Imago

A brilliant white butterfly flew between the trees, rising and falling. It flapped its wings furiously, slaloming around thick, mossy trunks left and right. High above, the treetops rustled gloomily in the fierce gusts of wind. Down here, the forest was dark, cool, and damp. The undergrowth steamed, filling the area with a rich earthy scent.

A cabbage butterfly perched on the trunk of a fat oak at the edge of a meadow—a patch of grass, weeds, and a few flowers amidst the forest thicket. It basked in the sun, and the light reflecting off its white wings was almost blinding. It unfolded and folded them slowly.

It clung tightly to the mossy, wrinkled bark, trembling only slightly as the wind blew stronger from the meadow.

Suddenly he took flight and turned back the way he had come—back into the forest.

Perhaps the buzzing of a swarm of flies that had descended on the meadow had startled him.

Or perhaps the intoxicating stench of red blood spreading across the green grass and soaking into the black earth.

The flies settled in a thick carpet on the ground as soon as the clatter of retreating footsteps died down.

***

Tad Aston crouched and passed under the yellow tape, which several officers had strung among the trees near the road as lavishly as if marking the crater of a small meteorite. He was a young man, about thirty, tall and quite handsome—though at the moment he didn't look particularly attractive. His tousled blond hair stood out on his tired head like a broken bush. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth. But it made no difference to him or anyone else. After all, he wasn't going to pick up a guy, so he wasn't supposed to "look good." He wasn't supposed to be the center of attention either. He simply had to arrive as quickly as possible. A phone call woke him around six, and though he tried to croak some excuses into the receiver, the voice on the other end cut any explanations short and emphatically.

"Don't talk nonsense, sugar doll, just get your ass in gear and I'll see you back here in fifteen minutes!" the caller roared into the phone and hung up.

Tad grimaced and blinked. He shrugged. He dressed hurriedly, putting on an unironed shirt, undone the buttons, tied his tie crookedly, didn't polish his shoes, and only put on his jacket properly. Before leaving, he drank a hot cup of coffee in one gulp, scalding his tongue. He didn't start howling in pain just because there was no time.

He got in his car and drove out of town. He turned off the main road and looked for his destination. It would be hard to miss them - several police cars were already on the scene, and a small crowd of uniformed officers and serious, puffy-eyed people was gathering at the edge of the forest.

"What do we have, Vince?" he asked, stopping next to a balding Italian in a light-colored trench coat. Vince didn't look at him. They didn't shake hands. They warmed them in their pockets. It was a particularly nasty, cold morning. It was drizzling.

"A dead body. I've never seen anything like that in my life," Vince muttered, shaking his head. He'd been the one to wake Tad with the phone. "Go look, I've had enough..."

Tad pushed his way through several officers and tried to see over the heads of the team collecting evidence and securing it. Someone was taking blood samples, someone was scooping up clumps of dirt into a test tube. Someone was making molds of any suspicious dents in the ground.

Stan Kee, the forensic scientist, crouched in the center of the yellow tape, overlooking the source of all the commotion, examining him inch by inch from under his scraggly eyebrows.

"Jesus..." Tad crouched, his hand covering his mouth. He stared at the sack of gray, wrinkled skin that had once been a human being. The corpse didn't stare back—as sometimes happens when a corpse, its wide eyes seemingly staring you in the face, wherever you stood.

The corpse had no eyes.

The face was torn open like a paper bag. A bag that no longer held anything.

The ground beneath the body was soaked with blood. It had turned to black mud.

"Stan... Fuck... What is that?"

The pathologist, still bent over the body—or rather, what was left of it—didn't even move. He raised his hand and motioned for Tad to crouch beside him. Aston pressed his hand to his mouth, feeling the remnants of last night's dinner and this morning's coffee—which seemed still to be hot—slithering up his throat. He focused on Stan, but being so close to the crime scene—practically right under his nose—it was hard not to see the mangled flesh and blood, even from the corner of his eye. And even though common sense might defend itself and your stomach might protest, curiosity perversely draws your eyes where they shouldn't.

"Stan?" Tad hissed when the pathologist didn't answer for a long moment.

Stan stared at the mangled corpse with wide eyes, but without fear or disgust. He wrinkled his nose slightly, as the smell wafting from the body decomposing in its own juices wasn't exactly pleasant. But the same professionalism emanated from him as always. He examined the body with a watchful gaze, inch by inch, without emotion. Others grimaced and turned away. There were also a few vomit stains on the ground. The eager technician wanted to preserve some of the remains and take samples, but the pale officers quickly explained: "Those are ours." The witness who called the police probably didn't even have anything left to vomit about. But not Stan. It's hard to guess if he'd seen worse, or anything similar, in his life—but he'd probably seen plenty of wonders in almost thirty years of work. After the fiftieth, or perhaps the hundredth, corpse that landed on his table, the vegetative retching must have ceased—otherwise, instead of doing his job, he'd be spending half his day praying over the toilet like a bulimic. Perhaps composure, or perhaps a sense of duty, allowed him to calmly consider what had happened to him and draw logical conclusions.

"Male, Caucasian, approximately forty years old, judging by his progressive baldness and deepening wrinkles," Stan began calmly, his deep, dispassionate voice. He sounds like he himself died a hundred years ago, Tad thought when he'd first met him a few years ago, over the body of a mangled seventeen-year-old girl. Kee himself looked like one of his patients. His skin was pale, almost greenish, and while everyone else in the room looked rather unwell, having been roused by six o'clock at the latest, Stan truly looked like a corpse awaiting autopsy. He had a long, elongated face, sunken cheeks, pale eyes, thin lips, a few pathetic tufts of graying hair, and a pockmarked complexion. If he had dozed off on the job, someone might have felt compelled to mistakenly stuff him into a black bag.

"The identity of the victim is unknown," the pathologist continued. "The victim. That should have been said right away. Sometimes people did strange things to themselves that looked like murder. But no one would do something like that to themselves." "The body was naked when found, and no documents were found on it. Judging by the state of decomposition, it had been there for about three days. No internal organs or skeletal bones were present. Only the skin was found. Well-preserved skin tissue with all its layers. It appears to have been torn from the victim. I emphasize, torn. There are no signs of cuts, not even unskilled ones, made with an ordinary knife or anything. The victim was literally ripped apart and disemboweled. It's hard to say in what order. The fact that the skin isn't torn to shreds is puzzling. We have skin in one piece. Torn, boneless, and entrails removed, but in one piece. The torso, face, even the hand are cut. I don't know who or what did it, or how." It's too elaborate for an animal, but I don't know what kind of person would be capable of tearing someone apart like that. Besides, if it were an animal, it would have left some traces here. Animals aren't meticulous enough to clean up after themselves. There would be bones and pieces of intact or unfinished internal organs. And there's nothing. The boys are looking for traces of freshly packed earth; maybe someone buried them nearby." Stan glanced at the officers bustling around. "There are no signs of a struggle either. There's no blood, no bits of the attacker's skin under his fingernails. There's almost no blood on the victim's body at all. The clots are only on the jagged edges. The rest has soaked into the ground. It looks like all the blood is just from the torn skin. From the surface, it looks impressive, I'd say ten liters have soaked in, but it's just a two-dimensional, black puddle. To my eye, all the blood has leaked out of the blood vessels in the skin. If there had been a fight, all the blood would have gone into the muscles, ergo, we wouldn't have such a nice pool. I think the victim either didn't fight back or made some inhuman effort. But he didn't.

"So..." Tad rasped, risking a quick glance at the tattered skin bag, "we have the most impressive corpse in the history of our department here, and we don't know who it is, who killed him, or how he killed him."

Stan just nodded.

"That's all I can tell you for now. If I take him back to my place, maybe I can find something else. We still need to collect any fingerprints from the possible assailant at the scene. No visible traces were found. No fibers, no hairs, nothing.

" "Thanks," Aston said, rising from his crouch.

His legs stiffened, and he now staggered toward Vince.

"So? Did you find anything new?" Vince asked.

"He didn't find anything new on mine. What about you?"

"The boys are still combing the area inch by inch, but I'm having trouble seeing it. As you can see, we're having wonderful weather, which is making our work wonderfully difficult, maliciously covering up our tracks. It's a tiny drizzle, but if there's even a drop of dried blood that would tell us anything, it's surely been washed away by now. And if there were any prints, they're surely just lovely mud by now, and it's a miracle the boys haven't trampled them down yet.

" "So, in short: nothing but go get a good slap?

" "Yeah... I love this job..."

Aston ran his hand through his hair, shaking the water from it. He looked like a soaked hen. He craved nothing more than coffee. He didn't even dream of sleep.

Suddenly, Vince tugged at his sleeve.

"Don't sleep!"

He grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket. They gave Stan, who was watching over the body, a wide berth and headed toward a man who was calling them, filling a cast with plaster.

"What do you have?" Vince asked.

"Some kind of print. Barely visible. If it was two or three days ago, it was a beautiful day, so the ground wasn't as soft as today, and the perpetrator didn't leave such a deep mark. But there's something. And I've got blood here. Here, under the fern, near the mark. It's a miracle that drop survived."

They waited a while for the plaster to dry. When the technician decided it was ready, he removed the cast and cleaned it with a brush.

"And what do we have there?

" "A footprint," the man replied. "A bare foot."

Vince, who had been hunched over the technician expectantly, straightened up and almost laughed.

"Great!" he snorted. "A guy in his bare feet ripping a guy in the nude with his bare hands."

First there was a flash of lightning, and a second later there was thunder.

***

Tad Aston was waiting for Vince at the bar across from the station. He was on his fourth doughnut and sipping what must have been his third cup of coffee—as if he hadn't eaten in three days, or was stockpiling supplies for the next few. Like a lion. He longed for a proper meal, like reheated pizza. He hadn't eaten anything made from scratch by hand half an hour before consumption in ages. He'd planned, promised to visit his mother so many times—but always at the last minute, it turned out that a home-cooked meal was out of the question, because somewhere out in the field, cold meat, usually stale, was waiting for his inspection. Despite his best intentions, he couldn't get off work even for a day. And all he knew was how to order a pizza over the phone, and in an emergency—if his phone were disconnected—he'd make himself scrambled eggs. If, of course, there were eggs on hand. Unfortunately, his refrigerator was empty and was wasting electricity. He didn't have time for any proper shopping, and above all, he didn't have time to eat. Even when he bought milk for his coffee, it soured before he could even use half the carton. He didn't even dare touch the beer—the moment he opened the can, he'd probably get a call telling him to come right now, right now, right now. Since Sandra had left him, there was no one to take care of him, the fridge, or his dirty underwear. So his diet consisted of caffeine and doughnuts. He probably didn't gain weight because he often had to chase suspects—and some criminals seemed to spend the time between crimes training for the national four-hundred-meter race.

Vince sat down at his table without a word. He simply nodded in greeting, and Tad responded in kind. He looked at him expectantly from under raised eyebrows. He was chewing another bite of doughnut, so he couldn't say anything. He didn't have to. Vince started it himself.

"We're still groping in the dark," he muttered in a disappointed tone. "For now, there's work to be done, but I don't know how long it will take, where it will lead us, or whether the game won't end in a nail-biter. So far, we have the victim's fingerprints and a few prints found on the body, some her own, and some that seem to belong to the killer. Other than that, nothing. No fibers, no hair. Toxicology showed nothing of interest. No traces of anything interesting were detected in the blood, no poisons, no narcotics, no medications, nothing. The blood found under the fern is the victim's blood. We only have the prints. We followed that lead. There are only two patterns, which should theoretically make things easier. And such a bummer! Neither of them has a record.

" "How's the field search?" Tad asked, washing down the bite of doughnut he'd choked on with his coffee. "Did they have anything yet?"

"So far, nothing. The dogs are moving forward, sniffing Mother Earth like insatiable perverts, but they keep losing the scent. And so they go, and on, for two days, only further into the forest. Where's the logic? Did the guy who dismembered this guy walk through the forest for days, maybe with a bag of his guts slung over his shoulder? I'd give up if I were him. What about you?

" "They made a composite based on..." Tad stopped mid-sentence and gesticulated wildly for a moment. Finally, he pointed at his own face with both hands, spreading his fingers. "A scalp..." The woman who drew it had an unmistakable expression when they showed her a picture of a face torn in half. She said she'd done all sorts of things before, including portraits based on a partial skull, but she'd never seen anything like this. And let me tell you, for a woman with no experience drawing scalps, she did a pretty good job. Only things are a bit worse for us. A few guys and I went around with these Xeroxed drawings everywhere we could. Hotels, motels, shelters, shelters, bars, gas stations. We even asked bums on the street if they'd seen the guy, because anything's possible, although the guy looked decent enough, just a little unshaven. We even faxed the loony bin to ask if anyone with that description had escaped. And nothing.

One nice woman at a roadside diner was very concerned and wanted to help. She admitted she hadn't seen the man, but promised to call if he showed up. Tad reassured her that it was unlikely.

"So what do we do?" Vince asked. He'd ordered coffee and was now sipping it slowly, nibbling on a doughnut. "Should we continue with what we have, or do you have any other ideas?"

"I think it would be a good idea to expand the search area." We've focused on the surrounding area, on our local thugs, and it doesn't have to be someone from here. I'd give up on wandering around hotels and bars, and just submit a composite sketch for a missing persons program on TV. As for the killer, we should contact police stations within a few dozen miles, ask if they've had similar cases, and fax them fingerprints, because maybe they already have the bastard on file, and we're just sitting here with our fingers up our noses.

"Right, now we need to think about whether we're running this locally or statewide? Because the more widely we run it, the more reports we'll get, and we'll have to investigate them all. Because let's face it, the guy in the drawing doesn't really stand out. How many of the same fat, balding, ugly guys are there? Send a message that you're looking for this guy, a drawing of the "more or less" variety, and you'll get at least a few dozen reports, and each one will have to be looked at individually. And add to that the fakes and the criminals who call us to say that, yes, they did once, somewhere, but it was a long time ago and they saw him out of the corner of their eye in a dark alley. If you specify that it's not about anyone they saw yesterday because the guy's dead, the press will descend on us like vultures on a carcass: who is he, what is he, why is he, what happened? And who will take care of them?

" "You," Tad replied matter-of-factly.

Vince pouted and shook his head. But he was always the one who was exposed to the spotlight whenever the Tad Aston-Vincent Cortini duo got a piece of the action and the press caught wind of him. He was, as the saying goes, more media-friendly. Tad Aston was chasing down fleeing thugs, shooting and kicking down doors, while Vince was shouting at people who needed to get things done quickly and calming down people who had questions. They had a clear division of roles. Tad was the fast one, and Vince the loud one. Tad sometimes thought his partner had stumbled upon the police force by accident, on his way to television. He was sharp, articulate, had these incredibly laid-back lines, and if nothing else, he could have gotten his own talk show. He was so... TV-worthy. Even as a cop. He had a coat, paint it on, like Columbo, and when he went completely bald, he'd probably put on sunglasses and pretend to be Kojak. If he'd pulled Stan out of the morgue and onto television, they'd have made a great cop sitcom together.

"Okay, never mind..." Vince muttered. He hadn't joined the force for press conferences, but he was still good with reporters. He'd developed a peculiar, lenient manner of silencing the crowd, which Tad called "papal," and he didn't lose his temper even with particularly annoying reporters, whom any other reporter would have simply punched in the face. When he couldn't be objective, he substituted arrogance, and that always baffled the overly inquisitive journalists. He'd smile at such a delinquent as if he were a five-year-old, then unabashedly ask: next question.

"Regarding the murderer... Well, all we have are prints and a faint footprint. We're not going to play Cinderella, walking around with a size 43 shoe and having everyone in the house try it on. All we're left with are prints. We'll fax it everywhere we can; maybe our dear friends in other cities really do have it on file. But what if they don't? What next? If it's no one local, they could just as easily have come from a neighboring state, or even Poland, to tear someone to shreds and steal their guts here on a sightseeing trip. And before we know it, we'll be digging through visa documents from the last fifty years.

" "Oh well. That's our job.

" "Let's face it..." Vince gasped, weary. "Nobody's even reporting a missing husband, and here we are, trying to turn the entire government upside down and go through tons of paperwork for some out-of-town psycho who pulled a one-time stunt and probably got so worked up he won't bother doing it again.

" "Do you believe that?" Tad asked, glancing

sideways at his friend. Vince stared at him for a long moment. Finally, he lowered his gaze and said glumly,

"No."

***

It was five in the morning, still dark, and Tad looked even worse than usual. He parked his car next to several police cars. Vince was waiting for him next to one, smoking a cigarette. It wasn't raining, but the cold was bone-chilling. It sobered him up. Tad, who had slept for four hours, quickly came to his senses.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Come on, I'll take you there, there's this lovely meadow," Vince announced with a wry smile. "And right in the middle... guess what?

" "Skin?

" "Bingo!" he replied in a game show host's tone.

Tad lurched forward, oblivious to the fact that he didn't know where that was. Vince had to pull him along and hold him back as he surged forward too much. He was barely breathing. Running wasn't his strong suit, and smoking certainly wasn't conducive to it. He dropped his cigarette while running and went back for it. Only after a moment's thought did he decide he wouldn't put the butt back in his mouth, and he stomped on it to prevent a fire.

In the middle of the small meadow, among the trees, several officers stood, the technicians crouched, and somewhere in the midst of the commotion, Stan was probably kneeling over the body. Yellowish beams of light bathed the dimly lit area.

Tad stepped under the yellow tape, flashed his badge at some rookie who didn't know him yet, and told him to identify himself. He walked past him and approached Stan. He crouched down and looked at him, pointedly ignoring the sheet of skin spread out on the grass. He had nothing to vomit; his last meal had been a good eight or nine hours ago, and in that time he'd managed to throw it all up towards the South Pole, part of a bout of diarrhea he'd probably contracted from his high-fat diet.

"What this time?" he asked. He risked a quick glance at the corpse, and though he immediately looked away, the gruesome sight still drew his eyes until Tad openly stared at the torn, filleted, disemboweled skin, wondering what kind of psychopath would do such a thing.

"Male, Caucasian, about thirty-five," Stan replied. "The rest is the same as the last one. Shall I summarize it for you?

" "No, thanks, I know it by heart." Just skin, peeled away, no sharp-edged cuts, no signs of struggle, no sign of the killer, the victim's identity unknown, no documents or personal belongings.

"Hmm," Stan nodded. "I'd only add that this one was lying around for about three days.

" "Are there any footprints?

" "My boys are still looking, nothing yet. But the dogs picked up a scent, and your boys moved further into the field.

" "Which way?"

Stan gestured northwest. His hand hung in the air like a barrier, stiff and still. Tad wondered if it was just surgical precision or post-mortem muscle stiffness.

"Thanks," he said as he left. He returned to Vince, who was smoking a fresh cigarette with one of the officers. They were talking, and Vince was laughing darkly.

"Vince, are you coming with me?" Tad asked, stepping between them.

"Behind them?" Cortini asked, pointing northwest with his cigarette.

"Yes.

" "Go ahead, I'll stay here, I'll take care of everything. Besides, you're the one here to run.

" "And you're the one to talk.

" "Don't bullshit, just talk, or they'll run away."

Tad nodded to them in farewell. He overran the fence and ran into the forest. The morning landscape looked like something straight out of some Norwegian fairy tale for naughty children. Trees emerged from the darkness, from the mist—majestic, dark, motionless. As if dead. The entire forest seemed frozen. Not a sound could be heard. The crack of a trampled twig sounded like a boom. Tad flashed the trees growing in front of him with the beam of a small, handy flashlight. Otherwise, they'd run into one of them, and then they'd have to look for him too. Sometimes he stopped and listened for the faint sound of dogs barking. He tried not to breathe, as he was wheezing, which effectively drowned out everything else.

He rushed forward. The barking grew closer, and the bright yellow beams of police flashlights danced among the glowing blue.

"What have you got?" Tad shouted, catching up with four policemen with dogs. They turned abruptly when he was only twenty or thirty feet away. The dogs didn't even pay him any attention. The officers had to fight to keep them from dragging them any further.

"The dogs, as you can see, are going crazy," one of the officers replied. Steve O'Hara. Tad knew him, but they weren't on first-name terms. "We're trying to search the area with flashlights, but they won't let us, they're dragging us like a truck full of dog food has overturned somewhere. I think there's something to it. If it were winter, snowy, and we had a sleigh, we'd hitch up and go. We have to fight them off, otherwise they'd chase us to our deaths. And we can't let them run wild.

" Tad followed them. While they were dealing with the agitated dogs, he calmly, methodically searched the area with his flashlight.

Suddenly, the dogs lunged forward, their screeching unbearable. The officers braced themselves, only holding them in place by pulling them back with both hands. Meanwhile, Tad moved a few meters forward, his weapon ready, listening. Something moved among the trees, straight ahead, a few dozen meters away. He shined the flashlight in his left hand in that direction. Something moved again. While the officers continued to struggle with the dogs to keep them still, Aston trotted toward the apparent source, his weapon at the ready, his flashlight shining.

He didn't have time to react. He heard a rustling sound and turned to his left. Now he had to perform a few standard actions: shout, fire a warning shot, then aim at his feet and, if necessary, shoot. He didn't have time. It was too late for a warning shot, and when he raised his hand to fire directly at the shadow rushing at him, he despaired.

He dropped the gun and flashlight. For a moment, he didn't know what was happening. He felt only a blow to his chest and a sudden pressure, gripping him just above his waist.

His fingers found hair sticky with blood. His other hand, instinctively moving lower, touched damp skin. Soft, feminine skin.

The police ran to him, shining their flashlights on him, aiming their weapons at him.

"I'm okay, guys," he shouted, shielding his face with his hand as the flashlights flickered in his eyes. "Everything's okay."

The woman clung to him. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the confused officers with terror. She was panting heavily, shivering from the cold. The dogs barked at her, but soon seemed to lose interest.

One broke free from its handler and ran off into the woods.

***

Tad and Vince watched the woman sitting in the interrogation room through the one-way mirror.

When they found her, she was covered in blood, so they provisionally wiped her with a blanket and wrapped her in another blanket because she was completely naked. She kept weakening. In fact, the only reason they separated her from the Aston was because she wrapped herself around it like an octopus and cried when they tried to pull her away. When they put her in the police car, she started banging on the window when she saw him standing a few meters away, by his car. She wouldn't have let them alone if he hadn't gotten in with her. She cuddled up to him and, clutching him tightly—almost causing him pain—fell asleep. His car was driven to the police station by another officer.

At the station, she took a shower. Actually, she didn't do it alone. When the officer assigned for that purpose took her to the bathroom, the woman seemed completely helpless. She was on her own two feet, but she had no idea what to do. The officer had to help her—though she did it reluctantly, and more than one officer could have done the thankless task for her. But in the name of decency, Officer Jiggs did what she had to, then helped the poor woman dry herself. For lack of something more appropriate, they dressed her in a men's police uniform and gave her men's shoes. Judging by her wobbly, shuffling gait, she would have fallen and hurt herself in high heels.

Now she sat in the interrogation room. Calmly. As if waiting. She didn't try to escape, didn't protest being left alone. She wouldn't eat.

And she didn't speak.

"I'll go and talk to her," Vince said, moving closer to the window.

"Is there any point?" Tad asked. "The woman is in shock. She was covered in blood when we found her. Who knows what she must have been through in there?

" "A fifty-fifty chance she saw the killer!" Vince insisted. "We have two unidentified bags of skin and one survivor. If she doesn't advance the investigation, who will?

" "Whose blood? She's not even scratched. It's a miracle. But then whose blood is it? Did that psychopath rip someone open and bathe her in it or something?

" "What if she's the killer?" Cortini grimaced.

"Right!" Aston snorted. "That little woman, six foot one, tore a big, fat guy apart with those weak little hands. She doesn't even have fingernails longer than half a millimeter. How did she do that?

" "You're right..." Vince capitulated. "But I'll go talk to her anyway, maybe she'll say something.

" "Go," Tad sighed heavily. He patted him on the shoulder. "Good luck. And be gentle with her.

" "Man, I'm Italian. I know how to handle a woman.

" "You're Italian-American. And a loud one at that."

"I prefer the term: media.

" "Go mediate."

Vince smoothed his messy black hair, scratched his bald head, and entered the interrogation room—slowly and quietly, as if entering the room of a sleeping child.

"Hi," he said, his voice a bit hushed for his liking. "I'm Detective Vincent Cortini. But you can call me Vince."

He was charming. He immediately started with "you." He was more cordial than the regulations required, which suggested not yelling at non-accused witnesses and creating a focused, yet friendly atmosphere. Back then, it was easier to reach people, often frightened and forgetting facts, and sometimes even their tongues, out of fear. But Vince... Vince was almost a pick-up line, and now he was flirting with the witness the same way he would the waitress at the diner across from the station. He had no permanent resident. His life was like a game show; he was the host, and the hostesses changed constantly. Only there seemed to be fewer and fewer of them—like the hairs on his head. This didn't affect his innate self-confidence, even in the slightest.

"Okay..." he sighed heavily. He looked around helplessly. His natural showmanship wasn't helping. Only matter-of-factness remained. He even gave up on calling her by her first name. "Will you tell me anything? It doesn't have to be about the case. Let's leave the crazy psychopath, the blood, and other unpleasant things alone. Tell me her name."

The woman looked him straight in the eye. She was sitting on a hard chair in a men's police uniform, which looked a bit comical. A young woman, about twenty-five, in oversized men's clothing. She hunched slightly, her head tilted forward, and looked at Vince with a slightly askance. Her hands were clasped in her lap. She wasn't afraid of him. She wasn't smiling. Her expression was completely neutral. Although she was clearly conscious and communicating—when Vince waved his hand lightly in front of her, she followed it with her gaze—she didn't react to his words. He could say whatever he liked, but she—nothing.

"No?" Vince grimaced painfully. "Okay... Here's how we'll do it: I'll guess, and you'll nod when I say the right name."

No reaction. She stared at him with those gray eyes. Vince was even a little embarrassed by this, because he hadn't seen such pretty women often, and the older he got, the less he had the opportunity to talk to them. He wiped the sweat from his brow. He loosened his tie. Tad watched this from the window, alongside O'Hara, with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment.

He himself was staring at the petite, red-haired mimosa, somewhat irregularly.

"Penny?" Vince guessed. "Claudia? Annie? Sarah? Tiffany? Jamie? Joan? Jackie? Jill? Holly? Stephanie?"

He turned on the stool and cast a desperate look at the mirror that seemed to say: Help, guys, what other female names are there?"

Finally, he capitulated. He turned to the woman.

"You know what, I might go get something to drink, my throat's dry..."

He stood up and pushed the chair back in. He did it slowly, shuffling as he did so.

As he was leaving, he asked her,

"Can I get you something too?"

She looked at him impassively, just as she had been looking at him throughout the interrogation.

"Uh-huh." Vince waved his hand and left.

He breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind him.

"So, mediator?" Tad laughed.

"Laugh, you idiot," Cortini muttered. "That girl is either in deep post-traumatic shock or just plain stupid.

" "She's not stupid if she turned you down. Admittedly, passively, but still.

" "Well, go deal with her, Casanova...

" "Steve, do you think I should?" Aston asked O'Hara.

"Do I know?" O'Hara shrugged. "The woman seems conscious; maybe the right person can get something out of her. Try."

Vince shot O'Hara a hateful look.

Tad stopped at the door. He smoothed his dreadful hair, panted like a boxer before a fight, and entered.

"Hello," he said uncertainly.

The woman looked at him.

She stepped out of her shoes, several sizes too big, and threw her arms around his neck.

Tad looked helplessly at the mirror.

He didn't see Vince and Steve laughing and giving each other thumbs up in admiration.

***

"What are we going to do with her?" O'Hara asked.

"We can hold her for twenty-four hours," Jiggs said.

"She's not accused of anything," Tad protested. "If we had anything on her, yes, we could hold her, and after twenty-four hours, if we can't prove anything, we'll release her. But she's a victim, not a criminal."

Jiggs glanced at the woman sitting in a chair nearby. She watched them, but she didn't seem to understand, because if she'd known her immediate fate was being decided, she probably would have protested.

"So what are we going to do? We can't force her to stay here, and we can't release her either, because she's in shock. She's as helpless as a child in a fog.

"Then give her away... somewhere..." Vince suggested timidly. "To a shelter?

" "Sure," Jiggs snorted. "Better take her straight to the woods and tie her to a tree.

" "Well, I don't know... Hospital? Psychiatric ward? They'd take care of her somehow in a mental institution.

" "I don't know... Tad? What do you think?"

Aston turned his back to the three of them. He looked with a worried gaze at the woman, who seemed to sense that nothing good awaited her.

"Tad?" Jiggs asked. Only after a moment did she notice that he had completely withdrawn from the conversation.

As she moved toward the red-haired, emaciated woman, she jumped up from the stool, ran away, and hid behind Aston, clutching his arm.

"Then we have a bit of a problem," Cortini said with a wry smile.

"What?" Jiggs asked, surprised.

"Our witness clearly won't go anywhere without our Casanova," Vince continued. "So either the detective and the witness spend the night at the station, or..." He made a sweeping motion with his hand toward the exit.

"No," the policewoman protested. "That's not possible... It's against regulations, and... generally... immoral...

" "Explain that to her," Vince snorted, nodding slightly at the redhead clinging to Tad. "Try to get between them, and she'll bite your arm off."

Jiggs laughed helplessly. She waved her hand.

"O'Hara, do something," she grumbled. "Come up with something.

" "Vince's right, Jiggs." O'Hara spread his hands helplessly. "Either we lock Tad up for the night, or she goes with him. You should have seen the hysterical fit she had when we put her in the patrol car and he was walking to his car." If we hadn't pulled him down and sat him next to her, she would have wrecked the car. Ready to hurt herself or someone else.

Aston himself didn't say a word. He avoided the other three's gaze, flustered and embarrassed, as if he'd done something very, very nasty.

The redhead nuzzled his shoulder.

Jiggs rolled her eyes. She waved her hand.

"Fine! Heaven's will be done, I wash my hands of it! Take her as you wish. You don't even have to give up your uniform, let her have it. But she has to be available; if anything happens, she might still be useful to us."

Aston stood for a moment, stunned, unsure what to do. The others had already decided for him, and he still wasn't sure if this was what he wanted.

He glanced at the woman nestled in his arm, trusting as a child, squeezing him like a professional judoka—and decided there was probably no other option.

He began walking slowly toward the main entrance.

Suddenly, the phone rang. Vince reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, blaring the Bonanza theme tune, and answered the call.

"Hello?" he said very formally into the receiver. His tone changed as soon as he heard the familiar, sepulchral voice. When he'd first heard it over the phone at the police station a dozen years ago, he'd thought it was Death contacting him personally to discuss some important matters. "Hi, Stan... What do you have?" Vince grimaced. "Okay, I'll be right over... No, he can't, he's..." he paused, glancing pointedly at Tad. "...busy... Okay. Okay. For now."

He ended the call and slipped his cell phone into his pocket. He looked gloomily at the group.

"What's up?" Jiggs asked.

"They have another... body," he muttered. "Apparently a fresh one.

"

Tad was waiting for Cortini at the bar across from his apartment. He was nervous. He drummed his fingers on the counter. He glanced longingly at the window on the second floor where he lived, then back at his watch. He'd made an appointment with Vince at three o'clock. The pathetic Columbo impersonator was already three minutes late. For Tad, each one dragged on like a particularly drawn-out eternity. This wasn't where he wanted to be. But, for a few reasons, he had to.

"Hey, Casanova," Cortini laughed, sitting down next to him.

"Give it a rest," Aston muttered.

"Yeah, right, my friend's dating the hottest chick I've ever laid eyes on, and I can't afford a little snark.

" "I'm just looking after her.

" "Sure, sure," Vince snorted. He smiled wryly. "My good Samaritan... You're just taking care of a poor, helpless, sexy woman out of the kindness of your heart... Who needs this crap?

" "Listen!" Aston growled, clearly not one for jokes. "Just because you'd fuck her ten times by now if you could, doesn't mean I would. Luckily, she's clearly smart enough not to cling to you, because her belly would be growing. And I won't touch her, do you understand? I won't touch her unless she comes to me, straddles me, and starts begging me to make a baby!"

Vince looked at Tad with the respect at least due to the Pope.

"Good Jesus, you should be canonized on the spot..." he whispered. "I don't know another one like you."

Tad preferred not to talk about how she'd come to him last night while he was sleeping on the fold-out couch, leaving her his bed in the other room. She got up in the middle of the night, slipped under the covers, cuddled up to him, and... fell asleep. He didn't want to talk about how he had to hold back, how he tried not to think about her, or to think about things as sexually neutral as a conveyor belt in a candy factory, or muscle parasites. He hadn't had anyone since Sandra left—and when the beautiful woman climbed into bed with him, he didn't dare do anything. He felt like a Catholic priest—only then, instead of a floor-length cassock, he was wearing boxer shorts.

"You know, with her, it's a bit like with a child, really...

" "Yeah, that makes sense... With a child, that would be disgusting...

" "And you're talking about that again..." Tad shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Is that all you can think about?" he asked reproachfully. After a short pause, during which Vince thought for a moment and finally came up with nothing in his defense, he continued. "I mean, she's so poor, so helpless, she can't do anything, and you have to do everything for her. It's like I'm playing daddy.

" "She's some kind of...?" Vince asked. He twirled his finger, pointing to his temples. "Maybe that nuthouse thing wasn't such a bad idea after all? He'll do something to himself."

Tad shook his head.

"I mean... it's weird... Not exactly like a child, I think I expressed myself poorly. But there's something to it. She doesn't touch anything out of curiosity, she doesn't rummage through shelves, she doesn't knock anything over, she doesn't try to jump out of windows. So she's not a child. She walks upright, she doesn't hunch over, she doesn't drool, she doesn't make inarticulate sounds...

" "Does she talk yet? Anything?

" "Nothing. Not a word.

" "Oh my god, the perfect woman," Vince laughed.

"She... she's not stupid. Definitely not. She learns quickly and doesn't do unnecessary, stupid things.

" "Sure, next you'll be telling me she's Einstein. Just because you have a crush on her.

" "Einstein couldn't talk until he was four."

"And... listen... what does she do?

" "She sits there. If I disappear, she runs after me. If I sit down, she sits next to me and cuddles."

"Lucky... A quiet woman who likes to cuddle... Sigh... Does she eat anything at all, or does she live solely on love for you?

" "She does. Oh my god, how much she eats! I bought so much stuff that my fridge has probably never seen so much at once, and she eats and eats. And then she sleeps. Now too. That's why I brought you here; I didn't want to wake her. Besides, you'd have scared her off.

" "Thanks, man, you're really comforting me. Not only am I already screwed because I'm an aging, bald guy, but my friend is giving me a hard time. You've got heaven on earth up there on your second floor, probably besides the dirty underwear and dirty groats, unless you've hired her to do the laundry and dishes. Give me a chance!

" "She doesn't clean. I told you, she's sweet, but she doesn't do much. Actually, that's probably a good thing, because otherwise I'd have to worry that if I'm not there, she'll get into more trouble." Tad glanced at the second-story window across the street. "But you know what's weird?"

"What?

" "Her feet...

" "What? Something wrong?" Vince grimaced. "Six toes or something?"

"No, that's not what I mean... It's just that her feet are so... delicate...

" "Does that sort of thing turn you on?" Cortini raised his eyebrows.

"Nooooo." Tad rolled his eyes. "I just happened to notice, and it surprised me.

" "How did you notice?

" "I touched her when she was sitting next to me. By accident.

" "You were rubbing her, you pervert," Cortini hissed, pointing an accusing finger at Aston. "I almost declared you a saint here, I was about to tip my uncles at the Vatican to put you on the list for beatification, and now it turns out you were rubbing her heels. You were groping important erogenous zones! By accident! Terefere!"

"Vince, why didn't you become a sexologist?"

Cortini pondered.

"I don't know," he said after some thought. "Apparently, a dozen years ago, the brain wasn't working at the right wavelength."

"Now, Mr. Sex Encyclopedia, can I tell you what I mean? And you won't entertain me with psychoanalysis?

" "Go ahead.

" "Well, I'm talking about a purely technical matter. It's common knowledge that skin thickens where it rubs...

" "Yes.

" "For example, me. I can't remember the last time I benched a barbell, and to this day my hands are rough, as if I ran a marathon every day, walking on my hands. "

"Me too.

" "See. And that's the skin on my hands. And it's common knowledge that the skin on your feet is thicker, and walking only hardens it. Especially the heels. And she... either spent a fortune on foot creams, pedicures, and spent half the day with a pumice stone, or she never touched the ground... I've never seen hands so soft.

" "That's really strange...

" "Do you have anything stranger for me?"

"Well, we've been chatting away about your romantic conquests, and I have a few real puzzles for you.

" "Come on.

" "As you already know, we have another... hmm... body... skin...

" Tad nodded, looking at Cortini grimly.

"So," Vince continued, "a guy, white, about thirty, thirty-two years old... They found him going northwest, where the girl came from. We took blood samples. And guess what? We compared it to the one we found on her. It's the same one.

" "I kind of expected that.

" "Yes, but that's not all. We also have fingerprints. And that's the real deal. We found her prints, quite a few prints, on this guy's skin.

" "Are you suggesting something?

" "That she killed him? I'd probably try to prove that to you, if it weren't for another puzzle. So, yes, we have her prints on his body. Only hers." But that's where things get tricky, because the body we found in the meadow doesn't have her prints. Guess whose prints are on it?

"The guy by the road?" Tad took a wild guess, suggesting the first body they found.

"Miss!" Vince said triumphantly. "The guy from the northwest. Only him.

" Tad looked at Cortini blankly.

"And guess whose prints are on the guy by the road. "

Aston frowned in deduction.

"The guy from the meadow?" he asked hesitantly, certain Vince would mock him with his loudest laugh.

"Bingo, man." Cortini nodded. "So we're just killing our colleagues near and far for nothing, because the killer was either that guy in the meadow, which I personally don't want to believe, or someone we can't track down. All the murders are the work of the same guy, so the guy in the meadow couldn't have killed the guy from the northwest, since he's been dead for three days. And the only living witness to the crime is a woman. Don't worry, I don't think it was her. Basically, I'm saying we're in a bigger pile of shit than we thought, and we have no clue, no match to use to get out of this mess. The lunatic ripped apart three men, left no trace, and the woman got away. Why? How? Didn't he catch up to her or something? Did he let her go? Did he feel sorry for her?" He sprayed her with the other guy's blood from head to toe, then softened and let her run away like God intended.

"Do you have anything on any of these guys, or on her? Identity? Any documents? Scraps of clothing?

" "Nothing. We have composite sketches of all three of them, and a picture of her, and with that we're doing what we can. We're asking around, asking around. Maybe we can connect them with a mutual friend and then we can look for the guy. But for now, everything's exactly the same. Just skin, no clothes, no guts, no trace. As Stan would say: ergo, pale ass!

" It sounds better when he says it.

Basically, it sounded funny coming from both of them—just in a completely different way. Stan was funny when he uttered some colloquialism in that gravelly voice of his. Vince, on the other hand, sounded funny and weird when he used words like "ergo."

"Do you have anything else for me?" Tad asked.

"No, that's all for now." But we're still digging, and there's still a few analyses to do, so I'll let you know right away if anything comes up. What are you doing, taking paid leave under the pretext of witness supervision?

"What are you doing, I'll be back tomorrow. I can make a few calls from home, but I have to be in the field, watching what the guys are doing, or I'll be out of the investigation altogether. It's bothering me that I took two days off, but you know, an emergency...

" "Yeah, a beautiful woman needs 24/7 care..." Vince laughed softly. "I understand you, man.

" "But it's getting better... She sleeps most of the day anyway, wakes up in the evening, so I could easily run around town during the day. Besides, even if I'm gone for a while, she doesn't panic, scream, or anything... I think we can work normally as is...

" "Okay, we'll keep in touch.

" ***

Tad returned to his second-floor apartment with a few shopping bags, each stuffed with only one thing: food. He'd bought about three pounds of apples, a few packages of cereal, a few cartons of milk, a few bunches of grapes, mineral water, and a couple of instant noodles. He still had to order pizza that evening, or maybe Chinese food.

It was 6 p.m. For Aston, it wasn't evening yet.

The woman stood at the end of the hall, in the doorway of the room, leaning against the doorframe. She smiled at him.

In a few strides, she was beside him and embraced him as tightly as she could. She sighed softly, resting her head on his chest.

He was still perplexed by these displays of... affection? love? He didn't know what was happening, what it was, or what he was supposed to do about it. He didn't even know her name, and he hadn't given her one. He didn't need to call her—and besides, she didn't respond to his calls. But it was enough that he appeared in her field of vision, and she came to him. Sometimes he simply thought of her as Red. Sometimes he called her Mimosa, because she was petite, delicate, so pale—though she had a grip of steel. And sometimes, a bit twisted, Moth. Because she was red, completely unlike a moth—a gray-brown nocturnal insect. But she got up in the evening, like a moth. And she clung to him, like a moth to a light.

She liked to fall asleep with the nightlight on.

After she'd eaten a large bowl of cereal with milk, she miraculously got up from the table and walked into the living room, where he was sitting on the couch, watching TV. She sat down next to Tad and put her arm around his shoulder. She rested her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes. Sometimes they sat together in front of the TV and watched something. Except she didn't seem to pay attention to the TV. She just watched, but she didn't seem to notice. They watched reruns of "Friends" together, a show that makes you laugh out loud, and she simply watched impassively, even when Joey said something stupid. She smiled faintly the entire time, but probably only because Aston was sitting right next to her.

She wore his jeans with the cuffs rolled up, cinched in with a belt, and a T-shirt that reached mid-thigh.

That evening, he'd ordered pizza. Yet, force of habit took over. They both ate four slices, and while Tad passed, she followed it with two more apples and washed it down with half a bottle of mineral water.

She came back and sat down next to him. She stared at him. She looked straight into his eyes, barely blinking. She had beautiful gray eyes. Large and sincere, like a child—which, in a sense, she was. He wondered why she did that. Why was she looking at him like that?

There was something in those eyes. He saw something. He didn't know what. There were many secrets hidden in those gray eyes that he hoped to decipher.

***

He woke up. He wasn't really asleep. He was just dozing off, but her footsteps had startled him. She tottered from the bedroom to the living room, where he was sleeping on the folded-out couch.

Before he could settle down, he had to lay her down. He led her into the bedroom and gently eased her into a lying position, and she covered herself with the blanket. She was a quick learner. She knew practically nothing, but showing her something once was enough to memorize it. That's how she learned to eat with a spoon. She perfectly imitated what he did before her eyes.

She must have watched him undress, because when she slipped under the blanket, she found herself naked. She wrapped her arm around him, pulled him close, and pressed her whole body against him—soft and warm.

And even thinking about the candy factory didn't help. Tad was softening. The resolve he had imposed on himself hadn't yet cracked, but it had been put to a great test. She held a heavy weight, arching and straining her to the limit. Any moment now, she would burst. Tad was hardening. Willingly or not, he was a man—a man who hadn't been with anyone for a year—and in his bed, pressing into him, lay a beautiful woman, so his libido reacted in the most obvious way. Only reason still held out. But he was weakening. He told himself he wouldn't touch her unless she gave him the signal first. But now he begged for some sign, some movement, a look, a word. But she just lay there, clinging to him, occasionally purring with satisfaction.

He thought that if she kissed him, he wouldn't be able to resist. But that was hopeless. She just held him as if she knew nothing more.

He kissed her himself. Lightly. He barely brushed his lips against hers.

She repeated the lesson flawlessly .

He took her face in his hands.

She did the same.

He kissed her—harder. And she repeated it, again and again.

They were so lost in their kisses that after a moment it was unclear who was teaching whom.

He slid his hands down her arms, along her back, and along her waist. He stopped at her hips and lightly gripped them.

***

"You're sleep-deprived," Vince said.

"And do I ever get enough sleep?" Aston smiled weakly.

"But tonight was definitely a good one!

" "Long night.

" "Okay, then you can tell me later; for now, I have some news for you. Are you holding on to your chair? You're about to fall off it.

" "Try it. The highest I'll fall, and if that happens, keep talking.

" "Well, I'm stupid because we did blood tests, but each one was done by a different lab, and I didn't put the results together, and they didn't know there were different samples. It only occurred to me this morning to compare them. And guess what?"

Aston shook his head helplessly.

"I didn't make the connection," Vince continued. "I only remembered that the last one was AB Rh negative, just like the blood found on her. But it turns out the one in the meadow was also AB Rh negative, surprise, the one by the road too.

" "So what?" Aston shrugged. He was truly unconscious.

"It's because of that, AB Rh negative is the rarest blood type, only one percent of people have it. One in a hundred people. And here we have three, linked by circumstances. And what circumstances.

" "What are you suggesting? That we have a crazed killer tearing apart people with AB Rh negative? Maybe we should take a closer look at the people in our labs?

" "I don't know what that means, man, but it's either some kind of omen or some kind of cosmic scam.

" "And what are we doing? Do we even do anything about it? Or do we just keep following the trail of prints, sketches, and a photo of Red?"

"I had the samples tested again, this time at the same lab, so they could compare the blood counts and tell me how similar they are.

" "Maybe that's a clue..." Aston muttered, as if to himself.

"And you know what?" Vince wondered. "It would be good to have a blood sample of that girlfriend of yours... Maybe she's also AB Rh negative! Or maybe not, maybe she's AB Rh positive, or even A, B, or O, and that's why he spared her, and maybe that's why he splashed her with that guy's blood?

" "How am I supposed to do that? I'm supposed to get her blood? How?

" "Come up with something. I don't know. The ideal situation would be if she cut her finger or, say, nicked her gum with a toothbrush. I don't know. You'd even get some blood from a pimple.

" "She doesn't have pimples.

" "Ugh, do you know her that well?" Vince raised his eyebrows, a sneer twisting his face.

"A little.

" "I want a report on this 'little'."

"Listen, I have to go to the police station, talk to the guys, and I'd like to check on Stan before it gets dark and she wakes up.

" "Okay, let me know if Stan tells you anything new."

Vince stood up and headed for the exit.

As he closed the door behind him, Tad's phone rang—a rather uninspiring trill played by a monophonic ringtone.

"Tad Aston. I'm listening," he said into the receiver. "Hi, Stan... Can I... What... Oh my God..." he stammered. His eyes widened. "What do you mean, from the inside? How can someone from the inside...? Wait, I'm on my way!"

He put the phone away. He finished his cold coffee in one gulp and ran out of the bar.

On the way out, he bumped into Vince. Vince staggered, his shoulders hunched. He turned around, his eyes glaring, but softened when he saw it was Tad.

He was on the phone.

"Okay," he muttered into the receiver. "Okay. I'll be there as soon as possible."

He ended the call and put the phone in his coat pocket, Columbo-style.

"Who were you talking to?" Tad asked.

"From the lab. They have the blood results. Surprise! It's the same blood.

" "AB Rh-?

" "By the way. The point is, the blood counts on all three samples are identical! It's the same blood. The same blood in three people. They're also doing DNA tests, but they say the results are rather predictable. "

Tad grimaced.

"And you know what I found out?" he muttered in a blasé tone.

"Shoot. Nothing will surprise me today.

" "It turns out the bodies were ripped open from the inside.

" "Oh my god!" Vince hissed.

They looked at each other, neither of them knowing what to say. Vince—Vincent Cortini, who sometimes couldn't shut up—stood with a slack jaw.

They flinched at the sound of breaking glass. They turned to see glass shards scattering across the street. Luckily, no one was passing that way.

The second-story window was broken.

"Shit!" Tad and Vince shouted in unison, and they ran across the street without even looking to see if anything was coming.

Tad

fumbled for his apartment keys in his pocket as he ran, but when they finally reached the second floor—Vince a few feet behind—he kicked the door down without ceremony, only thinking he'd have to remember to call a locksmith.

"Redhead?" he shouted from the threshold, even though he knew she wouldn't answer or come when he called. "Redhead?"

He burst into the room. On a hunch, he drew his gun and cocked it.

He heard a rustle, a scrape, and a thud coming from the bedroom.

He flung the door open, aiming his loaded Beretta around the room.

Vince, who had burst into the apartment a few seconds later, heard the shot. He hurried toward the bedroom, his gun at the ready.

"Are you crazy?" he shouted when he reached him and saw where she was aiming. With a forceful pressure on his forearms, he forced Tad to lower the gun.

There was a jagged bullet hole in the windowsill. In the corner of the room, crouched, sat a young boy—thirteen, no older—covered in blood.

Bloody handprints covered the windowsill and the doorframe.

The bed was practically swimming in blood.

On it lay Red. Mimosa. Moth. Or rather, what was left of her.

Aston knelt on the floor and howled.

Vince watched it all with wide, terrified eyes. He shook his head in disbelief.

He gripped the gun tighter in his weakening hand and aimed it at the boy cowering in the corner. The boy looked at him, straight in the eyes. He was shaking. Terrified.

With his free hand, Vince took his phone from his pocket and called the police.

Tad

sat on the couch in his living room, watching "Friends." He didn't laugh. Not even when Joey said something stupid. He stared blankly at the screen with puffy, bloodshot eyes.

He hadn't called a locksmith. He'd forgotten. Or rather, he didn't care.

His colleagues at the station had carried the bed away. It was fit only for the trash. At least no one in their right mind would want to sleep on a mattress soaked in several liters of blood.

The redhead had died the same way—only worse, more brutal, and bloodier. She wasn't just skin. There was a lot of blood—violent red blood. And torn muscle tissue. But there were no entrails, no bones.

When the phone on the table in front of him rang, Tad simply stared at it impassively for a moment, taking his eyes off the TV screen, which also showed nothing of interest. But someone was very persistent, and the phone whined in monophonic tone for several minutes. Finally, Aston slowly, as if in slow motion, reached out and answered the call. He held the phone to his ear.

He didn't say a word.

"Are you there?" Vince asked, as the buzzing waiting signal finally faded. "Hello?"

Aston only let out a disgruntled grunt.

"Okay, man, I know it's not the right time and you're not in the mood, but I thought you'd like to know... We have another... body..."

Two hours earlier, southeast of the first body found, someone had found another.

The body of a fifty-year-old man—or rather, what was left of him—had been there for about two weeks.

***

"Jesus, Aston, get a grip." Jiggs shook her head. Tad, who had arrived at the station a few hours after the call, looked like the worst kind of bum. He was pale, puffy, and the whites of his eyes were intricately streaked with red veins. He arrived in an open shirt, no tie, and reeked of sweat.

"I'm fine," he muttered. "What about the kid?" he asked Vince, and Cortini could see from his expression that he wanted to beat the brat or shoot him. He blocked his way to the interrogation room. But Aston didn't seem to want to wrestle with him.

"Nothing, same thing as with her. He doesn't say a word, just stares. I tried talking to him, but he won't say a word. He just stares.

"Let me go to him.

" "Oh no, man!" Vince shook his head. "We're not letting you go to that kid alone, you'll tear him apart with your bare hands and we'll have a complete set. Man, whatever happened, it wasn't him!

" "Let me go to him," Tad muttered, ruffling his eyebrows. He pushed Vince aside and headed toward the interrogation room.

"O'Hara, stop him!"

Steve glanced at Tad, walking toward him with clenched fists and a determined expression on his face.

He drew his gun.

Tad stopped. He sighed heavily, then waved his hand.

"Okay... Okay..." he sighed. "But I just want to see him, through the glass."

"Give me the gun.

" "Here..." Tad gasped, handing him the Beretta. "Can I go now?

" "I'll go with you," O'Hara muttered.

Tad stood in front of the window. A boy sat on the other side. He looked older. He remembered seeing no more than thirteen. And this one looked older. He was taller, with broader shoulders and a slight mustache.

And large, frightened eyes that looked straight at him—even though the boy couldn't see him. He couldn't see him, sitting in front of the mirrored side of the one-way mirror. And yet, he was staring right into his eyes.

"I'll go in there..." he muttered.

"Don't you dare!" O'Hara protested.

"Guys!" Vince interrupted, bursting into the room. He was as white as chalk. "I just got the DNA results. All the samples are the same blood. The guy by the road, the guy from the meadow, the guy from the northwest. And Red. The same blood."

Tad and Steve stared at him open-mouthed.

"We don't have the old guy from the southeast yet. We know he's AB negative yet; they'll run the DNA tests later. Anyone want to bet that this kid will be AB negative too?"

Everyone turned toward the interrogation room, where the boy sat behind the glass.

"What the fuck is he doing?" Vince muttered.

The kid was sitting in a chair, his head tilted back, twitching spasmodically.

O'Hara and Aston rushed into the small room one after the other and stopped dead in their tracks.

The kid was already dead. His eyes were wide open, their pupils pin-thin, staring blankly at the ceiling. Red tears were streaming from them. Blood had leaked in two rivulets from each nostril, stopping just above his upper lip. His mouth was wide open, his tongue hanging out, covered in cooling blood.

As Tad approached him slowly, he realized with surprise that he knew those eyes—large, gray, utterly sincere.

A large, red-and-black butterfly sat on the boy's tongue, its legs twitching. It folded and unfolded its wings, as if stretching them out. As if drying them, preparing for its first flight.