Cut to the Bone

by Ellison Cooper

  Her phone rang in her headphones and Sayer almost didn’t answer until she saw Janice Holt’s name.

  “Assistant Director Holt,” Sayer said and then immediately remembered that Holt wasn’t AD anymore.

  Holt belted out a throaty laugh. “I hear you could use some help.”

  Sayer loved that Holt always got right to the point. She explained that they were looking for possible symbolic body dump sites in the city and started describing the Amduat.

  “Whoa, this is a lot more complex than I expected. Why don’t you just swing by so you can explain everything here.” Holt reeled off a strange address in southwest D.C.

  None of the possible dump sites the FBI analysis had come up with felt totally right to Sayer. Maybe Holt would have a better idea and, if she could get a location before 9:00 P.M., maybe they could catch him in the act. Plus, talking to Holt sounded like more fun than the hospital.

  “I’ll be there in thirty,” she said.

  They said their goodbyes and hung up. The sudden quiet forced her attention back to the pain in her side.

  As the temperature dropped, Sayer resumed her stream of curses as she turned the Silver Hawk toward Washington.

  THE WHARF MARINA, SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Sayer pulled up to the marina and stared. No one had mentioned that Holt was apparently now living aboard a boat.

  The marina was a lively cluster of restaurants and bars clinging to the waterfront around a series of docks packed with boats of all kinds—yachts, superyachts, motorboats, pontoon touring boats.

  She followed the signs to slip 5C where she found a small sailboat. All dark wood and crisp whites, it looked like something she would expect to find anchored off the shores of Nantucket. Even though Holt had been forced out of the FBI against her will, maybe she was happy here, content to retire from her career as assistant director?

  Sayer wondered until she noticed the name of the pretty sailboat—Tisiphone Waits.

  She threw her head back and laughed.

  Tisiphone was one of the Greek furies known for extracting vengeance.

  Apparently Holt hadn’t moved on just yet.

  Sayer called out and Holt climbed up from the cabin. Unlike the power suits she usually wore, Holt had on an old white sweatshirt and khakis rolled up to the knees. Her pale bare feet looked like they hadn’t seen sun in decades. Despite her casual attire, Holt’s jowls were still set in a firm line and her hair was still as stiff as a helmet, feathered on both sides as if transported directly from the 1980s. And of course, her eyes still carried the unspoken danger one would expect from a Valkyrie about to strike.

  “Sayer! About time you came to see my new digs.” Holt waved Sayer on board with her tooth-baring smile.

  Sayer awkwardly hurried up the ladder onto the deck and immediately felt off-kilter.

  “No sea legs, eh? And this is about as calm as water can get.” Holt laughed heartily and slapped Sayer’s back.

  Sayer’s ribs screamed, but she just swallowed the stabbing pain.

  Holt studied Sayer’s face. “But you’re not here for a friendly visit. Come on down so we can talk freely.”

  She led Sayer down a narrow two-step ladder into the cramped cabin and gestured to the table.

  Sayer looked around. The interior was what she would expect in a boat except for the fish tank that took up the entire back wall. Rather than fish, the tank was full of scuttling Chesapeake blue crabs.

  Holt followed her gaze. “Ah, yeah. I caught a bunch of the buggers planning to keep them alive until I wanted to eat them. But now I’ve grown fond of the damn things and don’t have the heart to kill ’em. Who knew crabs had personalities?” She smiled again with her familiar almost-feral grin. “Beer?”

  Sayer shook her head. “I’m actually in a hurry. We think the unsub might kill a third girl at nine and dump her body somewhere symbolically important. We’ve got a bunch of analysts on it and we’re consulting D.C. historians, but word around the Bureau is that you’re working on a book about the city’s architectural history. I thought you might have some thoughts.”

  Holt gave her a long side-eye, but finally nodded. “Now that’s the kind of puzzle I can get into. Explain what you need.”

  “The killer is re-creating an ancient Egyptian book called the Amduat.” Sayer summarized the twelve chambers and twelve goddesses.

  Holt’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “That does make some amount of sense. If I wanted to open the way to the afterlife and couldn’t make it to Egypt, this is where I’d come. There are endless symbolic references to Egypt here in D.C.”

  Much like she’d forgotten how dangerous Holt could be, Sayer had also forgotten that Holt was once a brilliant agent in her own right with an encyclopedic memory and an American history degree from Yale.

  Holt smiled her frightening smile in response to Sayer’s shock. “Haven’t you ever wondered why there’s a pyramid with an Eye of Horus on our money? Or why there is an Egyptian obelisk at the very center of our capital city?”

  “To be honest, it never really occurred to me,” Sayer said. “I sort of assume that most people into that stuff are into conspiracy theories.”

  “True, even talking about such things automatically makes people assume you’re one fry short of a Happy Meal. But you think I’d be interested in that kind of bullshit?” Her eyes flashed. “Hell no,” Holt answered her own question. “Obviously some kooks have taken things too far, but there really is symbolic meaning to just about everything built in this damned city. And things like Egyptian symbolism have been co-opted since the Roman era when the Romans placed obelisks in their cities as a way to associate themselves with the powerful Egyptian pharaohs to their south. That’s not even mentioning the Rosicrucians and Masons who both adopted huge swaths of Egyptian philosophy and symbolism. Hell, there’s a massive Rosicrucian museum in California dedicated to ancient Egypt.”

  “Okay, so clearly it makes sense why the unsub would come to D.C. to act out the Amduat,” Sayer said.

  “I saw on the news that the first victim was placed on the star map at the Einstein Memorial,” Holt said.

  “Yeah, what you don’t know is that she was placed with nine baboon carvings and an axe. Reproducing a goddess called the skull splitter.”

  Holt leaned forward, knuckles bent on the table.

  Sayer felt like she could almost hear Holt’s brain whirring at high speed. She continued, “The second girl was placed at the foot of the Washington Monument. She had a line drawn down her face representing the two-faced goddess.”

  “Fascinating,” Holt said. “Did you know that the Washington Monument once had carved Egyptian lintels over both entrances?”

  “I didn’t know that.” Sayer wanted to tell Holt to focus on possible dump sites, but Janice Holt wasn’t the kind of person you directed.

  “The original entrances were Egyptian-style gates with huge wooden lintels depicting the god Horus, complete with falcon wings carrying a solar disk. The lintels were removed for”—Holt dramatically raised a single eyebrow—“unknown reasons in 1878.”

  “But how many people would even know lintels were removed over a hundred years ago?” Sayer asked, thinking that access to rare knowledge might help them locate the unsub.

  “Well, probably a lot. I don’t know. There’s a huge market for D.C. architectural history, especially Masonic and Egyptian stuff. How do you think I afforded this boat? It certainly wasn’t on my FBI retirement. This is all thanks to the advance for my book.” Holt let out a gruff laugh. “Heck, even the star on everything from our flag to our money was from the Masons who got it from an ancient Egyptian sacred star that we call Sirius. In hieroglyphs, it was depicted by the exact same five-pointed star that we use everywhere.”

  “Okay, so D.C. makes sense and he’s obviously well versed in the city’s history. He killed the first girl at seven, the second at eight,” Sayer said. “Keeping with the hours of the night thing…”

  “
The next will be murdered tonight at nine,” Holt said, acknowledging the prompt to hurry up. “Let’s figure out where he might dump the poor girl.”

  “The third chamber is the watery region of Osiris. So we’re looking for a watery place with some kind of celestial or Egyptian symbolism. Especially anything to do with the sign Leo.”

  “Let me think.” Holt pulled an old map of D.C. from the pile on the table. “Celestial symbolism … hours of the night,” she muttered to herself before looking back up at Sayer. “I don’t know all that much about ancient Egypt, but I do know that they used their extensive knowledge of astronomy to develop a sort of star clock that they used to measure the passing hours of the night. Their decanal starts are, in some ways, very similar to the zodiac we’re familiar with in the Western world…” Holt trailed off. “Zodiac,” she said half to herself. “I know where you need to go!”

  “You do?”

  “Of course!” She looked into Sayer’s eyes. “We associate the zodiac with horoscopes and silly prognostication, but really they’re just a way to measure the passage of time across the sky, exactly like Egyptians used certain stars. A zodiac would be a perfect symbol of the celestial sphere and there are over twenty-three public zodiacs in downtown D.C. Far more than any other city in the world. Even better, I know a watery zodiac not far from here.”

  Sayer looked at the clock. “It’s almost nine…”

  “The Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain. It’s located at the top of the Federal Triangle, a symbolic pyramid. And the base is surrounded by a zodiac. It has all the symbolic pieces he needs to re-create the third chamber.”

  “That’s not even a mile north of here.” Sayer was already moving toward the door.

  Holt got up behind her. “I’ll come with you.”

  Sayer pushed open the door, phone in hand, and paused. “I don’t think that’s a good idea…” Sayer wasn’t sure how she would stop Holt if the woman insisted on coming along. But she had been pushed out of the FBI during a scandal. Holt couldn’t be there during an arrest. “You can’t get tangled up in this.”

  Holt’s mouth pressed into a frustrated line, but she nodded curtly. “You’re right. My presence would just muddy the waters.” Holt dropped a meaty hand on Sayer’s shoulder. “Go get the bastard.”

  Sayer nodded and hurried to her motorcycle, dialing Ezra. “Ez, we’ve got a new possible location for Windsor’s next body dump!”

  “What? Where are you?”

  “Heading to the Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain. I’m about a mile out. I’ll casually case the area, but I need some agents there pronto. Approach quietly. If he’s there, we don’t want to spook him by making our presence known.”

  “Got it. Wait. You’re going there yourself? I thought you were heading to the hospital.”

  “I got sidetracked with a lead,” Sayer growled, in no mood to answer questions. “And yes, I’m going alone. It’s a quarter till nine. He hasn’t been dumping the bodies until at least thirty minutes after he kills them.” Sayer felt a pang of nausea at the thought that one of the girls was most likely about to die. Did she know she only had fifteen minutes to live? Sayer pushed the horror of that thought away. “Even if he gets there by nine thirty, I have plenty of time to find an advantageous spot. How long until we can get a few agents there?”

  “I’m scrambling them now. Should be there in less than twenty.”

  “Good. I’ll scout the area and check back in with an update on my position.”

  “Got it. Hey, when the other agents get there, maybe you can actually go get your ribs checked,” Ezra said, but then exhaled a sharp laugh. “Who am I kidding? You’re going to stake out the fountain until he either shows up or you call it.”

  Sayer let out a short laugh of her own. “I can neither confirm nor deny said allegations…”

  “Okay, Sayer. Stay safe. Talk soon.”

  Sayer hung up and hurried toward the fountain, side burning as she said a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening that the girl Windsor planned to kill tonight would somehow be spared.

  ANDREW MELLON MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The area around the fountain was quiet.

  Sayer made a circuit of the small three-sided island of grass and trees. Bounded by Constitution Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and 6th Street, the low fountain rose in two tiers from the center of the small strip of concrete and grass at the arrow’s tip of Federal Triangle.

  A few cars crawled cautiously past on roads that began to freeze as night fell. Yellowish streetlights illuminated a homeless woman in a long puffy jacket as she pushed a shopping cart down the sidewalk.

  Sayer casually strolled along the opposite side of Constitution, hugging the colonnaded National Gallery of Art. Her eyes roamed the wide-open area. Three major arteries of downtown D.C. crisscrossed around the fountain meaning that Windsor would have to come out in the open to deposit the body.

  Even though she didn’t expect Windsor for at least half an hour, Sayer’s senses were on high alert as she searched for a place she could observe without being seen. She paused in the shadow of the museum to glance at her phone. Five minutes until nine.

  She looked up and froze at the sight of a car rolling to a stop next to the fountain on 6th Street. The blue, four-door sedan was as nondescript as a car could possibly be.

  Sayer took a few silent steps backward, pressing herself against a tall bush lining the base of the museum just as a man got out of the car.

  He moved slowly and awkwardly around the back of the car. A handgun sat tight against his side in a military-style holster. His shaggy hair swung forward, obscuring his identity.

  As he rounded the car, he moved into the pool of light beneath a streetlamp, illuminating his face. A knot of recognition twisted sharply in her stomach. This was definitely Luke Windsor and he was here early. Had he already killed another girl? Had they been wrong about the hourly time of death?

  As he moved farther into the light, Sayer realized that blood soaked his clothes head to toe. At first she thought it was from someone else, but his body language and the series of open gashes across his face made her suspect that it was his own blood.

  He was injured. Badly.

  Good news for her if she had to take him down.

  Shielding the light from her phone, Sayer sent Ezra an emergency text, Windsor here NOW! ETA?

  Ezra texted back, Still 5 min out. WAIT FOR BACKUP. Sending DCPD and SWAT ASAP!

  Sayer frowned. DCPD would swoop in sirens blazing and possibly spook Windsor. She had to be ready to take him down if he made a run for it. And she had to do it alive.

  Rather than stop at the trunk, Windsor continued around to the back passenger door and pulled it open.

  He leaned forward and Sayer expected him to scoop a body into his arms.

  Instead, he yanked a very dazed girl from the car.

  Sayer stifled a gasp at the sight of Nell Goodyear. Blood seeped along her side, soaking her jeans, but the girl was alive!

  Nell’s hands were zip-tied behind her back but she fought Windsor, struggling weakly against his grip. He winced in pain as he tried to control her bucking.

  “Help!” Nell shouted with a hoarse voice that suggested she had been screaming a lot recently.

  He violently jerked her forward and winced again. She stumbled and he used her momentum to shove her toward the base of the fountain.

  Off-balance, she managed to stay upright for a few stuttering steps before toppling onto her knees.

  The loud crack of bone on cement made Sayer shudder.

  Nell stayed on her knees. A small sob escaped her lips. She tried to shout again, but her whole body sagged with exhaustion and the sound she made was nothing more than a husky cry.

  Windsor shoved Nell the rest of the way to the ground. She moaned and her eyes fluttered as she fought to remain conscious.

  While she was down, he stepped over to look in the fountain and let out a grunt of frustration at the sig
ht of the dry basin.

  He must have planned to just drown the girl here. He glanced at his watch and shook his head as he slid out his gun. If he couldn’t drown her, he was clearly willing to just shoot her. Whoever had injured him must have interrupted his regular ritual and he seemed to be winging it last minute.

  Gun out, he stared at his watch, counting down to the right time.

  Low and quiet, Sayer moved so she was directly behind Windsor as she began her approach. She couldn’t let the violence against Nell escalate any further.

  Sayer started across Constitution Avenue as Windsor aimed down on the girl.

  Nell rolled herself into a ball. The gesture of futility sent a spike of rage through Sayer’s heart.

  She had to stop him before he could kill her.

  “FBI, freeze!” she shouted in her deepest voice as she sprinted across the road, gun trained on Windsor. The wide avenue meant that he had plenty of time to decide what to do next.

  “I will shoot!” Sayer growled.

  Windsor looked up at Sayer, then back down at the girl as though unsure who to shoot first.

  The totally calm look on his face sent a shock through her body. She realized that they’d been completely wrong about him. He wasn’t bold and fearless, he simply believed that he had nothing left to lose. The threat of death meant nothing to a man who already believed he was dead.

  Sirens began to wail in the distance as he turned the gun back toward Nell.

  Sayer sprinted at full speed.

  Hearing her incoming attack, Windsor spun around at the last second and pulled the trigger.

  Sayer felt the bullet slice open the outer layer of skin along her side, pulling her jacket back as it passed through the thick leather.

  Despite being clipped, she continued her attack, diving into Windsor.

  His entire body tensed as Sayer slammed into him. They both let out guttural cries of pain as they toppled to the ground.

  He landed on her arm, knocking the Glock from her hand.

  Sayer rolled away from him into a crouch, ending up right next to Nell.