“Wheredidthey find the bodies?” I asked cautiously, knowing I was going to hate his answer.
“Kind of…” He swallowed hard, cleared his throat, then straightened his shoulders. I was sure he didn’t mean to, but that wall I’d broken through earlier began to drop bricks again, trying to build up the barrier I’d already dealt with. “…everywhere.”
He’s used to having to hold everything inside.Middle child syndrome?Likely the glue of the family.Always had to prove himself.
“Ah,” I said slowly, and I realized what I had stepped into in my ambitious desire to keep my mother’s legacy relevant. Back in my reading room, it had been an exciting opportunity I couldn’t pass up, but now, as I stood in a murder room where the victims’ pain was as bright as paint, I knew I’d acted without thinking.
Fucking impulsivity.
But as irritated and ashamed as I was of myself, I couldn’t back out now that I was in the middle of it. I was seeing things no one else could see, and Iowedit to Paul now to help him.
I looked at the most intense part of the room: the office chair with a single slice barely wider than my pinky in the expensive leather. Paul had mentioned a silver weapon was used, and I figured that was where it had rested until it was photographed, bagged, and collected as evidence.
But it was the swirl of colors I saw around it that drew my attention more than that tiny cut. Like everywhere else, it was bathed in that red pain along with the shock and the betrayal, but there was something else there.
Heartbreak.
It ascended from the floor like raindrops in reverse, pearlescent drops of opal, as if the ground itself was weeping in zero gravity. The alpha, Paul’s father, had likely been near tears after watching his son and security be decimated so thoroughly.
As I stared at those drops rising to the ceiling, then disappearing beyond, something scratched at the back of my mind.
“How many people were killed?” I asked, spinning in a slow three-sixty to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“Seven. My father, my brother, and the five in their security detail.”
“Seven,” I repeated, mentally counting in my head.
Spot one, spot two and three by the door, spot four by the bookcase, spot five to the right in front of the desk, spot six behind the desk, and then spot seven being where the alpha was killed with a silver weapon.
There are only seven emotional signatures.
There are only seven emotional signatures!
I wanted to blurt out that revelation right then and there, but I felt like I hadn’t observed the space enough yet. While I’d never physically been in a murder scene before, I couldn’t help but think that the killer would have exuded at leastsomething. The triumph of victory, or burning hatred, or maybe even their own fear at what they were capable of. Even satisfaction would make sense. But no, there was nothing. Nothing but sorrow, pain, and shock.
Something wasn’t adding up.
Figuring that I had observed everything I could from my particular vantage spot, I slowly walked behind the desk, pausing to silently check with Paul if that was permitted. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded to let me know it was okay.
Hyperaware of what I was doing and Paul’s eyes lingering on me, I cautiously touched the desk. Once I made contact, the grizzly reds and violent colors faded, allowing me to see a subtler display of feelings swirling across the surface.
Feeling my hyperfocus take over once more, I let my fingers follow the path of fondness and affection until I was opening adrawer. Almost as soon as it was cracked, I was nearly blinded by an outpouring of what could only belove.
My heart skipped a beat as I saw two different emotional signatures glowing sweetly inside the drawer. And while it wasn’t entirely shocking to see that it was full of all sorts of knickknacks and trinkets, it was a bit jarring when I realized the magazine sitting at the top was open to an advertisement from my mother.
Oh.
So that’s how he found me.
The magazine was really old and had a lot of nineties tropes for advertisement, but seeing it sent a wave of softness and warmth through me. Goodness. If I could grow up to be half the woman she was, I would consider that a life well lived.
“And you’re sure there were seven?” I asked, deciding not to ask about the magazine and other things in the drawer. Even in a murder investigation, some things were private.
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure. And the morgue confirmed that number once they counted all the body parts.”
Yikes. Wouldn’t want that job.
While I wasn’t an investigative genius, I’d watched enough true crime documentaries to know that most people were murdered by someone they knew. Was there a way for me to bring that up tactfully? But even if I could, that didn’t explain why there were only seven signatures.