Page 10

The first bit of news I see about the ordeal, to my surprise, makes me laugh.

It’s not a newspaper, but the glossy front of a gossip magazine. They’ve taken the moment that Dirk took his shirt off before the camera zoomed back in, and the large, bold pink print titles Detective Yummy , with the white capitalised subheading under that declaring I'll Take One Rescue From Detective Big D**k Please . I snort, opening the magazine to page four where the story seems to mostly be asking who else is mad at Cocooner for marring such fine arms. Leave it to the thirsty ladies to bring humour to a crap situation.

I look up at Dirk. We’re parked out the front of a cordoned-off old office in Crennick, waiting for Dean and Howie’s car to arrive. Snow dots onto the windscreen, melting immediately, the engine running to keep us warm. “Can you believe this?” I ask, showing him the cover.

He glances towards me. "Yeah, ridiculous."

"I know!" I say, flipping back to the ‘story’.

"I'm a detective. I don't do rescues."

I slap him with the magazine.

Laughing, Dirk dismisses it. “Whatever, the attention is off you. They’ll forget about me too soon.”

“Hm,” I hum, not convinced, and a little put out at just how much the women of Tregam seem to be gunning for him. I’ve never been the horribly jealous type, but that doesn’t mean I want to be competing with damn near everybody.

Eyeing me, Dirk reaches over and squeezes my thigh, grinning. “Don’t tell me you're feeling jealous?”

“No!” I respond, too quickly and too high-pitched.

“Trust me, baby. Now that I’ve got your pussy, nothing’s going to distract me from it.”

I click my tongue as though he’s being ridiculous, and meanwhile quietly judge myself just a little for relaxing at his words. “How sweet. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

For a moment, he looks thoughtful. “You should meet my mother.”

My stomach drops like he’s just suggested a picnic in Crennick, at nighttime, naked. “Uh, that’s not really what I was getting at…”

“She’ll like you.”

“Why?” I blurt out. Caleb’s mother sure didn’t. Ever. From the moment she met me, I wasn’t good enough. A very small part of me would like to go to her and grill her about what her too-perfect son became, what he’d been all along. But she probably knew, probably covered for him as a kid when the signs started to show.

Dirk snorts. “I’ll explain later. Here they are.”

As their car pulls up, Dirk steps out, leaving me with that future meeting to feel anxious about for the next weeks, or potentially months, if I can put it off for long enough. I step out of the car, shrugging into my warm jacket. Dean claps Dirk on the shoulder as we all turn for the inside of the building. “Man of the hour! They’ll be making a calendar of you soon, huh?”

“Shut up,” Dirk mumbles, eliciting a laugh from all of us.

The forensics have already been through the building, to little result. The crime scene was overrun with media and onlookers long before we were called, and with the events at the precinct, we’re all too late to the scene to find anything of use.

“What do they say at the morgue?” I ask as we pass through a dark hallway and to a small internal courtyard dusted with snow. All around, the shattered windowpanes are brown with age, and there are only little yellow markers left to describe the scene.

“Looks like another copycat so far,” Howie answers. “Died by strangulation. She was found in that tree,” he nods towards a dead-looking tree, bare twigs reaching towards the white sky.

I sigh out a breath, releasing a mouthful of steam. “Not much to go on.”

“No,” Dean agrees.

The snow starts to fall heavier, losing its floatiness and turning to sleet. We retreat back into the dark, destroyed hall. “Shit, we could have caught this guy. Easily, if the last creep was anything to go off,” I say.

“Maybe we still can,” Dirk comments, and from the look he gives me, I know what that means.

***

I’m in Tristan’s cell as much to check on him as to question him.

His eye is no longer swollen, though still blackened, and the cut on his lip is scabbed over, circled in a bruise. Judging by how slowly he moves, standing as I step up to the glass, I can guess his ribs are bandaged, too.

“We found him,” I say.

Tristan tilts his head in question.

“The one attacking those women. You were right. He ran a budget gym, the one common place we found between all the women. He’s been arrested.”

He nods slowly, as though none of this surprises him.

“How are you feeling?”

“About the arrest?” Spreading his hands, Needler shrugs. “Pleased as I can be, I suppose. I’d handle him differently, personally.”

“Not what I meant.”

He gives a small, unconvincing smile. “Sore.”

I know there’s more than that. He’s worried about Cassandra, about everyone they ever knew. The ones who hurt them and the ones who helped them. One can presume they weren’t all bad. I walk to his meal slot and put a case file in. It’s thin; today’s, the fake Cocooner. Tristan eyes my movements but doesn’t act, doesn’t say anything.

“Another fake. The scene was trampled. There’s not much to go on.”

“Alright,” he says, which could mean anything coming from him.

My jaw tightens. “You knew the cops would do that to you if I was in your cell,” I say, gesturing to his black eye.

Tristan snorts. “I don’t know everything .” I stare at him until, with a shrug, he admits, “But yeah, I suspected that much.”

Sighing through my nose, I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “Thank you.”

“Mm,”

Since the gratefulness didn’t quite come out sincere, I decide to throw him something else. “There’s been no news on Cassandra yet. They’re focussed on Dirk for now, and on you.”

“Their interest will shift soon enough.”

“Then help us find her first,” I implore. “We’ll lock her up. She’ll be as safe from them as they are from her.”

“Really? Given the gentle approach of your force, I’m finding that hard to believe.”

My lips tighten. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

“A lot of things shouldn’t have happened.”

“Look, we know she’s hiding out, probably sticking to one place given her online presence right now. And since you’re so concerned with the outing of your shared history, we can confidently guess that you know where that is. Tell us, for God’s sake!”

Tristan straightens, though he winces slightly as he does. “I won’t tell you.”

I groan. “Tristan, I can’t keep you here if…”

“I’ll show you.”

“What?”

“That’s the only way. I go with you.”

I let out a disbelieving laugh. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Nonetheless.” He turns away, carefully walking back to his bed, glancing over his shoulder at me to say. “That’s my offer.”

I know Dirk is in Tawill’s office, and that it’s not going well, even before I’ve reached the frosted glass door into her office. “…meant to get the people on our side with your gung-ho fucking force beating up everything they see?”

Cringing at Dirk’s raised voice—he’ll get himself suspended yet—I tap lightly on the door. Maybe I can divert the conversation, just slightly.

A pause. “Come in,” comes Tawill’s curt, sharp call.

She doesn’t look surprised to see me, and as I take a seat in the chair beside Dirk’s, facing her over a wide, mostly clear desk, Tawill’s attention turns back to him. “We have enough to deal with thanks to your little display to the media. Do you know how many people we’ve needed to bring into witness protection?”

I clear my throat as subtly as I can. “Is this about the Syr Evan show? It did get the rioters to clear the precinct…”

“I’m fully aware of what it achieved.”

Dirk tilts his head to me. “Our illustrious leader here wants me to lie about how I got this…” He points to the greenish bruise on his jaw. “Instead of telling the truth, which is that most of our officers can’t control their fists.” His voice hardens as he directs his words back to Tawill.

“It’s too damaging at this time,” she starts. “We can address the shortcomings of the force at a later time. The truth is we can’t do without them given the state of Tregam now.”

“The truth is they were laying into an unarmed man…”

“There’s a lot of truths we’d all best ignore, don’t you think,” Tawill says pointedly, glancing towards me. And that’s how we can be certain that she knows about us. I hide a grimace. As if she needed more reason not to like us in particular.

Dirk shuts his mouth, which is probably the first smart thing he’s done in this room. Before things can devolve again, I barrel into my own news. “I think Nee—Tristan, knows where his sister is.”

“Why do I feel that’s not as simple as it sounds?”

“Well… he won’t tell me.” Before Tawill can say anything, I add. “He’ll only show us. Going together, that is.”

Tawill stares at me. “Absolutely not.”

“I wasn’t trying to get permission. Of course, I know that’s insane!”

Tawill closes the binder on the desk in front of her. “It doesn’t matter. He’s leaving anyway.”

“What? For where?”

She looks at me like I’ve just admitted not knowing how the day-night cycle works. “ Prison , detective. You do remember a time when putting him there was your goal?”

As she stands, Dirk and I stand too. “But how? If we try to move him out of here, there’s a high chance we’ll be swarmed. Besides, we need him…”

“You don’t need him,” she says, walking around the desk to her door. “If he was of any help, you’d have made more progress by now.”

“He has assisted in the arrest of a rapist,” Dirk puts in.

About to open her door and officially end this meeting, Tawill turns back to us. “Warm sentiments for Needler are, as one single ray of a silver lining, at their all-time lowest right now. He’s a ticking bomb, and he’s already gone off on us once. We’re getting him out of here while we can.”

“We’d still risk losing him, anyway. If we’re going to do that, we might as well have him at least lead us to Cocooner!”

She stares at me. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“Of course not! But…”

“Tristan has admitted guilt. He’s convicted. That means he goes to prison, and they decide what to do with him there.”

I feel my chest tighten at that. “They could sentence him to the chair. He doesn’t deserve that. If he assists in catching Cocooner, he’s at least liable to get leniency…”

“That’s no longer up to us. We catch them, then they’re no longer our concern. You know that.” I open my mouth, but Tawill cuts me off. “I want him out , detective. This has dragged on long enough.”

Her hand is on the door handle, the conversation closed. That’s when I snap. “What the hell is your problem?”

In the second that follows, I press my teeth shut. Considering I came in here to stop Dirk from getting himself suspended, I appear to now be throwing myself under the bus instead.

Dirk has turned to me with a warning look, like I might be out of my mind.

Giving me a chance to take it back, Tawill asks slowly, “Excuse me?”

I should probably back down. But I usually don’t do the things I should probably do, so why start now? “We all know he doesn’t deserve the death sentence. Just like you must know that Dirk did what he had to get the city to remember that we’re not the bad guys here. If you’re worried about the riots now, it’ll be nothing compared to what they’ll do the day Needler is sentenced to death.”

Tawill is staring at me like I’m some kind of irritating puzzle. Seeming to catch up and collect herself, Tawill lets her hand slide off the door handle and turns fully to face me. “How long until they call the National Guard?”

I squint. What is she talking about? “National…”

“Tregam is on the brink of being brought under martial law,” Tawill hisses, voice low and angry.

Now it’s my turn to look at her like she’s insane. I knew things looked bad, sure. But this is Tregam. Things usually look bad. “But the riots are over…”

“They’re not over,” Tawill snaps. “Conrad might be under house arrest for now, but we can’t hold him long under inciting a supposedly peaceful riot. Yes, they stormed the precinct, but none of his followers actually assaulted anyone.” Right. They left that up to our officers. “And as for the vandalism, those riots can’t be pinned on Conrad. There will be other Conrad’s, other reasons to start again. They’re in shock for now, but they’ll be back. You want to know why I want Needler gone? Because if they raid the precinct again—something that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place—we’re all fucked. Do you know how long a city takes to recover from martial law?”

I don’t, but I can guess it’s not a short time.

“If we can’t get things under control, Tregam is about to go in a very bad direction, detectives.”

“Surely it hasn’t come to that,” Dirk says, stepping forward.

“Think about it; Crennick Row, the highest murder and violent crime rate in the country, a criminal we can’t move for fear of vigilante action, a former mayor candidate leading riots that are decimating parts of the city and even getting inside the precinct, and a killer on the loose gathering her own mob. Does that sound like a stable place to you?”

To that, neither of us can say anything.

With admirably held calm now, Tawill tells us. “We need to calm the people and take back control. Before someone else does it for us.”

I open my mouth, but Chloe has appeared in the open doorway, looking sheepish and concerned at once.

“We may have an issue,” is her introduction, and coming from her, that’s about the equivalent of being told we’re about to be raided again.

Dirk and I follow her back to our case room. Howie and Dean are gathered around that grey box of a computer that I’m starting to associate exclusively with bad news. Howie, face solemn, nods for us to come and look. Perched on the edge of the computer chair, I stare at the screen.

The chat is disordered, with too many voices shouting into the same space, more popping in even now as the feed scrolls down. But there is a common thread among the other seemingly meaningless babble. One of the posters has the name Chrysalis. That one we’ve worked out so far is Cassandra, and her posts stand out now.

The verses are separated by the chatter between them, so I read them aloud:

“I’ve seen people put

A chrysalis in a match-box,

‘To see,’ they told me,

‘what sort of moth would come.’

But when it broke its shell

It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison

And tried to climb to the light

For space to dry its wings.

That’s how I was.

Somebody found my chrysalis

And shut it in a match-box.

My shrivelled wings were beaten,

Shed their colours in dusty scales

Before the box was opened

For the moth to fly.”

I frown, sitting back.

“It’s from a poem,” Howie says, instigating us all to look back at him. “By Adlington.”

“You read poetry?” Dean asks.

Howie gives him a look. “There is more to literature than case files.”

Dean raises his hands in surrender. “So what? Cocooner is taking this chance to recite poetry? Or…”

“It’s a message,” I conclude, and looking back at it, I ascertain. “The moth in prison… it’s got to be Needler.”

“And opening the box…”

“Releasing him. To her,” I conclude.

“That’s what we thought.” Dean sighs. “We were hoping you’d have a different interpretation.”

“A less problematic one.”

“If she knows we’re reading this too, it could be a demand,” Dean points out.

“She knows,” I say with a sigh. She must. Looking back over my shoulder, I meet Howie’s eye. “To do what with, when she gets him?”

“I suppose that depends if blood really is thicker than water.”

Sitting back stare blankly at the screen. “I guess her followers haven’t been turned off by the reveal of her being Needler’s sister?”

Chloe answers this one. “Some dropped off, presumably afraid, but the ones who’ve stayed… well, they’ve stayed.”

I bite my lip. “Tristan said he’d take us to her.”

That is met with silence. I stand, suddenly wanting to be away from that screen. “How does the poem end?” I ask Howie.

Squinting, recalling, he recites,

“ I don’t believe in God.

I do believe in avenging gods

Who plague us for sins we never sinned

But who avenge us .”

We’re all silent for a moment. “I’m going to take that as, ‘up for interpretation’,” Dirk speaks up.

“Uh-huh,” Dean hums doubtfully. “She thinks she’s doing nothing wrong and she’s going to kill him,” he concludes, earning him sharp looks from all of us.

“You got that from the poem?” I ask, even though I’d been leaning towards the same conclusion.

“Well, not just that. But what else will she do with him? He’s too dangerous to her to be kept free. And it’s likely she holds the original Cocooner, Caleb—who Needler killed—as some kind of paramour. That could be the vengeance she’s talking about. Rather than anything Needler has avenged.”

“I think the more important question,” Howie says, “Is what will she do if we don’t give her what she wants?”

***