Tom Sawyer didn't much like thinking of Rebekah. Didn't much like remembering her face. But when he slept, it wasn't like he had an option. Most his dreams were the same. Dreams were shitty things. Too much imagination. Tom had never considered himself a fanciful person. Some people hated black and white. He preferred it to color. Color was distracting;color hid its meanings. He was a man of the dust and the dirt and the trees and the churning rivers coming from melted snowdrifts in mountains.
He was not a fanciful man.
And yet the dreams always came, regardless of his preference. He could still remember everything about her. Her smile, the way she'd twist a strand of hair around one finger when she was lost in thought. The way her brow would scrunch, as it had since she'd been a child, when she was focusing on a particularly difficult question. She'd always asked questions, always had an inquisitive spirit.
She'd also looked up to her big brother, more than anyone.
The monster who'd taken her had known how to hurt Tom most. He'd loved his baby sister. She'd been his best friend for years—his only friend, really. She'd always had a way with people, like a light drawing moths. Others had flocked to her, had wanted to spend time in her presence. She'd exuded joy and delight. She hadn't been perfect, either. Sawyer wasn't the sort to recollect with blinders on. She'd had a temper, just like him. She'd been judgmental of others. Things had come so easy to her, and she hadn't understood why the same wasn't true for everyone.
She'd never known how smart she was. Never been willing to admit it or cut anyone else some slack for falling short of the lofty standards she kept herself to. She'd loved, she'd laughed, she'd served, she'd hurt, she'd sinned, she'd been everything a human was meant to be. Everything a little sister was.
And then he'd come.
He'd cut her to pieces to torment Tom.
And Sawyer had arrived too late.
He'd wanted to kill the man then, wanted to put him in the ground. But his partners had held him back when they'd finally caught up with the monster.
And now he sat in prison.
Tom shifted on the bed, eyes closed, but seeing far more this way than when they were open. He tugged his comforter tightly around his shoulders and twisted the other way, his stomach aching as it so often did as if from hunger pangs.
But this was a type of hunger that couldn't be satiated with food.
No. Sawyer wanted something else entirely.
Something forbidden.
He sat up, breathing heavily in his small, single bedroom. He only had the one blanket, didn't use sheets. Preferred replacing the mattress than getting it cleaned. He didn't bother himself with such chores—it distracted from the job.
Breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his forehead, he stared off into the dark of his spartan bedroom, sparsely furnished with furniture of his own making. He'd built the wardrobe over a weekend. He'd built the nightstand as well from some old sinker redwood and epoxy. It was the nicest thing he owned.
Now, blankets bunched around his ankles, nostrils flared as he inhaled and exhaled rapidly, Sawyer felt slow chills along his spine.
The hunger he felt always came at night. And never left until he spent a few minutes breathing and thinking...
Not so much thinking... as fantasizing.
Perhaps he was more fanciful than he gave himself credit for.
But there was only one thing he focused on in moments like this.
Revenge.
The killer was in prison. The man who'd ruined his baby sister, who'd turned a soul into dust. That man was now behind bars. Where Sawyer couldn't reach him...
Yet.
But he was working on a plan. Was thinking it through. He didn't want to just kill the monster. He wanted to hurt him. For a very, very long time. He'd placed calls in the past to some of his friends in the prison system. Guards, and even a warden, had provided favors. Food revoked, solitary confinement without explanation, bunkmates who were particularly horrific.
But it still wasn't enough. Sawyer wanted to see the man. To look him in the eyes.
He gritted his teeth at the thought, wondering what Doctor Beck might think of how dark his thoughts often went. He rubbed at his arms, shivering, and then kicked at the blankets, sending them to the floor and rolling off the mattress.
He stood naked, sweating, his eyes blazing. His body had more than its fair share of scars—gifts from the many cases he'd taken and bad guys he'd taken down.
Black and white. Good and bad.
Ilse thought in color. For her job she needed to.
Sawyer didn't. For his, he couldn't afford the luxury.
As he stood there, inhaling slowly, allowing the residue of his imagination to flit through his mind, his phone suddenly began to ring.
Sawyer frowned, pulling the device from his discarded jeans crumpled at the base of the bed. He studied the name, then the digital clock on the screen.
Only five AM.
His alarm was set for five-thirty, but he rarely needed it these days.
The name of the phone, though, gave him a jolt of admiration. Dr. Beck was up even before he was. He was feeling uncomfortable around her in recent days. Uncomfortable with how much he'd told her, shown her. Uncomfortable with how much he'd revealed. It wasn't a question what he was going to do with his sister's murderer. It was only a matter of time.
Ilse would only get in the way. She had an overactive conscience at times. He respected her for it but mistrusted her just the same.
Sometimes, a conscience was only like a stick in spokes.
He lifted the phone, slowing his breathing, trying to clear his mind as if worried Ilse might sense his thoughts over the phone. “Doc?” he said on answer.
“Sawyer?” came a breathy reply. “Sawyer, I think I've got something! I think I've got it!”
He frowned, wincing. “You sound chipper.”
“Oh—umm, yeah. Coffee. Lots of coffee,” she said. “Look, forget about—”
“You sleep?”
“A little. Sawyer I think it's storybooks.”
“What?”
Her voice was excited now, still motor-mouthing through her sentences, carried on by a second wind from a sleepless night as adrenaline met the benefits of caffeine.
“Stories!” Ilse declared over the phone so loudly he winced and lifted the device a bit away from his ear.
“What are you talking about?”
“The farmer's name was Jackson! Jack!”
He didn't reply. Just breathing and waiting.
“Are you still there?”
“Mhmm.”
“Don't you see? A soybean farmer named Jack?”
Again, he just waited, starting to get annoyed.
“Sawyer?”
“I'm here,” he said testily. “Just waiting for you to start making sense.”
“Jack and the beanstalk, Sawyer! The vines from the silo. He took the vines.” Ilse was breathless now, but she kept going. “The model and her family, remember? She grew up homely but made herself beautiful. It's the Ugly Duckling!”
Sawyer slowly reached down for his clothing. He didn't mind wearing the same outfit two days in a row as long as it was somewhat clean.
“That,” he said, as he pulled on his pants, “is insane. You know that, yeah?”
“Yes, yes,” she said testily. “Insane—but so is the killer. It makes sense.”
“I'm not so sure it does, Ilse,” he said, exhaling through his nose and trying not to let his irritation show. He wasn't normally an irritated man. He was stubborn. There was a difference. And he liked Ilse, liked the way she thought outside the box. She wasn't trapped in the style of thinking so many agents were trapped in from rote memorization of case work.
But she was also fanciful.
“What about the runner?” Sawyer said. “Pinocchio?”
“No! Think about it. He had red hair! A ginger!”
“So?”
“It's the gingerbread man,” she said, and he detected a sheepish note to her voice. Before he could reply with incredulity, she quickly added, “I know how it sounds. I know, I know, I know. Just think about it, though. People kill for way less. We caught a guy trying to recreate his father's abuse at an auction house. It doesn't have to make sense to us. It just has to make sense to them.”
“Ilse, I don't really give a shit about them. So you're saying the marathon runner was...”
“Run, run as fast as you can...,” Ilse said quickly. “I was just looking up the stories. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. See? It fits!”
Sawyer just blinked, standing shirtless, with the phone against his face. He waited for the words to linger, to allow the silliness of the claim itself to do its own work and make itself apparent. Some things didn't require much help in this arena.
Ilse seemed to sense his reluctance. “Just think about it, okay? Please? Jack and the Beanstalk, the Ugly Duckling and the Gingerbread Man. Our killer is recreating fairy tales and murdering the protagonists of the stories.”
“Why?” Sawyer said, still keeping his irritation in check for Ilse's sake. He didn't really want to humor her, but in the past, he'd been served well by doing just that.
“I—I don't exactly know the why. But he's killing characters from fairy tales. I would bet anything.”
“I don't know Ilse...”
“Do you have another theory that fits? Do you?”
Sawyer paused, bit his lip, then rolled his shoulders, exhaling a breath towards the ceiling. “Fine,” he muttered. “It fits. What do you want to do about it?”
“I—I think if we can place which stories he's reenacting, we might be able to discover who he's going to target next. Maybe narrow based on name or career.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
Ilse gave a long sigh. “I'm... I think we need to research not just the stories, but the collections of stories. I've found books online where all three of these fairy tales appear in the same compilation, among others. What if he's working them sequentially? We could find out the next story if we find the right storybook...”
She waited now, trailing off. He could practically detect the wince on her face. It was a silly idea, but also, she was right, it did fit. Hadn't Ilse earned some latitude? One day, he was going to ask for that very same thing. Latitude.
Then forgiveness.
What could it hurt, anyway?
“Fine,” he said. “We can look into it. Where do you want to meet up?”
“I'm at a coffee shop,” she said. “I'll text you the address.”
“You know a coffee shop open at five?”
“Opens at six, but I used to teach the owner's brother. That's not important. You can meet me. Does that work?”
“Mhmm. Shoot a text. See you then, doc.”
He hung up, groaning and stretching before reaching for a new shirt inside his closet. The same color as the one he'd worn the day before. This one, at least, he hadn't used in his workshop recently, so it didn't smell of sawdust.
He slowly pulled on a t-shirt, then the flannel, buttoning it with shaking fingers. He frowned at the way his hands trembled.
Sometimes, he simply couldn't place the source of an emotion. He had them; he knew that much. But finding the root of his emotions took too much work, too much thinking. So he just snorted in disgust and buttoned his shirt trembling.
Emotions could wait. He didn't mind following this lead with Ilse, if it could be called that. But spending more time with her? He winced...
It was growing uncomfortable. It was frustrating him. He shouldn't have told her about Rebekah. Shouldn't have mentioned the murder.
Of all the people to let into that part of his life, why the hell had he chosen a shrink?
Because you can trust her. Because she's kind.
He frowned at the thought. Trust? He couldn't trust anyone. Trust was earned. And no one managed to meet the standards required. Not just his standards, but Rebekah's. If he'd trusted less, if he'd trusted himself, his gut, she might still be alive.
Still... he was assigned to the case with Ilse and couldn't avoid it.
He would just keep his mouth shut now, his thoughts to himself. They were going to look up fairy tales after all. How hard could it be?