“A good thing I won’t let it ruin my day.” Alessandra laughs, standing up. “I better get back.”
I get up too and lead the way to the front door. “Thank you again for the food.”
“It is bribery for you to stay in touch.” She raises an eyebrow and holds out one arm. I hesitate for a second and then give hera quick hug.
“I will, I swear.”
“Good.” She looks over my shoulder as Izzy appears behindus, headed for the kitchen with the tea tray. “Bye, girls. Lock the door behind me.”
“Will do,” Izzy promises.
I watch as Alessandra walks to the end of the path, waving at her as she leaves. I close the door, my thoughts spinning.
“Shall I just warm up a bit of everything?” Izzy calls from the kitchen. I can already hear her popping lids off the Tupperware and unwrapping foil.
“Definitely,” I reply, though I don’t join her immediately.
Instead, I make sure the front door is double locked and head back to the living room, where I make a beeline for the coffee table. I pick up the tarot card, making sure it’s not upside down, and study it. Despite holding two massive swords, the figure’s body language is fairly relaxed, the face not giving any sign of pain or distress. However, one detail stands out to me so much that it might as well be fluorescent.
The figure is wearing a blindfold, just like the first portrait of The Four.
Just like Helen.
THIRTY-TWO
Izzy moved back into myroom last night, which was good because I didn’t really want to be alone again, but it also meant that I couldn’t do any of the things I wanted to do without starting another argument. Instead, I set my alarm stupidly early, knowing full well Izzy would sleep through it, and now I’m curled up on the sofa with a massive mug of coffee and the Two of Swords. I managed to grab my iPad and Professor Williams’s notes as I snuck out of the room, and I have the latter spread out in front of me.
I sip the too-strong coffee, hoping it wakes me up. It’s just shy of six a.m. so it’s already bright out, fingers of sunlight reaching through the shutters, but Izzy’s sleep schedule should be reliable enough for me to have an hour on my own. If I don’t, she’s going to fall out with me all over again. I know I promised to drop the whole copycat killer thing, but seeing the blindfold on the card is too much of a coincidence—the tarot must fit in somewhere.
I turn the Two of Swords over in my hands as my brain starts to wake up. One thing I’ve had very little insight into iswhythe artist might have killed The Four. If he was BBK, he could have been a run-of-the-mill psychopath, but I think of the rituals Icame across that involved blood and hair. What if that wasn’t just the product of a sick mind, but because hewastrying to do a spell, like Izzy insists? Tarot cards were linked with the occult back then—could he have been using them to choose the way he killed those women?
I pick up Professor Williams’s handwritten notes, take a sip of coffee and scan a page. The penciled notes are still mainly indecipherable, so I flip it over and focus on the other side.
This side has drawings on it.
Well, “drawings” is generous. “Rough sketches” is a more accurate description of these rectangles with little squiggles in them. I scan the chicken-scratch handwriting around them and gasp as a word finally jumps out, mainly because I’ve been looking for it. “Tarot.”
I knew it.
I sit up and scrabble through the pictures I saved from my ill-conceived murder wall. They’re torn at the corners, and I have to smooth them out, but I find the first of The Four, the woman I now think of as Lorenna, and place her on the coffee table next to the Two of Swords. I compare them, wanting there to be more in common, but there’s nothing apart from the blindfold.
I sit back with a deep sigh and sip my coffee, making a face when I realize it’s starting to get cold. I drain my mug and peel the overly ripened banana that counts as breakfast.
The Two of Swords taunts me from the coffee table, and I wonder if it is all some weird coincidence as I turn the TV on in case Izzy walks in on me. I eat the banana in three bites, realizing how hungry I am, and then pick up the notes again.
If it’s all a coincidence, then why did the professor make these notes?
I put my banana peel in the empty mug and grab the entire deck of cards, copying what Izzy did the other night by getting down on all fours and spreading them out on the floor at random, looking for any more that might match Lorenna in a macabre game of concentration. My eyes blur as they take in one card after the other, and I realize there are too many figures, too many swords and cups, their bright primary colors all muddling together. I gather them up and rock back on my heels, forcing myself to think of the easiest way to do this.
I reach over to the coffee table and grab the pile of salvaged printouts, once again placing the portraits in the order they hang in the gallery. Then I grab the cards and cross my legs, placing one at a time next to the first portrait. I discard pages and queens, wands and pentacles, putting them to one side until I come across one that makes my breath catch in my throat. I sit up from my hunched position as I hold it in front of me. It’s another card from the sword suit, that much is immediately obvious. It shows eight long blades that have been stabbed into the earth surrounding a feminine figure, and I feel a rising sense of excitement as I glance between it and the portrait, noting their similarities. The character on the Eight of Swords appears distressed and they are also wearing a blindfold, but there’s something else, something that steals my breath. The figure has binding over her shoulders, just like the portrait of Lorenna hints at.
Just like the draping ends of Helen’s makeshift blindfold.
I check the time. It’s six-thirty now, so Izzy should be asleepfor a little bit longer, especially as I remembered to pull down the blackout blinds in my room. I can feel the caffeine working its way into my bloodstream, my brain now a machine weaving threads together, even though I’m not sure what the finished product will look like yet. I let it work in the background and gather up the tarot cards, leaving the Eight of Swords below the first portrait and focusing on the second painting, the woman with flowers in her hair. Frances.
Or Jen.
I grab my iPad from the sofa and open Google.