IT RAINS HARD THE REST of the early morning hours. I don’t sleep and finally get up at five, my usual time. I’m exhausted.
The lockbox is still under my bed. Victor’s downstairs now. There’s no way I can go to the basement and get his tools without him knowing. Asking.
I do the only thing I can do: grab a shower and head downstairs.
“You look tired.” He points out the obvious.
“You too.” He’s been up the same amount of time as me.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
I nod and refill his mug.
Victor takes it. “I’ll be in the office.”
As soon as he closes his door, I race down to the basement, dig around in his toolbox, and get what I think I need. I head straight up to my room, lock myself in, and grab Catalina’s box. I take a quick glance at my clock. We don’t leave for school until seven. I have plenty of time.
It takes me a flat-head screwdriver and needle-nose pliers to get the broken piece out of the lock. With a new pick I gingerly work it, and in a few minutes I hear a click.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally.
I wedge open the lid.
A cell phone sits right on top, and I take it out first. Underneath are photos, newspaper articles, handwritten notes. Everything neatly clipped in organized piles.
I lay it all out on my bed, and it’s like looking at my own collection and research of serial killers throughout time.
I scan through her notes, and even though they are her personal thoughts, they’re done in a scientific, third-person point of view. Much like how I do mine. Chronicling the killer’s childhood, nature versus nurture, leading up to his or her killing spree.
I continue unclipping and scanning the bundles, each with a family tree of sorts attached. Catalina tracked the family members of the serial killers and what came of them. I’ve never thought to do that before.
I read through her notes, fascinated at the slight trends she’s identified. Parents of killers, siblings, extended relatives, children of killers . . . I track my eyes down those paragraphs: isolation, lying, stealing, violence . . .
Yes, I am my parents’ daughter. I’ve come to terms with that. It’s how I channel it that is the key to me not turning into the evil that was them.
DECAPITATOR peeks out from under a separate bundle, and apprehension buzzes through my blood. The newness of the bundle and fresh-dated notes indicate this is her latest research project. She’s compiled a file much like I had, following the Decapitator’s every move. There’s a printout of my mom’s funeral; another of Zach, the one surviving victim; and one of me, the only known relative—the Decapitator’s niece.
My picture’s attached to a small spiral notebook. I open it and start reading. Dates. Times. Places. Details of the cheerleader’s head I shaved. Graffiti boy. Jacks, the druggie I almost took down but didn’t. Aisha. The locker at the Metro stop. Marji . . .
Son of a bitch! Catalina’s the one who has been trailing me. She’s j_d_l!
There’s a knock on my door. “Just a minute!” I shove everything back into the lockbox and slide it under my bed. I give my room one last look and open my door.
Catalina’s standing there with Victor behind her. I stare straight into her face. j_d_l. She knows everything about me. She saw me kill Marji! Her dad is the head of the task force. Why hasn’t she turned me in? More important, how did she manipulate me, how did she lie to me all this time and I had no clue?
She’s j_d_l, but is she also my copycat?
“She has a question for you,” Victor tells me. “I told her to make it quick. You’re getting ready for school.”
I wait for him to leave, but he doesn’t.
She grins. “Hey, there’s some stuff missing out of my car, and I was just wondering if maybe you accidentally took it the last time we were hanging out?”
I don’t break composure. “No.” How in the hell does she know that?
She cocks her head. “Oh, okay. Well, if you find my stuff, just return it whenever you’re ready.”
What kind of game is she playing here? “Okay.”
She waves. “Have a good day.”
I watch as Victor walks her down our stairs, and I hear her go out the front door.
Catalina is my dark mirror. That’s what I thought when I first saw her. We are disturbingly similar. Save for one very valid point: I don’t have frontal lobe issues and she does.
She does things and doesn’t think they’re wrong.
Victor’s words nudge into my brain and have me pausing and questioning not Catalina, but my own self.
I didn’t intend on killing Marji. It just happened. Did it surprise me? Yes. Did it make me sick to my stomach? Yes. Do I currently feel remorse? No. She threatened me, my family. She participated in the Decapitator’s mutilations, and she tortured two people (that I know of) all on her own.
She does things and doesn’t think they’re wrong.
The fact is, I could have killed other people, but I haven’t. I would never hurt somebody who didn’t absolutely deserve it. Never. I know the difference between right and wrong. If it can’t be honestly justified, then I don’t justify it.
What am I doing—the last thing I need is to question myself. I need to get back to compartmentalizing. I used to do it so well. The ability to execute my initiative, flip the internal switch, and go back to being just Lane.
I’ve lost that part of me.
Before Mom, Catalina would never have been able to manipulate me the way she has. No more struggling with thoughts and actions. It’s past time I get back to being me.
In first period library TA, I turn on the phone I found in Catalina’s lockbox and scroll through the numbers. I’m in there. So is Tommy. Kyle also. A few other names I don’t recognize. There’s one number she’s called the most. There’s no name attached to it. Just a number.
I type it into a couple of different search engines and come up with nothing. It’s probably a burner phone.
“Hey, you.”
I glance up. “Zach. Hey.” Talk about forever.
He smiles, and the absolute honesty in it softens my heart, and it hits me—Marji, Catalina, my mother—it seems I’m destined to be surrounded by unbalanced people. How am I so fortunate to have someone true like Zach?
“I miss you,” he boldly states. “Really miss you. I thought I could do this stay-away-from-Lane thing, but I can’t. I’m sorry to keep going back and forth with you like this.” He heaves a sigh that turns into a desperate sort of confused look. “I’m saying I want to be friends again. I need to be your friend.” He swallows. “Please.”
I smile as his words wash over me. “Definitely friends.”
He blows out a relieved breath (like he really thought I would say no). “Want to do coffee or something?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, I’ll call you.” He gives me a quick hug and bolts back across the library.
That was . . . strange. And pretty damn great.
I close down my station and grab my stuff. Catalina’s phone vibrates. I glance down at it, surprised, and stare at the mystery number listed on the screen. This is the perfect opportunity for me to find out more, impersonate Catalina, do a little digging of my own, unearth her secrets.
I grab the phone and slide it open.
DID U DO IT? the mystery number texts.
I type back, YES.
I wait. And wait. And wait some more. But the mystery number on Catalina’s phone doesn’t respond.
I’ll bet anything the mystery number belongs to M. It’s my turn to manipulate things. I’ve got to figure out how to meet this M and deal with Catalina.
Although I’m not quite sure what “deal with Catalina” means. She knows too much. My God, she knows I stabbed Marji. I just wish I knew how deep Catalina is with this whole Masked Savior copycat thing.
Now that I know she’s been watching me, I need to backtrack and think things through. She knows who I am—obviously. She probably started following me because I’m related to the Decapitator. Then she merely stumbled across the fact I’m also the Masked Savior.
She’s known all along who I am. She’s been luring me into her friendship. She’s been feeding me information about what the task force does and doesn’t know.
She knows I have her lockbox. Which means she knows that I know what she has been up to.
The question is, why do all this?
And how dangerous of a threat is she?
There’s no telling how much she’s lied to me about. For all I know she and M could be one and the same, but I’m just not seeing it. My gut tells me they are two different people, which means one of them has to be the copycat.
Unless there’s a third person involved. . . .