For a long time, Avery remained in the diner booth, alone. She ordered eggs and toast, a small salad, and a cup of coffee and just sat there, going over everything that had been said.
My daughter hates me, she realized.
More depressed than she'd been in years, she wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Instead, she paid the check and walked out.
Sunlight made her cringe.
Why can't it be a rainy day? she wondered.
People on the street seemed to race by. Cars whizzed past her view. She stood alone among the activity like a spirit, not yet dead, not truly alive.
This is what the killer wants, she thought. He's in your head. He's laughing at you. Just like Howard. Just like Howard.
Avery went back to her car and drove.
Without any conscious thought to a destination, she found herself headed south-toward the prison. The bodies of all three girls kept flashing in her mind, and the killer and the car and the routes and some house, a house she imaged he might live in: small, hidden by trees with an unkempt lawn, because he had better things to do than mow a lawn. Her suspects were discarded, every one of them.
She needed a fresh start. A new perspective.
The prison parking lot was as she remembered. The walk inside was the same. Guards whispered behind her back and pointed. The woman behind the gates chided her for no appointment.
"He said he knew you'd back," a guard laughed. "What are you, in love now? I guess I should believe everything I read in the papers."
There was no real reason to go back. She didn't actually believe he would help her, or could help her, not after the disastrous turn at Art for Life. He just liked to play games, she understood. But Avery was in the mood for games. She had nothing left to hide, nowhere else to go, and for some strange reason-at that moment in time-Howard Randall seemed like the only real friend she had in the world.
Howard sat in the basement meeting room as he had before, only this time, the smile was gone, he appeared concerned.
"You don't look quite yourself today, Avery. Are you all right?"
Avery laughed.
If she had a cigarette, she might have taken it out and begun to smoke. She hadn't smoked since she was a kid, but that's how she felt: reckless, untouchable.
She took seat and placed her elbows on the table.
"Your last tip was bullshit," she said. "An artist? Did you mean John Lang?"
"I don't know who you're talking about."
"Bullshit!"
She aggressively smiled.
"You played me," she said. "Nice move. Was that all so we could take a trip down memory lane and you could watch me break down in tears?"
"I take no comfort in your pain," he said in earnest.
"Fuck you!" she yelled. "You're playing games with me right now. You told me he was an artist. You practically handed him to me on a platter."
"Your killer is an artist," he said. "A true artist."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"He takes great pride in his work. He's no random killer. He's no butcher. There is a purpose to his cause. These girls mean something to him. He knows them, personally, and in exchange for their lives he gives them immortality, in art."
"How can you possibly know that?"
Howard leaned forward.
"You never asked me how I chose my victims," he replied, "or why they were positioned in such ways."
As Howard's defense attorney, Avery had covered every possible avenue to get him acquitted. One of those avenues had involved understanding the killer's mind and why he had committed such heinous acts, so that she could effectively distance Howard from the murders based on his own personal history.
"It was a statement on people that act dead in real life," she said. "You picked your best students and charged them with some crime against humanity, and then you dismembered them and placed their parts on the ground to look like multiple people trying to escape from the underworld."
"No," Howard snapped.
He leaned back.
"What is life?" he urgently asked. "What does it mean? Why are we here?"
"How is that relevant to anything?"
"It's everything!" he yelled and hammered the table.
A guard peeked through the viewing hole.
"Everything all right?"
"Yes, Thomas," Howard said, "I'm just getting, excited."
The guard left.
"Life is short," Howard tried to explain, "and it's cyclical. We live and we die again and again in a constant cycle within this atmosphere. How we live-in this life-affects all the other times we are reborn, the very energy of ourselves and our world. My victims were chosen because they had flaws, certain flaws that they would never have corrected in this life. That's why I had to help them, so they could thrive in the next life."
"Is that how you justify your actions?"
"This world is what we make of it, Avery. Anything we wish can be ours. My actions are based on my beliefs. How do you justify your actions?"
"I'm trying to make amends for my past, and I do it every day."
He sighed and shook his head and appeared ready to blush, like a man that had finally, startlingly, found the woman of his dreams.
"You're so special," he gushed, "so very special. I knew it the moment I saw you. Tough and smart and funny and yet, flawed, broken by your past. I can help you fix that, Avery. Let me help you. There's still time. Don't you want to be happy, free?"
I want my daughter back, she thought.
"I want to find a killer," she said aloud.
Howard eased forward, as sharp as a hawk.
"How did it feel when your father murdered your mother?"
Avery stiffened.
How does he know about that? she wondered. It was in all the papers, she told herself. It's public record. Anyone can find that information.
"You want to dig up my past again?" she said, "Make me cry? Not today. I'm already at rock bottom. There's nowhere else for me to go."
"Perfect," he said. "Now you can rise."
The day of her mother's death was clear in Avery's mind.
It happened behind the house, after school. She came home and heard the shot. She was only ten at the time. One shot, silence, and then another. A run into the forest and she saw her father there, standing over her body, the shotgun in his hand. "Go get me a shovel," he'd said.
"I felt nothing," Avery admitted to Howard. "My mother was a drunk and never there for me. She made it clear I was a mistake. I felt nothing when she died."
"What kind of mother are you?"
A crack. Avery felt a crack in the empty, desolate shell of her existence. And although she was empty and depleted, she began to realize she could still be hurt.
"I don't want to talk about Rose."
A deep frown furrowed Howard's brows.
"I see," he said. "I understand."
He searched the ceiling, thought about something else, and turned back to her.
"Your killer knows these girls," he said. "What do they all have in common?"
Avery shook her head.
"The third girl is a mystery for now," she said. "The first two, both in college, both in sororities. One's a senior, one's a junior, so that's no connection."
"No," he whispered.
"What?"
"No," he said again. "You're wrong."
"About what?"
Disappointment sank his gaze.
"Have you ever heard the story about the boy and the butterfly?" he asked. "When a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, the butterfly uses its body and wings to break free from the cocoon. It is a difficult, time-consuming task, but as the butterfly struggles and works, it gains muscle, and strength, and when it finally does breaks free, it is able to launch it into the sky and capture food with ease and survive. However, one day, a boy that kept caterpillars as pets saw one of his cocoons shake and move. He felt sorry for the budding creature and wanted to help it, so that it would not have to suffer so much. He asked his mother to cut a slight opening in the cocoon to aid in its escape. But that simple act, born of love and care, robbed the butterfly of its power, and when it finally emerged-all too soon-its body and limbs and wings were not yet strong enough to hunt or fly, and within days, it died."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Avery asked. "Am I the butterfly or the boy?"
Howard wouldn't answer.
He simply lowered his head and remained silent, even when Avery continued to ask, and then shout, and then pound on the table for an answer.
