“Please…”
D.D. hesitated, then answered as honestly as she could: “I would try to help him find his strength. The bad part already happened. Now it’s about helping Jesse find his way to the other side. Where he’s no longer the victim, but the one in control. Where he can feel strong. Where he can feel safe.”
The woman stared at her, seemed to be studying her face. “We’ll go to headquarters,” she said at last. “We’ll meet with the interview…expert.”
“We’ll have a victim’s advocate meet you there as well,” D.D. told her. “There are resources for you and your son. Please don’t be afraid to use them.”
D.D. handed over her card, then straightened, jamming her freezing cold gloved hands back into her coat pockets.
“Thank you for your help, Jesse,” D.D. said. “I appreciate you answering my questions.”
The boy didn’t look up, didn’t respond.
She said to his mother: “Take care of your son.”
“Oh, I will, Detective. I will.”
D.D. stepped away, heading over to O. She’d just paused beside the sex crimes detective when a startled cry went up. Both investigators turned to see a uniformed officer waving for them furiously from the first patrol car.
“Detectives,” he called. “Quick! You gotta see this!”
D.D. and O exchanged glances, then made their way precariously down the icy sidewalk. The uniformed patrol officer had the passenger-side door open and was gesturing inside excitedly.
“On the dashboard,” he said urgently. “Don’t move it. I’d just set it there, you know, to deliver to the evidence room later. Course, I got the heat running, then when I looked in…”
It appeared to be the shooter’s note, now encased in clear plastic. A full sheet, the letters scripted in the familiar precisely formed, elegantly rounded letters. Except, as D.D. looked closer, she suddenly spotted other letters so small and jumbled together, they first appeared as a blemish or blur.
She looked up abruptly, glancing at the uniformed officer. “Did you touch this, mess with it in any way?”
She stood back, allowed O to take a look.
“No, no, no,” Officer Piotrow assured her hastily. “It’s the heat. When I saw that something seemed to have happened, I picked up the note, and I’ll be damned if the letters didn’t immediately disappear. But then I set the paper back down on the hot dash…”
D.D. felt her heart quicken.
“I think it’s lemon juice,” the officer was saying. “My kid did this experiment once in grade school. You can write secret notes with lemon juice—the words will disappear when the lemon juice dries, but reappear when you hold the note over a hot lightbulb. I think my dash is the lightbulb.”
“A note within a note,” Detective O murmured, still leaning over the paper. “Different penmanship.”
“Different sentiment,” D.D. replied tersely, chewing her lower lip.
The first note, Everyone dies sometime. Be brave, was scrawled in the usual large rounded script.
In contrast, the hidden message was much smaller, jumbled letters hastily scrawled and crammed into a space smaller than a dime.
An order. A taunt. Or maybe even a plea:
Two simple words: Catch Me.
Chapter 26
HELLO. My name is Abigail.
Don’t worry, we’ve met.
Trust me, and I will take care of you.
Don’t you trust me?
Hello. My name is Abigail.
Chapter 27
IT FELT GOOD TO HIT.
I liked the satisfying thwack of my gloved fist making hard contact with the heavy bag. I liked the feel of my front leg pivoting, my hips rotating, and my shoulder rolling as I snapped my entire body behind the blow. Jab, jab, jab, uppercut, roundhouse, feint left, left hook downstairs, left hook upstairs, second roundhouse, V-step right, jab left, punch right, dodge low, uppercut, repeat. Hit, move, hit harder, move faster. Hit.