The sun was still shining above, sending beams of light cascading through the sky like shooting stars. It should have felt comforting, but it did not.

  “Will, aren't you going to answer me?” Charlie said, keeping his eyes on the road as they left the suburban neighborhood.

  "Pardon?" Will replied, disorientated as he broke from the worried thoughts running through his mind.

  "You've been tense all day, Will," Charlie observed. He turned the wheel and the car headed onto a long stretch of country road. "You know you can talk about it with me, if you want."

  Will put his hand to his inside pocket. He could feel the outline of the envelope Stephen Glass had given him. The details surrounding Damian Skorzeny and his impending release from prison.

  "It's nothing, Charlie," he said, taking his hand away from his pocket. "I'll be fine."

  "You gonna tell me what's in that inside pocket?" Charlie asked.

  Will was shocked that Charlie had noticed. But then he shouldn't have been; Charlie was as perceptive as they came. Will often thought how strange it was that two people could have such different life experiences yet end in the same place with similar abilities, drawn to catching those who carry out the worst crimes of all.

  "It's complicated, Old Chap," Will said.

  "Isn't everything these days?" Charlie said with a sigh.

  Rather than face the ethical decision of whether to intervene in Skorzeny's parole hearing or not, Will changed to a different worry. The worry of a friend.

  "Can I ask you, Charlie," he said. "What do you know about Valerie's mother?"

  "I know that she has severe psychiatric needs," he said. "I also know that she had some sort of psychotic break when Valerie was young, and that Val took the brunt of it. Though I don't know all of the details."

  Will thought through what was bothering him. "She seemed especially perturbed today by visiting her mother."

  "Yeah," Charlie said gruffly. "I know. I wish she could find peace with it. My understanding is that she's trying to help her reach a stable place, but that it keeps falling apart."

  "You know," Will said. "I offered to help Valerie some time ago with a therapist I knew."

  "Oh, really?" Charlie sounded surprised. The car rumbled along the road, the sun momentarily disappearing behind the wisp of a cloud.

  "Yes," Will explained. "But she spoke with the therapist for a few sessions then said it wasn't for her."

  "Therapy isn't for everyone, Will," Charlie said, sounding like he was talking more about himself than Valerie. "Val is the strongest person I've ever met. Maybe she just came to an understanding in herself and she wanted to push through on her own."

  "That's what I'm worried about, Charlie. Sometimes the strongest person is the one who needs the most help. They think they have a handle on things until they don't. Someone who feels they can take care of themselves like that, under psychological pressure, can suddenly crack."

  Charlie switched on the indicator and suddenly pulled over by the side of the road. He switched the ignition off and turned to Will.

  The fields around them lay quiet in the glinting sunshine.

  "Will," Charlie said. "Do you think Valerie will crack?"

  "I've seen enough in her to feel it's possible," Will said. "We both have, you know that, Charlie."

  Charlie nodded and sighed. "I suppose I've ignored it for a while. Every case seems to weigh down on her more and more. And this stuff with her mother... I don't know, I get the feeling there's something going on that she's not telling us."

  "We know that Heinlein has been investigating us and our pasts," Will said. "I fear he's doing the same with Valerie. She let slip a while ago that the FBI had paid her stepfather a visit."

  "I don't know what else we can do," Charlie said. "She won't open up about things to me, not like she used to. I don't know how to help her."

  "For the last few cases," Will said, gravely, "we've taken the tact that we should wait and see; that we should simply keep an eye out for any signs of overt stress in her. But perhaps this has been the wrong approach."

  "What's the alternative?" Charlie asked, looking around at the silent fields in the sun.

  Will weighed it all in his mind. He had worried for some time that they would have to intervene to help Valerie, but he knew the dangers.

  "I think," he eventually said, "that she needs our help. I think we should offer it. Maybe after this case, we sit down with her and..."

  "Like an intervention?" Charlie let out a pained laugh. "Good luck with that, Will. She's a wonderful person, but Val is not the type to take to that so easily. She'll fight it. And I wouldn't want to be in her sights when telling her she needs our help."

  "I can do it alone," Will then offered.

  "No," Charlie sighed. "I'm saying it won't be easy, not that we shouldn't do it. Let's sit down with her when the case is done, then. See if we can help her through whatever is going on."

  "Agreed," Will said, feeling relief that Charlie was on board. Perhaps with both of them working together, they could forge a way forward that wouldn't rile Valerie too much. Will valued her friendship, deeply, and he didn't want to do anything to ruin that. Charlie had known Valerie for much longer, and so his insight into how she might react would prove invaluable.

  Charlie turned the key in the ignition. "We better get going. Valerie might already be at the morgue by now."

  "How far is it?" Will said, looking at the long straight road ahead.

  "Not long, not long at all." Charlie drove onward, not saying much more.

  Will felt the paper in his pocket again. Maybe you should tell Charlie about that, too, he thought.

  He needed more time to think about what to do about Skorzeny the killer's possible release.

  Now was not the time to bog everything down with that. But like the road that stretched before them towards a morgue that held the burned remains of James Asper, Will knew he would have to face what was in the envelope eventually. The question was, did he have to face it alone?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Valerie had been waiting for fifteen minutes in the hallway outside of Williamwood morgue. The walls around her were a deep peach, and a potted plant in the corner and deep blue-green carpets made the building feel much more welcoming than a place which housed the dead ever should.

  She glanced at her watch again.

  Where are they? she thought. Pulling out her phone, she looked at it, ready to call Charlie and Will, but she saw that she had a message from Tom.

  It read:

  'Hey, going fishing with Max for a couple of days. Let me know when you'll be back at the apartment. Love you. Stay safe.'

  Valerie thought that was strange. Tom and Tom's friend Max normally had their fishing trips in the summer. Despite the turn in the weather, it still seemed too early for that.

  She wondered if it was his way of saying he wouldn't be waiting at home for her, that he had a life, too. But she shook that feeling as quickly as it had come. She didn't want to think Tom would be that petty.

  A creak sounded and in plodded Charlie and Will through the door at the end of the corridor.

  "I'm telling you," Charlie said to Will. "It's stinging my eyes."

  Valerie stood up and watched them bickering like an old couple as they approached.

  "What's up?" Valerie asked.

  "I sprayed some new cologne I recently was sent from a friend in Italy," Will explained. "Charlie thinks it..."

  "It smells like someone melted flowers in a toilet," Charlie laughed.

  "It's premium stuff, I'll have you know," Will continued.

  Will took out a small bottle and sprayed his wrist, holding it out Valerie. "There."

  Valerie smelled it. "Um..."

  "What do you mean, 'um?’" Will said. "This stuff costs a fortune."

  "I'm sure it does, Will," Valerie said. "It's really not that bad." She was trying to spare his feelings.

  "You always spray yourself with something before we go into a morgue these days," Charlie complained, jokingly. "I'm beginning to think you have a problem. Some people drink too much. You're becoming a perfume addict."

  "It's not perfume," Will shook his head. "It's the finest cologne there is."

  Suddenly a door clicked open behind them. Out stepped a man in his late twenties wearing a white coat and holding a clipboard.

  "You lot will wake up the dead," the man said.

  Valerie smiled. It was Todd Redding. They had worked with him before on some previous cases. At first, he had been an assistant in a mortuary, but had quickly climbed the ladder.

  "Hey, Todd," Valerie said, shaking his hand. "How are you?"

  He hesitated. "I'm good, but... This case this morning... It's quite unnerving. I've never seen anything like it."

  "What's so unusual about it?" Charlie asked.

  "Let me show you," he said. "Follow me."

  Todd walked back through a set of swinging doors, took a left, and then headed down a flight of stairs. The others followed without saying much.

  Valerie had been to that morgue before, and the journey down those stairs was always a daunting one. An icy cold air moved up the staircase towards them, and on it was the smell of chemicals and the sickly sweet stench of death.

  "Through here," Todd said, taking them into a large room, the walls lined with small metal doors, each of which hid a body on a cold slab.

  Todd looked at his notes and then walked along. "3F," he said to himself, unlocking one of the metal doors revealing a large body bag inside.

  He pulled at the slab tray, rolling it out for all to see. Valerie caught the faint smell of burnt hair.

  Todd opened the bag, revealing the grotesque remnants of a victim.

  "James Asper," he said, looking at his notes. "One of the pathologists just got done with the autopsy. But we'll be waiting for lab results for a while. Toxicology, etc."

  Valerie stared at the body, which looked more like a skeleton stuck in a macabre pose, covered in black soot.

  "My God," Will said, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket and putting it to his mouth.

  "Poor guy," Charlie said. "Do you think he was..."

  "Alive when it happened?" Todd asked. "Yes, I believe so, though I can't be certain. There were pressure marks on his fingers and in the armchair that suggest he held on in pain."

  “Don't muscles spasm, whether conscious or not, during electrocution?” Will asked.

  “Yes,” Todd agreed. “But in this case, there was an unusual scratch pattern underneath the arm of the chair and fibers beneath his nails that had not burned to the same degree. I believe this suggests that he was clawing at the arm of the chair after he had been strapped in. There are also marks on his wrists from the chains the killer used as though he struggled. I suspect James was knocked out somehow, then woke up after being tied into the chair. Of course, I can't be definitive about that. So, I would suggest he experienced the entire ordeal.”

  Valerie felt sickened. She had seen a lot of death in her time. But this was particularly barbaric.

  "I know it's difficult considering the condition," Valerie said in a low voice. "But have you been able to ascertain anything that might help? Anything specific about the murder?"

  "DNA samples from the killer are almost useless," Todd answered. "The electrocution doesn’t allow us to recover much in that sense."

  "I was thinking on the way over," Charlie said. "Shouldn't the consumer unit have tripped at the resistance change when the electrocution started?"

  "Yes," Todd answered, flicking through the notes on his clipboard. "According to the initial forensics, someone had hooked up the house electrical system in a way to avoid this from happening."

  "So, someone perhaps with a working knowledge of electricity?" Will asked.

  "It's possible," Todd said. "But then, I suppose these days you can find all kinds of information on the internet about this sort of thing."

  Valerie leaned in and noticed two circular marks on the sides of the victim's head. "What are these?"

  "Yes," Todd said, gravely. "Well spotted, Valerie." He leaned under the tray and pulled out a large bag. "We found these on his head."

  Valerie took the bag and looked at what was inside. It was a pair of old headphones, the type that used to be used with a personal Walkman back in the day. But they were melted and scorched in places.

  “Ah,” Valerie said. “This explains the arc of discoloration on the headrest of James Asper's chair. The metal from the headphones scorched into the chair, differently.”

  "I haven't seen a pair like that in years," Charlie said.

  "Oh, get with the times, Old Chap," Will said. "Retro technology, especially audio equipment is all the rage with the younger generation. Vinyl, tape cassettes, and especially anything from the ‘80s."

  Valerie noticed something, looking closely into the bag. "There's not much damage to them?"

  "Yes," Todd answered. "It appears that the headphones were placed on the body after the main electrocution. Then, I suspect, another, shorter shock was administered through the body, perhaps to ensure he was dead. Maybe he was still breathing and the killer wanted to finish him off, and the primary electrocution didn't manage it. "

  "Primary electrocution?" Will asked.

  "Look here," Todd said, turning the body gently on its side. "There's a pronged mark here on the spine."

  "That's from a taser!" Charlie observed out loud. "If it's on his back, the killer must have sneaked up behind him and zapped him first."

  "That would have incapacitated him," Valerie said. "At least long enough for him to strap James to his chair and kill him with the surge from the main power supply."

  "Fascinating," Will pondered, tapping his head.

  "What are you thinking?" Valerie asked.

  "Most of the time when we're dealing with serial killers," Will explained, "how they subdue the victim and how they kill them aren't overtly connected. Some will bludgeon a victim with a blunt instrument first, then use strangulation. Others might use a drug, and then stab the victim."

  "But this is two electric shocks, you mean?" said Charlie.

  “Or three,” Todd added.

  "Exactly," Will continued. "It would suggest that electricity has some deeper meaning for the killer. So much so, that he has used it both to subdue and murder."

  Valerie's mind became alive with possibilities. "I wonder... Pyromaniacs are obsessed with fire. Some even kill with it. Could we be dealing with someone who has a similar fetish? An obsession with electricity, wanting to literally shock the world?"

  "It's as good as anything we have," Will said.

  "It's not my field of expertise," Todd offered. "But I'd love to hear your thoughts on the headphones. It's such a strange addition."

  "My first thought," Valerie said, "would be that it's some sort of burial rite."

  "That's fantastic, Valerie," Will said, enthusiastically. "It could be couldn't it?"

  Valerie nodded. "A funereal rite. Much like placing flowers at a grave."

  "Or singing a hymn at a service," Charlie added.

  "Exactly," Will agreed.

  "Why put someone through all of that pain and anguish to then do something personal like that?" Todd asked.

  "Killers sometimes pay tribute to their victims," Valerie explained. "It can be a twisted thank you for the experience. Or, alternatively, it can be the killer showing some sort of remorse for their actions."

  "Whatever the reason," Charlie said. "I think it's safe to say that we've got our work cut out on this one. I've never seen anything like this, and we've seen it all."

  Valerie knew Charlie was right. This case was different. They were heading into uncharted territory.

  "If you're finished..." Todd said, moving his hand towards the zipper on the body bag.

  "Can I have a moment?" Valerie asked.

  "Are you okay?" Will asked.

  "Yes," she said. "I just need to think something through."

  Todd nodded. "I'll be outside that door; just yell and I'll come back and close everything up."

  Charlie patted Valerie on the arm as he and the rest left the room.

  Valerie turned her head back to the body now that she was alone. There was something about James Asper's remains that cut into her. At first, she wasn't sure what it was, but as she stared at the body, she then realized.

  His hands were in a similar position to the crime scene photos from her father's murder. It had taken a moment for that to sink in, but as the realization dawned, she felt a tear run down her cheek.

  Even the first names are similar, she thought. Jake and James.

  She had never known her dad; his life had been cut short before she ever had the chance. Now this man, James Asper, his life had been cut short, too.

  "I'll find your killer, Jake... James... I promise." She carefully leaned over and pulled the zipper close and then turned away from the body bag.

  She reached up and wiped another tear from her cheek when she heard something. A rustling noise. Or was it a scratching? It was difficult to tell.

  Fear began to run through her as the noise intensified. It sounded like fingernails on the inside of the body bag.

  Slowly, she turned, her nerves shredded. At first, she didn't look down, but then the sound came again.

  Fingernails, she thought.

  She finally looked down and for the briefest of seconds, she watched in horror as the zipper moved slowly down.

  This isn't real...

  "This isn't real!" she yelled, closing her eyes, and holding her hands to her ears.

  "Val?" Charlie came lurching through the door, followed by Todd and Will. "What's wrong?"

  Valerie opened her eyes. The zipper hadn't moved an inch. It had been another hallucination.

  Composing herself, Valerie turned to face the others. She saw the looks on Charlie and Will's faces. Expressions of worry. Todd simply seemed confused.

  "I'm fine," Valerie said, hoping beyond hope that they hadn't heard what she'd said.

  This isn't real... she thought again. They heard me. They know I'm breaking apart.

 

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