I turned the frame over.
Little orange Xs marked out each face on the photo perfectly. There was even a fifth. He’d marked off his latest victim—Stepdad. That must have been when he’d seen that I hadn’t put the things back in the box correctly—why he took everything out to be burned, the reason for his tirade—because he’d gone into the box to mark off the victim from yesterday. That left only one face unmarked, Blue-Haired Girl.
What was it I’d said? That it was like the killer was using my photo as a checklist?
He didn’t need mine. I’d thought the park had been our killer’s ritual, or maybe the sword, but clearly it was this. He had Mum’s copy of the photo, and just like every other serial murderer, he had his own ritual—to come home and mark out the face on the glass. Only, he was smart enough to remove the photo, so that no one would know what the mark was for. Perhaps he’d been carrying it around in his back pocket. Just like me.
Sherlock had been right. The killer was police. The killer was Detective Sergeant Moriarty.
Sitting there on the floor of my mom and dad’s room, I closed my eyes and saw everything again. Like the killer stepped out of the shadowy blur he’d been hiding in since that first night in the park. And his face . . . he was my dad. My dad with a knife.
The knife. I thought I’d have to rip apart his room to find the short sword from my mom’s aikido kit, but it wasn’t even hidden. When I tried to return the box to the closet, this sweater kept getting in the way, so I finally pulled it out, and the sword clattered to the floor, sliding free from its hilt just enough to glint at me in the soft light streaming in from the hall. The house creaked just as a sleeve of the sweater fell free and swayed in front of me. My heart jumped and my face ached as a chill spread through my chest. My hands trembled as I rolled the short sword back into the sweater and shoved it up next to the box as quickly as I could. Then I closed the closet doors and leaned against them until I could breathe again.
I’d left the frame on the floor. The orange crosses seemed to glow on the glass. I half expected the metal of the frame to feel hot when I reached for it. I couldn’t seem to pick it up. It felt heavier than before when I finally did. I hid it up my sleeve, for lack of a better place, and walked out into the hall.
Sorte Juntos.
As I crossed the spot where I’d tripped over DI Mallory’s briefcase, the words flashed through my mind. They had been typed atop one of the files in his bag. He’d left more than the Patel file to see, and I’d ignored the rest like an idiot. Mallory was clearly starting to put it all together, and now the files were gone and I couldn’t find out what he knew.
I took the stairs up to my room slowly, my mind racing through every possible logical reason why Mallory would bring those files for my dad to see.
I made it up only three steps before I heard footsteps behind me. Running footsteps and then soft puffs of air. I turned quickly, clutching the frame to my chest, but the silhouette in the doorway wasn’t the right shape to be my dad.
“What are you doing here?” Lock asked. He stepped into the light as he closed the door behind him, and everything about him being in my hallway, half naked, with his hair sticking up on one side—it all should’ve shocked me from the thoughts pounding in my head like a heartbeat. But all I could think to do was get upstairs and hide the frame where no one could ever find it.
“The boys,” I said, in this weird, quavering voice. “I have to check on my brothers.”
“They’re not here.”
I glanced up the stairs as if I didn’t believe him. “Where are they? Seanie will forget to brush his teeth.”
Sherlock paused before he answered. “Mycroft said he took them to stay with Mrs. Hudson. He woke me and told me to go after you. That you’d want to know.”
I still stared up into the darkness. Only a few steps separated me from my room. “Who is Mrs. Hudson?”
“She was our nanny when my mother still worked and comes to help out now that she’s ill.” When I said nothing, he added, “She makes sandwiches for tea.”
“Sandwiches,” I echoed. Like the ones Lock had served me.
“They are safe.” Lock crossed from the doorway to the stairs in three steps, and was standing on the step right below mine when he said, “You’ve got blood on your forehead.” He looked me over. “And on my shirt.”
“I need fresh clothes.” My voice was still this high-pitched wavering thing that didn’t sound like me at all.
“Are you hurt? Will you show me?”
He was staring right in my eyes, though he was standing below me. The steps made us exactly the same height. I untangled my injured finger from the shirt and held it up, while still clutching the concealed frame with my other hand. A bead of blood blossomed out until it was so heavy it dripped down my finger as Lock and I watched.
“What happened?”