Page 122

“Are you sure?”Jake asked again. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”

Dana kept her eyes trained on the road ahead. “When are you ever ready to find out how deeply you’ve been betrayed?”

Jake pulled up in front of Dvita’s house, finding a spot on the street among the other police and federal vehicles. He shut off the engine and turned to her. “Look at me.”

She did.

“It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. Whatever BAU found inside, it’ll still be there tomorrow. We can go home, get some rest, and come back with clear eyes.”

“I can’t go home.”

“My home,” he corrected, reaching over the console to take her hand. “It’s yours for however long you need.”

She pulled out of his grasp and opened the car door, muttering, “I just want to get this over with.”

Jake followed Dana into Dvita’s house. It was swarming with agents, officers, and forensics. Richter greeted them at the entrance to the large home office. “This way,” he said, ushering them toward the wall of built-in shelves lined with an inordinate amount of leather-bound books. It reminded Jake of a law library.

Richter walked ahead of them, removing a book, and pushing a button behind it. Jake heard a click and watched the bookshelf creak open, revealing a hidden room behind it.

“Christ,” Jake muttered. The room was straight out of a horror movie. The walls lined with pages of love letters, newspaper clippings, drawings of the Grim Reaper, Latin phrases, and photographs, all of the same woman. The only thing missing was the anarchy symbol and a sacrificial altar to the devil.

Jake had seen some strange things in his day, but this might top it all.

“Who is she?” Dana asked, pointing to the dark haired girl in all the photographs.

“Annabelle Sorkin. She drowned ten years ago while sailing on the Chester River. It was ruled an accident, but her family maintains it was a suicide. She was undergoing hypnotherapy for depression at the time.”

“Let me guess,” Jake said. “Dvita was her therapist.”

“Bingo.”

Dana moved past Jake to the shrine built around the photograph of the beautiful raven-haired woman. “She looks just like Claire,” Dana whispered more to herself than anyone, but Jake heard and had to agree. The similarities were eerily alike.

He watched as Dana scanned the lines of poetry that were written sporadically around the room in large red letters. It looked like a child had taken a crayon and scrawled the eerie words there.

Dana read a line out loud. “My darling—my life and my bride, in her sepulchre there by the sea—in her tomb by the sounding sea.” She turned to face Richter. “This is Edgar Allen Poe’s poem. Annabel Lee.”

“Correct,” Richter said, sharing a look with Dana that told Jake they both understood something he didn’t.

“What am I not getting?” Jake asked.

“Poe’s poem about lost love is widely regarded as the anthem of necromancy.” Dana moved around the room to read another line of poetry. “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling.” She looked at the bewildered room of agents. “Lying down beside the dead body in the tomb hints at necrophilia.”

“Christ,” Jake muttered again.

“Exactly,” Richter said. “And look at this.”

He led Dana back to the small desk in the corner that acted as an altar of sorts. Annabelle Sorkin’s framed photo sat atop, surrounded by a mound of melted candles. Richter pulled open a drawer that had been hidden by the wax. Inside were a collection of bones.

“These are human remains,” Dana said. She looked at Richter. “Annabelle Sorkin’s?”

“That’s what we believe.”

Dana’s eyes lit with the excitement of a theory. “He was trying to bring her back! That’s what the Reaper murders were. He needed seven sacrifices. Seven must sleep for all to rise. Dvita was trying to raise the dead and bring her back. He was in love with her.”

“It seems so.” Richter said, walking to another small table in the room. “We found several diaries where he details the intimate relationship between them.”

Jake felt his stomach turn. “The girl in the photograph looks like she’s barely nineteen. Dvita was in his seventies. Whatever sick twisted game he played with the vulnerable girl backfired and she killed herself, leaving him remorse stricken and what, deranged enough to think he could bring her back by hypnotizing his patients into a murder pact?”

“Precisely,” Richter said. “He details it all right here,” he said, pointing to what looked like a scrapbook with written pages pasted into it. “Right down to how he chose which patients to target.”

Dana flipped through the book, her gloved fingers shaking as she read the words Dvita had stolen from his patient’s tragic pasts.

Norton Hayes – My son was stillborn. That’s when it all started. The darkness. The addiction.

Kylie Marx - Losing my father nearly killed me. I did everything I could to numb the pain.

Cash Holloway – My girlfriend died in a car accident. I was driving. My parents pulled me out of school after that, but that just made my depression worse.

Max Durnin – My mother died giving birth to me. I never met her, but I feel the void where she’s supposed to be. It’s like an anchor and I don’t know how to swim.

Meredith Kincaid – I don’t deserve forgiveness for all I’ve done. And those who give it to me make my guilt even heavier.

When Dana got to the page about Claire, she fought against the bile burning her throat.

Claire Townsend – I miss her every day. I’m the only one who knew her. I’m the only one who cares that she died. When I lost her, I lost a part of myself. But I won’t rest until I’m reunited with her.

Tears stung Dana’s eyes as she realized the pain Claire had been hiding all this time. She knew watching Sadie die had scarred Claire, but she hadn’t understood the depth until now.

“They all had the same vulnerabilities. Childhood traumas, deep loss and depression that made them loners, prone to addiction and influence.”

“He preyed on these people,” Dana said, her voice tight.

“He did,” Richter said. “We believe through hypnosis, he was able to convince them of his cause, that sacrificing themselves was the right thing to do, because they’d all come back in the end, renewed, reborn with a clean slate.”

“Why did it keep happening after he was dead?” Jake asked.

“Because the damage was done,” Dana said, without tearing her eyes from the book. “Dvita had already poisoned their minds to do his bidding.” She looked at Richter. “It’s why the profile never fit. There were multiple Unsubs.”

He nodded. “Turns out you were right. We now believe Dvita killed Hayes. Kylie Marx killed Cash Holloway. Max killed Kylie, then Dvita, then himself; suicide by cop, which he confesses to Claire in the letter we found in his car.”

“What about Claire?” Jake asked. “What was her role in all of this?”

“This is where it gets interesting,” Richter said. “According to Max’s letter, it sounded like Claire was orchestrating the whole thing.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jake argued. “Dvita is obviously the master mind. Look at this place. Claire’s the only one who didn’t kill anyone in this Reaper scenario.”

“That’s not true,” Dana said, staring at him. “She thought she killed Hartwell. He was the seventh. And she ordered the assassination on Mere at the hospital.”

“That makes no sense,” Jake said. “Why wouldn’t Dvita plan to be the last one standing so he could bring back Annabelle?”

“I think that was his plan, but Max and Claire had other plans.” Richter handed Dana his phone. On it was a photograph of a scythe with the same Latin inscription on the blade as all the others. It was in a small nondescript room surrounded by boxes, but Dana recognized it immediately. “That’s my attic.”

“We found the seventh and final scythe there.”

Jake swore. “That’s how she did it!”

“Did what?” Dana asked.

“The night she snuck out to meet Kylie and Max, she said she snuck out the window, but I knew she was lying because I had security cameras set up. The window never opened, but Claire came and went somehow. Is there access to the attic from your guest room?”

Dana nodded. “Through the closet.”

“We believe she was saving the final scythe for you, Dr. Gray,” Richter said, handing a copy of another letter to Dana. “This was found in Max Durnin’s stolen vehicle as well. We believe Claire wrote this one. We just need Dr. Gray to identify the handwriting.”

Dana read a few lines before her hands began shaking too badly to continue. “It’s her handwriting,” Dana whispered, a choked sob slipping free.

Jake intervened, taking the letter from her. “That’s enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Richter said as Jake escorted Dana out of the house of horrors.