, stark against the faded floral print.So is his message:
THE TRUTH IS LOUDER THAN HER VOICE.
The handprint looks human, but it’s not traceable.Red Hands wears ultra-thin latex gloves molded with generic fingerprint whorls.In other words, he could be anyone.
Margot’s dyed hair, new boyfriend, new job at the local grocery store, and her recent acceptance to nursing school suggested a fresh start.She was reinventing herself.
Just like all the others.
Red Hands’s type.Women shedding their old skins, trying on new identities like ill-fitting coats.To him, they’re frauds.Pretenders.And he’s the judge, jury, and executioner, peeling back their layers until only “truth” remains.
I examine Margot’s hands, unsurprised to find her fingernails painted a vibrant, candy-apple red.The fresh color looks garish against her pale skin, applied thickly and unevenly.The cuticles are ragged, the skin around the nails stained with the color.
This red is aggressive.Loud.A statement.
“Polish was applied post-mortem like all the others,” I observe, lifting one of her limp hands.
This cheap, bright-red polish, at least in Red Hands’s mind, reveals her, forcing us to see the dissonance he perceived.Look, he seems to be screaming without sound.Look how false she was.
Red Hands doesn’t take trophies like some serial killers.The BTK Killer, who was active in the mid-1970s through the early 90s in and around Wichita, took all sorts of trophies.
But Red Hands leaves them.Relics of the lives his victims tried to leave behind, like pictures sometimes, bottles of pills, or broken mirrors from the victims’ houses spread out beneath them.He also poses each victim with a burned rose between their clasped hands, a symbol of rebirth.
My mind flickers, unbidden, to the gas station.To Sera Vale, restocking chips with that detached grace.Her dark hair—freshly dyed, roots already betraying her.Her blue eyes, holding secrets like shivs.She’s exactly Red Hands’s type.A woman hiding in plain sight, building a new identity from scratch.
And she works for Rick.
Rick Davies.Rick, with his too-easy smile and wandering hands.Rick, who was accused of harassment by Margot before she quit the Gas N’ Go.Rick, who always seems a little too calm when the news of another woman’s disappearance breaks over the city like a bad storm.
Does Gas N’ Go sell nail polish?I wouldn’t doubt it.
A chill creeps down my back, colder than the stale air in the death room.Rick fits the profile.His access to the women, his behavior, his proximity.His entitlement.The way he views women—as things to be handled, polished, possessed.Or discarded if they don’t comply.
Vincent is talking, his voice a low drone about canvassing the neighborhood, checking Margot’s recent contacts, the usual protocol.I nod, my mind racing ahead, already forming a plan.
First: Interrogate Rick and see if he sweats.
Second: Get Sera away from that job without tipping her off.Without making her feel like a victim or a target.I can already tell she won’t accept charity.She won’t trust a rescue.I’ll need leverage.Something she wants more than her job, more than money, but she can’t be making that much there anyway.
Protectiveness surges, hot and fierce.She’s a mystery wrapped in danger.A liar with haunted eyes.And she’s standing right in the kill zone.
I won’t let Rick—or Red Hands—touch her.
Miller gags again, stumbling towards the door.Vincent sighs, the sound heavy with disdain for weakness.I ignore them both, staring at Margot’s prayerful pose, her garish nails.A woman silenced, posed, painted.A message in blood and cheap polish.
