Despite the video stabilization and the careful cropping, she can see that Mona’s eyes are always looking directly into the camera.
There’s only one explanation: The camera was aimed at the mirrors, and it was located in Mona’s eye.
The eyes.
She goes through the NCIC entries of the other women she printed out yesterday, and now the pattern that had proven elusive seems obvious.
There was a blonde in Los Angeles whose head had been removed after death and never found; there was a brunette, also in LA, whose skull had been cracked open and her brains mashed; there was a Mexican woman and a black woman in DC, whose faces had been subjected to postmortem trauma in more restrained ways, with the cheekbones crushed and broken. Then finally, there was Mona, whose eyes had been carefully removed.
The killer has been improving his technique.
The Regulator holds her excitement in check. She needs more data.
She looks through all of Mona’s photographs again. Nothing out of place shows up in the earlier pictures, but in the photo from her birthday with her parents, a flash was used, and there’s an odd glint in her left eye.
Most cameras can automatically compensate for red-eye, which is caused by the light from the flash reflecting off the blood-rich choroid in the back of the eye. But the glint in Mona’s picture is not red; it’s bluish.
Calmly, Ruth flips through the photographs of the other girls who have been killed. And in each, she finds the telltale glint. This must be how the killer identified his targets.
She picks up the phone and dials the number for her friend. She and Gail had gone to college together, and she’s now working as a researcher for an advanced medical devices company.
“Hello?”
She hears the chatter of other people in the background. “Gail, it’s Ruth. Can you talk?”
“Just a minute.” She hears the background conversation grow muffled and then abruptly shut off. “You never call unless you’re asking about another enhancement. We’re not getting any younger, you know? You have to stop at some point.”
Gail had been the one to suggest the various enhancements Ruth has obtained over the years. She had even found Doctor B for her because she didn’t want Ruth to end up crippled. But she had done it reluctantly, conflicted about the idea of turning Ruth into a cyborg.
“This feels wrong,” she would say. “You don’t need these things done to you. They’re not medically necessary.”
“This can save my life the next time someone is trying to choke me,” Ruth would say.
“It’s not the same thing,” she would say. And the conversations would always end with Gail giving in, but with stern warnings about no further enhancements.
Sometimes you help a friend even when you disapprove of their decisions. It’s complicated.
Ruth answers Gail on the phone, “No. I’m just fine. But I want to know if you know about a new kind of enhancement. I’m sending you some pictures now. Hold on.” She sends over the images of the girls where she can see the strange glint in their eyes. “Take a look. Can you see that flash in their eyes? Do you know anything like this?” She doesn’t tell Gail her suspicion so that Gail’s answer would not be affected.
Gail is silent for a while. “I see what you mean. These are not great pictures. But let me talk to some people and call you back.”
“Don’t send the full pictures around. I’m in the middle of an investigation. Just crop out the eyes if you can.”
Ruth hangs up. The Regulator is working extra hard. Something about what she said—cropping out the girls’ eyes—triggered a bodily response of disgust that the Regulator is suppressing. She’s not sure why. With the Regulator, sometimes it’s hard for her to see the connections between things.
While waiting for Gail to call her back, she looks through the active online ads in Boston once more. The killer has a pattern of killing a few girls in each city before moving on. He must be on the hunt for a second victim here. The best way to catch him is to find her before he does.
She clicks through ad after ad, the parade of flesh a meaningless blur, focusing only on the eyes. Finally, she sees what she’s looking for. The girl uses the name Carrie, and she has dirty-blonde hair and green eyes. Her ad is clean, clear, well-written, like a tasteful sign amid the parade of flashing neon. The time stamp on the ad shows that she last modified it twelve hours ago. She’s likely still alive.
Ruth calls the number listed.
“This is Carrie. Please leave a message.”
As expected, Carrie screens her calls.
“Hello. My name is Ruth Law, and I saw your ad. I’d like to make an appointment with you.” She hesitates, and then adds, “This is not a joke. I really want to see you.” She leaves her number and hangs up.
The phone rings almost immediately. Ruth picks up. But it’s Gail, not Carrie.
“I asked around, and people who ought to know tell me the girls are probably wearing a new kind of retinal implant. It’s not FDA approved. But of course, you can go overseas and get them installed if you pay enough.”
“What do they do?”
“They’re hidden cameras.”
“How do you get the pictures and videos out?”
“You don’t. They have no wireless connections to the outside world. In fact, they’re shielded to emit as little RF emissions as possible, so that they’re undetectable to camera scanners, and a wireless connection would just mean another way to hack into them. All the storage is inside the device. To retrieve them, you have to have surgery again. Not the kind of thing most people would be interested in unless you’re trying to record people who really don’t want you to be recording them.”
When you’re so desperate for safety that you think this provides insurance, Ruth thinks. Some future leverage.
And there’s no way to get the recordings out except to cut the girl open. “Thanks.”
“I don’t know what you’re involved in, Ruth, but you really are getting too old for this. Are you still leaving the Regulator on all the time? It’s not healthy.”
“Don’t I know it.” She changes the subject to Gail’s children. The Regulator allows her to have this conversation without pain. After a suitable amount of time, she says good-bye and hangs up.
The phone rings again.
“This is Carrie. You called me.”
“Yes.” Ruth makes her voice sound light, carefree.
Carrie’s voice is flirtatious but cautious. “Is this for you and your boyfriend or husband?”
“No, just me.”
She grips the phone, counting the seconds. She tries to will Carrie not to hang up.
“I found your website. You’re a private detective?”
Ruth already knew that she would. “Yes, I am.”
“I can’t tell you anything about any of my clients. My business depends on discretion.”
“I’m not going to ask you about your clients. I just want to see you.” She thinks hard about how to gain her trust. The Regulator makes this difficult, as she has become unused to the emotive quality of judgments and impressions. She thinks the truth is too abrupt and strange to convince her. So she tries something else. “I’m interested in a new experience. I guess it’s something I’ve always wanted to try and haven’t.”
“Are you working for the cops? I am stating now for the record that you’re paying me only for companionship, and anything that happens beyond that is a decision between consenting adults.”
“Look, the cops wouldn’t use a woman to trap you. It’s too suspicious.”
The silence tells Ruth that Carrie is intrigued. “What time are you thinking of?”
“As soon as you’re free. How about now?”
“It’s not even noon yet. I don’t start work until six.”
Ruth doesn’t want to push too hard and scare her off. “Then I’d like to have you all night.”
She laughs. “Why don’t we start with two hours for a first date?”
“That will be fine.”
“You saw my prices?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Take a picture of yourself holding your ID and text it to me first so I know you’re for real. If that checks out, you can go to the corner of Victory and Beech in Back Bay at six and call me again. Put the cash in a plain envelope.”