by Stella Hart
“Yes, I’m sure they did. But I think they told her they’d hurt you if she ever tried to say anything.”
I nodded. “Oh. That’s right. You said that yesterday.” I let out a long sigh. “So what now? What are you going to do with me to find the rest of them?”
“We’re going to continue with the things that we’ve found to aid in recovering your memories.”
My skin prickled at the thought of being beaten with the riding crop again, just like he did the other day to make me remember one of the Circle member’s faces. A little thrill shot through my system.
“How do you even know about them in the first place?” My chin shot up, suddenly curious. I'd wanted to know this all along, but I hadn’t yet had the chance to ask. “Like… where do you get your information from? How did you find out my father was one of them?”
His eyes flickered, and he squared his jaw. “Let’s just say I’m not the only one who knew they existed all those years ago.”
“Oh. So you’ve had help from others.” My fingers traced a pattern in the loose fabric of the pillowcase. Then I looked back up at Alex. “Why do you cut out their hearts?”
I expected some sort of meaningful, metaphorical answer like the ones killers always seem to give on crime shows once they are caught. Something like: ‘I cut their hearts out because they destroyed all these young, innocent hearts by corrupting and defiling them. I just pay them back in kind.’
Instead, he shrugged. His eyes were steely, his face blank. “Because I can,” he said simply.
“Oh.” So that was it? I wondered if he was lying. If there was more to it. But that was obviously all he was willing to tell me right now, so I had to accept it. “What’s it like to do that to someone? To kill them?”
His eyes darkened, and one hand ghosted over my arm. “You really want to know what it feels like to kill a man?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He looked away. “The first thing you feel is your senses becoming more intense. You can smell better, hear better. You feel powerful, in control. To feel someone’s very essence draining from their body by your doing….” He trailed off, hesitating, before looking back at me. My stomach clenched, and a strange tingle shot between my legs. “I won’t lie, angel. The thing I feel the most when I’ve killed these bastards is an intense moment of pleasure.”
My heart skipped a beat, and my breaths came heavier and faster. Something about his words was stirring a deep need inside me; something I’d never experienced before. “How… how can you do it?”
“With a knife, a good pair of bone shears and a—”
I shook my head wildly. “No, I don’t mean literally! I mean how can you kill people?” I said. “I know these particular people deserve it, but still, I don’t know if I could go through with it if one of them was right in front of me. Not like you. You don’t seem to have any issue with it. It seems to make you… happy.”
He smiled patiently. “You might think you’re so different from me and any other murderer out there. But I doubt it. Our society, our world… it forms us in many ways, whether we like it or not. You think you could never kill a person even if it came down to it, but if the right set of circumstances presented itself, I think you would do it.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t think I could. I might think about it, but actually doing it….” I looked down, a pit forming in my stomach at the thought. “Like today. I had no problem watching you kill Dan. He deserved what he got. But if you’d asked me to slash his throat myself, I know I couldn’t have done it.”
“That’s what you think.” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “But somewhere inside us, we all have the basic materials that can inspire murder and destruction. Some raw, primal matter. Every single human is capable of committing heinous acts, and like I said, it’s really just a matter of circumstance.” He drew out each word carefully. “With a certain combination of events, those raw materials inside of you can be ignited, make you burn with the urge to kill. It can happen to anyone.”
“Not me,” I whispered.
His eyes burned into me, lit with intensity. “Yes, Celeste. You,” he said softly yet firmly. “One day, even you might kill.”
4
Agent Jason West
“Police reports, in conjunction with statements from the FBI, have confirmed that the latest body to surface in the Monongahela is in fact a victim of the serial murderer known as the Heartbreaker. While the body bore none of the usual torture markings, and the victim was only reported missing for two days, the heart was removed in the same method as previous victims. Investigators are also said to have found a link between the victim and a previous victim. No details of this have been released yet, and there are still no leads on the identity of the killer. This latest victim is yet to be named to the public, but he was the tenth known Heartbreaker victim, after the recent discovery of the ninth, confirmed as Paul Halston, who was found under the Commercial St. Bridge a month and a half ago. Police ask the Pittsburgh public to be vigilant and report any unusual or suspect behavior in their area immediately. Back to you, Jane.”
I turned down the radio and stepped on the gas pedal as the light turned green. The field office had been in uproar over the last day, even more so than usual, now that two bodies had surfaced in the space of six weeks, both linked to the Heartbreaker. The killer seemed to be escalating, and his MO had changed quite drastically.
The latest victim, Dan Vallone, hadn’t been kept captive for weeks as the other previous ones were, and the coroner had informed us that his heart was removed post-mortem. In almost all of the previous victims, the heart was removed while they were still alive. Also, Vallone wasn’t tortured like the rest, aside from a patch of skin on his left upper arm which had been flayed off, and this made us think one of two things was likely going on.
Firstly, it could’ve been as simple as this: the Heartbreaker was somehow disturbed in his activity and was unable to keep Vallone as long as he usually would, meaning he had to kill and dispose of him much quicker than his previous targets.
The second option was a copycat killer, but that theory was ruled out almost immediately when it was discovered that Vallone had links to a previous victim. He was once employed by Paul Halston, the ninth man killed by the Heartbreaker. Still, no one had any idea as to why both men were targeted.
I had my own personal theories regarding the killer, though no one really seemed to think they held any weight.
I was particularly interested in the removed patch of skin on Vallone’s right arm. With all the previous victims, that exact part of their left arm had been skinned or obliterated with stab wounds, or simply had the entire chunk of flesh removed. Usually it wasn’t that noticeable, as most of them had many, many other small pieces of flesh or bone removed, drilled into, or burned off during torture, but it struck me as odd that the killer targeted that particular spot on all of them. I’d never, ever believed in coincidences, and it annoyed the hell out of me that so many of my colleagues brushed it off as nothing but that.
Even the first victim, John Riley, who’d been killed in a frenzied attack—before the Heartbreaker had developed his usual MO—had that particular patch on his arm destroyed by multiple stab wounds. Although to be fair, there wasn’t much of him that wasn’t covered in knife wounds.
I’d gone through and read the reports on his death, and at the time, his young daughter—Celeste Riley—gave a statement about a tiny tattoo he had on that part of his arm. She said he once told her it was a remnant from the past, something he got in college as a joke. Anne Riley didn’t even seem to know that he had it; she claimed she never spotted it.
Other victim’s wives or partners didn’t seem to remember their men having any tattoos, either, though all of them said the same thing—if it was that small and on the innermost part of the triceps, they probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway. Hardly any of the victims had close, loving relationships, even with their wives, and one of the wives even stated
that she barely remembered what her husband looked like naked, let alone what his inner arms looked like.
As such, nothing had ever really come from pursuing that angle, but I now firmly believed there was something there after mentally going down the rabbit hole. I believed each victim probably had a small, mostly-hidden tattoo which linked them all with some sort of social club or organization which required a tattoo for membership. However, I had no idea what it was, and therefore no leads on who might want them all dead. None of the people related to the previous victims had been able to tell me anything about them being involved in anything other than their work and regular social clubs. So if I was right, and this group existed, they were highly secretive.
It made me wonder if Celeste Riley knew more than she let on all those weeks ago, when she sat in on that profiler meeting. Even if she didn’t actually know that she knew something useful, the information could be secretly stored somewhere in that head of hers. She said she thought the victims were all linked by something other than what the current profile stated, and she was practically laughed out of the room by Foley and the others. I agreed with her now, though. There was something else going on, and since the recovery of the most recent body, a hunch told me it probably had something to do with John Riley’s tattoo.
I tapped my hands on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for another light.
Today’s work assignment for me was much the same as usual—interviewing the friends and families of previous Heartbreaker victims to see if any new information came up. I was on my way to see the widowed wife of the fifth victim, a woman in her early fifties named Paula Halloran. Her husband had been a successful attorney before his death at the hands of our city’s infamous serial killer several years ago.
I was still hunting for Celeste too, but I had about as many leads for her right now as we did for the Heartbreaker. The girl had simply vanished. There were no track marks from the Fox Chapel property which could tell us where she’d gone—or been taken—and sniffer dogs lost her scent on the property. All we could narrow it down to was a vague time, as an old neighbor of hers named Bill Francis had been expecting her for coffee at three p.m., only she never showed up. At the time, the neighbor assumed she simply forgot, but when he eventually found out she was actually missing, he came forward with that particular information.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled up at the white Sewickley Heights mansion owned by the Halloran family. Paula was expecting me, and she let me in graciously and offered me a drink.
“Coffee would be great,” I said with an agreeable nod.
She held up two fingers to her housekeeper, a petite brunette, then smiled at me. “I know why you’re here, Agent West, but I really don’t know what I can tell you now that I didn’t already tell the police and other agents five years ago.”
“I understand, Ms. Halloran, but we—”
“Paula, please,” she said, flipping her perfectly-styled bottle blonde hair over her shoulder.
I gave her a tight smile. “Paula. We’re reviewing all our past statements and hoping someone gives us something they may have forgotten back then. You know, sometimes we forget certain details or omit particular things that we think won’t be relevant or useful, but we remember them years later, when we’re able to view things more objectively. It’s funny how the mind works.”
“I see.” She nodded, then smiled at her housekeeper, who was setting down our coffees on the table before us. “So you’re hoping I’ll remember something I didn’t say back then. When… it… happened.”
“That’s right. Now, in your original statement….”
We spent the next hour going over her previous statements along with the missing person report she filed for her husband when he failed to return home from work one evening.
Nothing new was volunteered until I brought up my own theory. “Paula, was your husband involved in any sort of social clubs?”
“I was already asked this years ago as well,” she said with a sniff. “I told them then, we were members of the Country Club. He played golf and tennis. That’s all.”
I leaned forward. “Sorry, let me be clearer. Were you aware of him being involved in any sort of secret organization? Something he may have confided only in you?”
Her eyebrows drew together. “A secret organization? What, like Skull and Bones?” She laughed at that.
“Well, yes, sort of, but not a college-based organization.”
She rubbed her chin. “If he was, he never said anything.”
“Did he have any tattoos?”
“No.”
“What about on his left arm? About here?” I held up my arm and motioned to my inner left triceps.
Paula frowned. “I… well, honestly, I couldn’t say for sure. I don’t think he had anything there, but now that I think about it, I never really saw that part of his arm. He always showered by himself, always wore long-sleeved pajamas to bed, and I suppose I never thought to look. Why would I?”
“Can you think harder for me?”
Her frown deepened. “The only time I ever saw him naked was during our… intimate moments. And believe me, they weren’t very frequent, and the lights were always off.”
Damn. Same story all the other wives had.
“But you could try and track down his mistress and ask her,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “I’m sure she saw him naked a lot.”
My shoulders perked up. “Sorry, what? You think he had a mistress?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t think. I know. He went out every second Saturday to play cards with his friends in the city. We have a small apartment there, and he always claimed he would sleep there afterwards because he had too much scotch. But I’m not stupid. I know he was screwing another woman and staying with her those nights instead. I only stayed and kept my mouth shut because… well.…” She waved her left hand around us, gesturing to our opulent surroundings.
“And you’re sure it was an affair?”
“Well, what else would it be?”
“You never mentioned that you thought he was having an affair with another woman in your previous statement.”
“I didn’t think it was relevant. Whoever the little floozy is, I’m sure she isn’t an ax murderer. Besides, the police told me they know for sure the killer is male.”
I nodded slowly. “So you have no idea who this alleged affair partner was, or where she might’ve lived.”
Paula shook her head. “No idea.”
I scribbled some notes down. I had a feeling her husband wasn’t having an affair at all. Wherever he was going every two weeks may have actually been to this secretive organization I was positive existed somewhere around the metro area. “Let me know if you do happen to remember anything that might help us track her down, if she exists.”
“Of course.” She finished her coffee, then straightened her shoulders. “Funny. It’s like déjà vu.”
“What is?”
“I just remembered. You aren’t the first agent to ask me about secret societies. Is it an old theory, then?”
I arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Who else has asked you?”
“Not long after Ted’s death, another young agent came here and asked the same thing you did—if Ted was possibly in some sort of secret club that I knew anything about. He asked for an address, if I happened to know where it might be.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked, furiously flipping back through all the past paperwork to see who else had asked Paula the same questions as me. There was nothing. I was the first.
Whoever asked her… he wasn’t an agent or a cop.
“Nothing. Like I said to you before, I don’t think he was involved with anything except golf, tennis, and his little floozy.”
“This agent… can you describe him?”
“It was years ago, so I don’t really remember exactly what he looked like. He was tall and handsome, though, I remember that.” She affected a dreamy expression. “I rem
ember thinking he looked a bit similar to this gorgeous young doctor who treated me years ago when I had a wrist problem. But it wasn’t him, obviously.” She waved her hand and smiled.
“Hair color? Eye color?”
“His hair was dark blond.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, then went on. “Though I remember thinking it looked an awful lot like a wig. A very good one, but you see, I have a real eye for those things ever since a close friend of mine lost her hair several years ago. I guess the poor young man had alopecia or something.”
Or he was pretending to be an agent and simply trying to disguise himself. “And his eyes?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Blue or green, I think? Why?”
I didn’t want to frighten her by telling her what I really thought: that the ‘agent’ who came to speak to her may have been the serial killer himself. I was damn sure that he was targeting members of this enigmatic organization, whoever the hell they were, and he was looking for an address for the rest of them. After killing Ted Halloran, who probably hadn’t offered up any good information, he came here and posed as an FBI agent to Paula, hoping she could unwittingly tell him what he needed to know.
“Just wondering. Thank you, Paula. You’ve been very helpful.”
She showed me out, and I returned to my car, my heart thudding. I was getting closer to the Heartbreaker. Closer than any living person before, with the exception of Celeste Riley, if she had truly been taken by him. There was still a lot to go over and a lot to discover, but I’d never felt this sure about anything. I could feel it in my bones.
Soon, I would be close enough to touch him.
5
Celeste
I slowly turned the soil on the top of a four-tiered planter in the greenhouse, humming to myself as I deposited some little shoots in it before burying them. I was trying to grow some herbs, vegetables, and flowers in the temperature-controlled greenhouse outside, and after a week of work, the final planter was now done. Alex had told me to write him a list of the seeds and starters I needed for it, and the next day, everything was right here waiting for me. I was sure he’d be pleased to see the progress I’d made on it in such a short time.
