Arsen woke up early the next morning, stretching hard to pop the tension out of his worn-out muscles. He’d overdone it at the gym the morning before, putting in a last-ditch effort to get his abs in peak shape before Maya got here. He knew it was stupid. Chances were, she wasn’t even going to see his bare chest and stomach while she stayed in the city. But he had to try.
Maybe I’ll make her see them, he thought as he slipped out of bed and put on a pair of sweatpants. He grinned mischievously to himself as he walked into his bathroom to brush his hair. He’d just walk around without a shirt on. That way, Maya wouldn’t have a choice. She’d have to see how good he looked nowadays.
When he stepped out into the living room/kitchen area, however, Maya was nowhere to be found. She must still be sleeping, Arsen thought as he walked into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. But first, he pulled out his phone to check his e-mail. Sometimes he got frantic requests for his P.I. work overnight. But right at the top of his inbox was a message from Chris, who’d managed to get ahold of Roxie’s text messages and call records within twelve hours.
Arsen knew Maya would want to see this right away, so he walked back over to the hallway to knock lightly on her door. “Maya? I’ve got some good news,” he called out.
The door swung open, revealing an exhausted-looking Maya, whose jaw fell open as soon as she got a good look at Arsen in his shirtless state.
A second later, Maya went pale, like she’d just seen a ghost. “Um, I…hi, good morning, hi,” she stuttered out, her eyes drifting up and down his body.
Arsen struggled to suppress a self-satisfied smirk. She still wants me, he thought. Even if it’s just physically, she wants me. “Good morning to you, too,” he said, putting one hand up on the frame of the door to flex his abdominal muscles even more. “Roxie’s phone records. We’ve got them.”
Maya’s eyes widened, and she immediately stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind her. “Let me see them,” she demanded.
Arsen wordlessly handed his phone over to her before he remembered that the screen automatically locked after a minute of inactivity. “The access code is…”
“I remember it,” Maya said quickly, dragging her finger down the front of his phone screen to open up the right e-mail. “Let’s comb through these.”
“You start,” Arsen said. “I’ll make breakfast.” He knew Maya would have better insight into what was relevant and what wasn’t worth their time. After all, between the two of them, only Maya had ever been a teenage girl.
Maya didn’t answer him, already completely wrapped up in Roxie’s virtual life. Arsen set about scrambling some eggs and making a few slices of French toast for them. They worked in silence, Maya studying up while Arsen cooked, and Arsen couldn’t help but feel…relieved at how comfortable it felt, how familiar. They used to do this all the time, back in the day. He’d cook while her thoughts stewed. He’d take care of her while she took care of the case. They were a great team. Arsen had to swallow to clear the lump in this throat that popped up just thinking about it. He missed this. So much.
Once he finished fixing up breakfast, he brought two plates full of food to the table, where Maya sat thumbing through the phone records with her brows furrowed and her eyes narrowed practically to slits. “Got anything yet?” Arsen asked as he sat down across from Maya.
“Not sure,” Maya murmured, not looking up from the phone. “She…she had a flirtation or a…short-lived relationship that didn’t appear in the diary. His name is Darren, Darren Crenshaw. She talks about how annoying he became, bothering her when she decided she didn’t want to date him anymore.”
“That’s suspicious,” Arsen said, beginning to dig into his eggs. “Most women are killed or abused by intimate partners.” Maya nodded in response, and then they fell into silence for several long moments before Maya finally spoke again.
“It’s possible…it’s possible that she wasn’t even taken by The Blade, isn’t it?” Maya asked, finally tearing her eyes away from Arsen’s phone to look him in the eyes. “It could be a copycat, trying to misdirect the police’s attention so that they can get away with killing her.”
“Yeah, it’s possible,” Arsen agreed. “My gut tells me otherwise, though.”
Maya bit down on her bottom lip, nodding more to herself than to Arsen. He couldn’t help but wonder what all was going through her beautiful head.
“You should eat,” Arsen said, gesturing towards her full plate. “You’ll need your energy if we’re going to catch some scumbags.”
Maya picked up her fork and stabbed at her eggs but didn’t actually bring any of the food to her mouth just yet. She returned to looking at the phone, but a few seconds later, she froze, her eyes rising again to meet Arsen’s. This time, her eyes looked full and wide, like she’d just pieced together the final bit of a puzzle. “Her dad hit her,” she said lowly. “A week before she went missing. Look,” she said as she handed Arsen his phone, pointing to a message that Roxie wrote to one of her close friends.
Arsen cleared his throat and began to read out loud, “My stupid fucking father wouldn’t let me go out yesterday. I yelled in his face, so he slapped me. Mom told me to stop being a baby about the whole thing. Such a bitch. Can you believe that?”
Maya took the phone back, but she finally put it down next to her plate and began eating, chewing slowly, obviously still lost in thought. “Could be nothing…”
“Could be something, though,” Arsen argued. “Sometimes small acts of violence snowball. That might not have been the first time he hit her. Or the last.”
“But why would they come to you, then?” Maya asked in between swallows of French toast. “Are they really that arrogant to think that they could trick you into pinning the crime onto somebody else?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. Still, it’s worth looking into,” Arsen said, even though he didn’t believe that the Greenwoods were responsible for Roxie’s disappearance. They seemed too genuine, too sincerely heart-broken about what had happened to their daughter. Arsen would be shocked if they were behind the whole thing.
“So we’ve got a working list of suspects here,” Arsen said as he finished off the rest of his eggs. “The parents of the unnamed girl, the Greenwoods, the guy at the sunglasses hut, and the ex-boyfriend. That’s good to start with.”
But Maya frowned and pushed her red hair out of her face, the way she always did when she was struggling to gather her thoughts. “But if it is The Blade…he could be anybody. I need to look at the crime scene photos again, get an idea of how his mind works.”
“Are you sure…” Arsen trailed off, thinking about how the photographs seemed to trigger Maya in a powerful way just the night before.
But Maya nodded furiously, so fast that her head practically became a blur. “Yes, I’m sure. I need to do this.”
That’s my girl, Arsen thought with pride as he got up to go to the evidence cabinet, pulling out the gruesome pictures from the crime scenes again.
Maya stared at them a long time, tapping her feet anxiously under the table like she was itching to break into a run. Arsen honestly wouldn’t blame her. After everything that she’d been through, it was amazing that she was able to confront stuff like this at all. Maybe I’m just torturing her, Arsen thought, feeling the heavy sensation of guilt sink down through his stomach. Maybe I should have never bothered her. Maybe she just needs to rest, not get drawn back into this bullshit.
But Maya sprung up from her chair a minute later, gripping one of the crime scene photos in her fist. “The spiral.”
“The thing he carved on that one girl’s knee?”
“Right,” Maya said. “It means something. It’s not just a doodle. It’s Masonic imagery. There’s an eye in the center, see? You have to really squint to see it, but it’s there.”
“What do you mean? The killer’s a Freemason?”
Maya shook her head. “More likely, someone who thinks the Masons were more mystical and powerful than they really were. So, judging by that, the killer’s a man, although that was already statistically likely from the outset. He’s probably older. It’s not likely that a teenager is obsessed with the Freemasons, although I suppose it’s still possible. And…” Maya trailed off, rubbing her finger over the edge of the photograph. “He thinks he’s doing God’s work. He thinks it’s holy or sacred or important.”
“Shit,” Arsen whispered. “Any other information you think we could use?”
“Um, he probably doesn’t have a criminal record. At least, not for physical violence, anyway,” Maya said, blowing a few random strands of coppery hair out of her face.
“How do you figure that?” Arsen asked.
“He wants our attention. Really bad,” Maya said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t go to all the trouble of mailing the hearts to the families. He feels like he hasn’t been recognized, like he hasn’t gotten his fair share. If he’d been convicted for hurting someone before now, he’d feel differently, maybe even a little scared to be caught again. But he’s never been caught.”
“Fuck, you’re smart,” Arsen murmured, the words leaving his mouth without his permission. He saw Maya blush a little, her pale cheeks going a deep pink as her eyes dropped to the floor bashfully.
“Thank you,” she muttered in response.
Arsen could tell that Maya’s skin was crawling. She was always uncomfortable when people looked at her for too long, even Arsen. He quickly made up an excuse to leave her alone. “I’m gonna go get the mail. Be right back,” he said, walking past her to leave his apartment and go out to his mailbox.
When he reentered his apartment a minute later, he realized that Maya still had his phone. He needed to e-mail Chris back to thank him for the favor, but Maya was nowhere in sight. “Maya?” he called out, scanning the living room and kitchen for any sign of her. But she wasn’t there.
A small little flash of fear went up Arsen’s spine. Calm down, crazy, he said to himself silently. Nobody kidnapped Maya. She’s fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.
Even still, he found himself walking into the spare bedroom, anxious to find Maya and dispel the worry that had suddenly clogged up his throat. “Maya?” he called out, but he couldn’t see her, even after walking through the bedroom’s doorway.
But then a second later, he heard something, a sweet, high noise, like the chirping of birds. Arsen turned to find the source of the noise, cracking open the door of the bathroom to reveal Maya in the shower, singing something above the noise of the water hitting her naked body.
Arsen could see her silhouette even through the fogged-up glass door. Her long legs, her slim waist, her pert breasts—all of her gorgeous, beautiful, miraculous body was right there, right in front of him. Arsen longed to lunge forward and crash through the shower door, press their bodies together and never let go. He wanted to be wet with her. He wanted their bodies to stick together like glue, never coming apart.
Maya turned to face him, and for one long, glorious moment, Arsen thought she was going to open the shower door and reveal herself, fully. But instead, her jaw dropped open and her hand flew up to cover her mouth in shock.
“Arsen! What the hell are you doing?!” Maya shouted, covering her breasts and vulva with her hands.
“I’m…sorry, sorry, I’m sorry,” Arsen stuttered out, stumbling backwards until he left the bathroom entirely.
Fuck. What have I done?