Copycat Killer

by Hermione Stark

  I go inside, expecting to see the secretary sitting at a desk near the entry way. The desk is there, visible through a glass partition, but her chair is empty. She is not there. The waiting area is empty.

  Hurry, whispers the little voice, doing nothing to ease my nerves.

  Surprise makes me hesitate. This is off-plan. I had thought I was going to have to wait for the next patient to come to the house, hopefully in just a few minutes. I had planned to tell the secretary that I wanted to make an appointment with Beatrice and then ask her to use the bathroom. I had hoped the next patient would distract her, allowing me to sneak off to explore the house.

  Turns out my hopes aren’t needed. Beyond the secretary’s desk are two doors with little silver name plates on them. On one is written Beatrice Ann Grictor, Clinical Psychologist. On the other is Dr R. Silverstone.

  I run to the second door and listen with my ear pressed to it just long enough to make sure it is quiet on the other side, and then I hurriedly let myself in and pull the door shut behind me.

  My heart is thumping. I had worried it would be locked. It was not. Once inside, I pause to catch my breath and calm myself. There is a latch on the door. I lock it quietly, just in case the secretary tries to walk in for some reason. The latch will give me the few moments I need to hide.

  The room is fairly cramped. A plush darkwood desk and leather upholstered chair dominate it. They look like they were designed for a much larger space.

  I can hear a very muted voice coming from one wall that is lined with bookshelves. It is the wall which joins onto Beatrice’s office. She must be in there with her patient.

  For a small office, it has a lot of stuff in it and it is very messy. Too messy, in fact. The shelving is crammed floor-to-ceiling with books and manuals. Many of them are crooked and in disarray, as if they have been hastily put onto the shelves. Some have spilled onto the floor.

  Behind the desk is a wall full of photographs and framed certificates that turn out to be educational diplomas. Dr Silverstone has more degrees than I had thought a doctor needed. The two largest frames are wonky. The rest are perfectly straight, immaculately aligned as if Dr Silverstone had been a neat freak.

  The appearance of his ghost had certainly attested to his liking for neatness. He had been perfectly groomed, clean shaven, his short hair neatly sprayed into place, and wearing the same preppy outfit he’d had on in my dream.

  The room is at odds with itself. It is like someone rifled through everything and didn’t do a great job putting it back in its place. Which makes my job harder. The key Raif was talking about could be anywhere. And what was the point of it anyway? I am looking for his murderer, not a key.

  Knowing that I am no great detective and have nowhere near the time it would take to go through the contents of his large desk and his filing cabinets and shelves, I focus on the photographs.

  I place my hand on each one, hoping it will bring me some insight. The pictures are largely of people, some in groups, some portraits of individuals, many of them women. They all seem to have been taken in impoverished communities; some rural villages, some urban shanty towns. The people in them look tired but are beaming, clearly at the end of some sort of rewarding project. Dr Silverstone is in almost every shot, standing at the center of each group like a heroic savior. Everyone hugging him. He looks happy.

  I scrutinize each of the tiny faces in the group shots, paying particular attention to anyone who might resemble Lynesse Jones. The pictures that fascinate me most are the ones that have been taken in Otherworld, which is apparent from the exotic vegetation and the glimmering skies and buildings with architecture distinctly unlike those found on Earth.

  I reach the last picture and am disappointed that none have sparked any insight, even though there had only been the merest chance one would.

  Sighing, I go to the desk and take a seat in Dr Silverstone’s chair. I occupy the space he must have occupied so frequently, trying to envision the world through his eyes. One thing is certain. He liked comfort and nice things. The chair is lusher than my bed.

  He said he had come from a Great Family, Otherworld nobility. I got the feeling he grew up with massive wealth. So what choices had he made in life to end up here in this cramped office? Was he the family black sheep, and why?

  I open the top drawer of the desk and find a diary, the sort that you keep appointments in. I flip through it, and am disappointed to see it is mostly empty. His secretary must have managed his schedule for him.

  The only thing written in it is on the back page. The words Sao Paulo written over and over. An exuberant joy seems to dance out of them. I smile, and touch the words. The feeling of joy intensifies. It must have been Raif’s joy.

  Suddenly I drop the diary back into the drawer. Crap! Crappety crap crap! How stupid could I be? I had even brought rubber gloves with me and in my excitement I’d forgotten to put them on! And now Storm’s team are going to find my damn prints all over this room and on this diary, which of course they are going to be very interested in. And Storm has already warned me he has to treat me like a suspect!

  Cursing myself for forgetting, I pull on my gloves and then find a tissue in my pocket. I use it to wipe down the leather cover of the diary and the page I touched.

  I roll back the chair, intending to wipe down all the pictures. The chair’s wheels crack loudly over broken glass. Something is beneath it that I hadn’t noticed. I freeze, scared Beatrice will have heard the noise from her office. I relax only after I hear her in there, still talking with her patient.

  I crouch down beside the desk and find I have rolled the wheels over a framed photograph that was lying on the carpet. I have thoroughly broken the glass into unsalvageable shards. The frame has a little stand on the back, so it must have originally sat on the desk.

  I pick it up and carefully shake off bits of broken glass. The picture is of Dr Silverstone standing amid a group of young women in what appears to be a forest in Otherworld. Their smiles are furtive, almost hurried, as if they are worried about being disturbed.

  The way that his arm is clasped around the shoulder of one of the young women makes me look twice. She is fine-boned and petite, with jewel-like blue eyes. She is important to him.

  Something tells me that this is Zarina. He put her on his desk, hidden away in this group shot. Like all the other women she is wearing a silver metal collar for a necklace. It must be of tribal importance, an Otherworld thing.

  I wonder if she was looking forward to visiting Sao Paulo. If she would have found it a big grimy city compared to her lush jungle paradise. I wonder how on Earth I am supposed to get in touch with her, especially if she lives in Otherworld.

  I pull the photo out of the frame and turn it over, hoping to find a caption. There is none. But there is a tiny envelope the size of a gift tag hidden behind it. The letter Z is written on it in pencil.

  My heart leaps, and for a second I think it must contain the key. But inside is just a small slip of folded paper and a business card. No key.

  The business card says: Theodore Grimshaw, Wizard, Purveyer of Needs, along with a London address and phone number. It is plain and yellowish, boring looking. Not the sort of extravagant card I would have expected of a wizard.

  I hastily unfold the slip of paper, knowing anything important enough to hide must be a clue. But it is just an ink drawing of a circular symbol. The elegant curves and swirls tell me it might even be a bunch of intertwined sigils, the letters of the magical language.

  It is complex and beautiful, the sigils interwoven in a mesmerizing way. I am so busy looking at it that I almost do not hear the noise from the other office grow closer. Then the creak of a door handle turning.

  I freeze beside the chair, staring towards the bookcase. There is another door there in the corner, covered in the same wallpaper as the wall. Camouflaged. A second way into this room, and it is opening!

  Chapter 12

  DIANA

  I duck down and scurr
y beneath the desk, just as a soft voice says, “It’s through here.”

  The woman who spoke enters the room, bringing a scent of smoky apple perfume that makes my head spin. She is wearing a pair of delicate suede kitten heels that are almost identical to the ones she was wearing yesterday. She is followed by a pair of men’s brogues.

  “When was Dr Silverstone last here?” asks Storm’s voice.

  I freeze in my crouched position, my heart making such a racket I am surprised they cannot hear it. Of course Storm would come to inspect Raif Silverstone’s office at the very moment I was skulking in it. That I thought otherwise is astonishing.

  Why the heck isn’t he focusing on Lynesse, like he was yesterday, dammit?

  I cower beneath Raif’s desk, immensely thankful for its old fashioned design. It covers me up on three sides but for a gap of a few inches at the bottom. If they don’t come too close or bend down, they won’t see me.

  I pray that Storm isn’t planning on rifling through the desk while he is here. Why couldn’t he have sent Remi to do this job?

  Maybe he wanted to see Beatrice’s pretty face again, says the little voice

  “He was here on Friday,” Beatrice says in her irksomely soft voice. “It was just an ordinary working day for us. I could never have imagined how it would end…” Her gentle little voice trails off. I can imagine the look of woe on her doe-eyed face.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” says Storm. There is a warmth in his tone that tells me he really is sorry. I wonder if he has reached out to touch her, a comforting brush of the hand perhaps. The thought sets my teeth on edge.

  She sniffs. I hear her blow a quiet lady-like sniffle into a tissue. Now she’s probably patting it at the corners of her big teary eyes. Damn her.

  “Thank you,” she murmurs. “Raif meant so much to me. Both as a friend and a business partner. I cannot imagine what I am going to do without him.”

  From the gap beneath the desk I see her feet move as she sits down abruptly in the chair meant for patients. She is opposite and directly facing me now. I stay utterly still. Hopefully her eyes are so glazed with tears that she can’t see a blurry thing.

  “Was Raif the senior partner?” Storm asks delicately.

  “We started the business together,” she says. “But he was the qualified psychiatrist. I’m a psychologist. Lots of experience, but he was the one with the doctorate.”

  “Did he work as a medical doctor too?” Storm probes.

  “Oh yes. His patients loved him. He provided full spectrum care.”

  “And Lynesse was one of those patients? Her fiancé mentioned it.”

  “I shouldn’t comment on that for confidentiality reasons.”

  “Did he normally make home visits? Or was it a social call to Lynesse on Friday?”

  “Lynesse was a good friend of Raif’s. He adored her.”

  “Were they more than friends?”

  Beatrice hesitates. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure?” Storm asks gently. “Her autopsy revealed she had a recent abortion.”

  Beatrice gasps audibly. “But that’s not possible!”

  “Why isn’t it possible?” asks Storm patiently. Relentless but kind. I hate that he is being so nice to her.

  “I shouldn’t mention this but… You’ll probably find it out anyway. Jared couldn't have children.”

  “Because he’s grisborn?” says Storm.

  “I can’t comment on that,” she says stiffly.

  My eyebrows rise. Wow. So Jared Everett really is grisborn. The press would love that tidbit.

  Grisborn children are brought into existence by questionable magic, the last resort of desperate parents who can’t naturally conceive. Their creators make the child sterile so that there is no chance for the magic to pass down and mutate through generations. Humans rarely turn to it, otherkind even less so.

  “Did Lynesse know Jared was grisborn?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “Since Jared is infertile,” says Storm. “Could the child have been Raif’s?”

  “Absolutely not. His family wouldn’t allow it. The Silverstones’ consider themselves one of the Great Families. They still hold to the old ways. When Raif first left Otherworld his family matriarch had him magically neutered to prevent him mixing their bloodline with that of other species. Tainting it, he used to say. He was quite bitter about it. It was physically impossible for him to have children. Ever.”

  “I see,” says Storm. Nothing in his voice betrays any judgment, but I can tell that he is repulsed by what the Silverstones’ had done to Raif.

  “Yes,” she agrees readily. “It’s a questionable cultural practice, but I try not to judge.”

  “Then Lynesse must have been having an affair with someone,” Storm says. “Do you know who?”

  “I really couldn’t say. She was Raif’s patient, not mine.”

  “Did you know of any reason why someone would want to harm Raif?”

  “But I thought it was the Devil Claw Killer who did it?” she says, sounding startled.

  “Any knowledge of where Raif or Lynesse might have crossed the killer’s path would be useful,” says Storm smoothly.

  Beatrice begins pacing in a flustered manner. “Gosh, I really couldn’t say,” she mutters, sounding terribly upset by her inability to be helpful.

  “It’s alright Ms Grictor,” Storm says soothingly, moving closer to her. She comes to a halt near him. I can see their shoes are toe to toe. I imagine his hands might be on her upper arms, steadying her. It makes my insides squirm horribly.

  “It’s Beatrice,” she murmurs softly, her voice sounding feminine and breathy.

  “Take your time, Beatrice,” Storm says, a liquid tone in his voice that is utterly charming. It makes me want to throttle him.

  “Raif met new people all the time,” she says in that stupid breathy voice. “He loved our charity work.” I can imagine her nodding towards the pictures on the walls.

  “Was charity work a big part of your business?”

  “It’s what we mostly do. Raif loved helping people.” Her voice breaks a little. “It’s why we closed down our other offices and moved into my house. I had so much space here. And it’s helped us save money to put back towards our work. It was his idea. He was such a good man.”

  “And it never concerned you that he was an incubus?”

  “Of course not,” she says. “Those sorts of beliefs have no place in our modern society. My patients are mainly otherkind, and these attitudes from others are often what they find most difficult to deal with. It is part of our charity’s work to educate society out of these outdated prejudices and downright harmful patterns of thinking.”

  She says it passionately, as if this is a personal sticking point for her. She really does believe what she’s said. I find myself liking her a little bit better.

  “You moved your offices here fairly recently?” says Storm.

  “Some weeks back.”

  “Was Dr Silverstone a neat man?” says Storm. “Efficient? Organized?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Storm has come to stand by the desk. He is now so close that I dare not breathe. I hear the shuffle of paper as he picks something up from the table top to look at it. I close my eyes as if that will make me invisible. If he moves just a couple more feet towards the open section at the front of the desk he is going to see me. I wish I had pulled the chair closer to cover me.

  “Do you know why his office is so untidy?” he says.

  Beatrice Grictor hesitates. I listen, eager for the answer. I had wondered that too. “Well… erm, Raif was very private recently. He said he didn’t want my cleaner coming into his office.”

  “And yet a man like him would have kept things tidy himself,” says Storm mildly. “But this office looks like it has been ransacked.”

  My eyes may be squeezed shut but I can hear the soft tread of his shoes on the carpet. I can almost feel air from his movements aga
inst my face. My eyes open. I cannot help it. I feel like a trapped animal about to come face to face with a hunter. I watch, mesmerized, as Storm’s legs come around to the front of the desk. I pray for him to keep moving.

  It is like he can hear my thoughts and is determined to do the opposite. He stops right in front of me. And then he bends down and reaches for a fallen file.

  My breath freezes in my throat. His bent head is a foot away from mine. I can smell a hint of his delicious cologne and see the ruffles in his freshly cut hair. As he straightens, preparing to rise, he looks right at me. Our eyes connect. He sees me seeing him. One eternal microsecond crawls by. The expression on his face does not change. He doesn’t even hesitate in his rising motion. I might as well be invisible by the way he just picks up that file and stands again, and then strolls effortlessly away.