They chatted a bit more, and he finally let her go. She was eager to return to her mother’s home. Mae, unable to stay still long, had gone outside, so Justin joined Leo as he examined the site of the murder.
The master bedroom was expansive, the size of three of the bedrooms back at his house put together. A silk coverlet draped the bed, and a small alcove near the fireplace held a table that might be used for reading or tea. Blood stained the carpet. Leo knelt by the fireplace and stood at Justin’s approach.
“It’s sealed. Only for show.” Leo pointed up at a horizontal line of windows near the ceiling. They were the only ones in the room. “Those are too small for anyone to get through.”
“And I’m guessing the security system recorded no entry in the door?”
“Nope.” Leo walked over to the doorway and ran his hand along the side. “It only recorded his entry before he died and then his wife’s a few hours later. If the door’s locked from within, only hand chips could open it from the outside—unless you had the demolition equipment to bust it down. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
“Then it’s the most secure room in the house.” Justin examined a picture screen on the dresser that scrolled through various personal shots of the family’s life. “Like with the other murders. I’d almost say whoever did this is showing off.”
He’d seen a head shot of Mr. Hata in the official case files, but the personal pictures showed a whole different view into the dead man’s world. A wedding picture focused in on the happy couple’s faces. He couldn’t see much of their attire, but she wore a traditional Japanese hood that hid the scarring and short haircut. At a glance, Mr. Hata’s face showed no ostensible signs of Cain, but that wasn’t uncommon. A family whose child had good genes could arrange an expensive marriage to a family hoping to weed out Cain. He’d observed it in the previous castal investigations as well. It was why Mae’s vocation—and the fact that she even had one—was so unusual.
Other pictures showed the Hatas on vacation or with other family members. A pretty portrait showed Mrs. Hata posing in a flower garden, while a more candid shot showed Mr. Hata grinning triumphantly at what looked like the end of a marathon. Still another—
Justin did a double take and scrolled back to the marathon picture. “He was a runner,” he told Leo.
Leo was still engrossed in the door. “So?”
“So no asthma.” Justin flipped through a few more pictures, scrutinizing Mr. Hata’s face. It was as flawless as it had seemed before, emphasizing his wife’s very subtle defects. A shot of their extended family showed occasional appearances of Cain, but even among his unmarked relatives, there was something especially bright and attractive about Mr. Hata.
The wheels of Justin’s mind began spinning. His instincts told him there was something here. He flipped through all the pictures again, consumed by the dead man’s face.
“He’s perfect,” he said to Leo. “Beautiful and perfect.”
“Sad you can’t ask him out?”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all.” Justin could feel it in his chest. He was so, so close. “It’s uncommon.”
“Is it? Go look at your girl out there. She’s sporting a pretty good set of genes.”
And that’s when it hit him. “So did our last victim. And the others.”
Justin took out his ego and pulled up all the data on the case. Mostly, he’d been going by the summary Cornelia had first shown him. Now he delved deeper into Mr. Hata’s file, looking for the number he was certain he would find.
“An eight,” he said triumphantly. “He was an eight.”
Even that gave Leo pause. “Not bad for a castal.”
You’ve got it, said Magnus.
Justin searched through the other victims’ files, a thrill running through him at the breakthrough he’d made. “They’re all eights and nines. And look at their pictures—beautiful and perfect.”
Leo gave up on the door, his own face puzzling out the new development. “Our killer has refined tastes.”
Mae stepped into the room and glanced between them. “What is it?”
“A pattern,” said Justin. “There’s always a pattern.”
He scrutinized Mae, for once with little attraction. His view was detached and objective. Another flawless specimen, in the prime of her life. The image of her screen came back to him, providing another shocking revelation.
“You’re twenty-eight years old. All the victims were twenty-seven and twenty-eight. All were genetic eights and nines.”
“You worried she’s next?” asked Leo wryly.
“No,” said Justin. “But I think something remarkable happened the year she was born. Were you in vitro?”
Mae looked uneasy at the direction this was going. “Yes. So were my brother and sister.”
The answer wasn’t a surprise. In an effort to grasp at any genetic hope, most patricians were conceived in petri dishes using their parents’ healthiest eggs and sperm. “Were you all made in the same place?”