Ilse shifted uncomfortably as she unlocked the door to her apartment, occasionally casting glances over her shoulder towards the stairwell.
The shadows around her stood out like looming gargoyles, and more than once—as she'd walked from the parking lot—she'd jolted at the faintest sound of someone throwing trash in the dumpsters, or a neighbor shuffling about in their apartment.
Now, as she unlocked her own door, she hesitated before stepping into the room beyond, her gaze scanning the entrance, over the sparse furniture, towards the wood-burning stove visible in one corner, along the carpeted ground.
She frowned, her expression flickering darkly. Nothing visible stood out. Nothing untoward.
“Hello?” she murmured softly.
Then, she spotted it.
Not a person, but a postcard.
Almost equally as unwelcome.
Sometimes, when the delivery man was allowed into the apartment, he would slip letters under the occupants' doors. Normally, she appreciated this effort above and beyond the call; but now, standing there in the hall, staring at the stack of letters on the ground, she felt a shiver along her spine.
The postcard on top of the pile was the obvious source of her discomfort.
A postcard from Germany. From the town she'd just left.
The town nearest her father's prison. If she stared, it almost seemed like she could see that horrible gray structure outlined in the corner of the picture of the small, otherwise quaint town. The backdrop of the forest, of the mountains, did little to conceal the true nature of the card.
She stared, the shiver intensifying as she slowly bent and picked the card up, staring at it with wide eyes. The paper was thick in her fingers, the glossy side of the photo sticking to her suddenly damp palm.
She heard a creak behind her and whirled about... But it was just the wind. Just the old building letting out a belch of lumber and age. She was alone, now... Truly alone. At least, so she hoped. The shadows were moving again, though. She stared when they did, and they suddenly went still. But her mind was now playing tricks, playing pretend with her subconscious as if finding it somehow amusing.
With a shaky hand, she slipped into her apartment, holding the postcard in a death grip. As she flipped it over, the sentence on the back was simple. Addressed to Hilda Mueller, it read, “Hola! Why leave so soon?”
“Shit!” she cursed, flinging the postcard across the room and watching where it caught a gust of wind and fluttered to the ground again, only a few feet away. She never could quite distance herself from her past. She glared at the thing, slamming her door behind her, locking it, then attaching the chain. “Shit!” she yelled again, now hyperventilating.
She didn't approach the card for a moment, just standing in the door, staring. She now had her firearm on her hip. She hadn't wanted to become the sort of person who took a weapon everywhere she went, but now... standing in her quiet, solitary apartment unit, she felt an odd sense of protection from the war-making device.
She dropped to a knee, sliding down with her back against the metal door until she came to a rest on the ground. She stared at the letter, swallowing slowly.
Whoever was taunting her... if it really was her stepmother... she'd found Ilse's new address within days. She'd tracked Ilse's travels, knowing she'd left Germany. Someone knew where Ilse was. Knew who she was.
“Damn it,” she murmured again. It didn't seem appropriate to say anything but the crass words. A situation like this demanded little else.
Changing her name hadn't allowed her to escape her past... Ilse Beck was still taunted as Hilda Mueller. She reached down, massaging the tattoo around her wrist. Take captive every thought...
Her name meant pledged to God. Not without reason. She'd chosen her name. Few people ever had that opportunity; many didn't want it.
Ilse had long known that for those so fated as to wander the devil's halls, help needed to be found in all areas. She thought of herself, when she was willing to admit it, as something of an avenging angel.
So many of her clients, of those she worked with had never been protected, never been looked after.
She thought of Heidi, thought of her family, though of little Hilda Mueller trapped in that basement. All the others who'd been down there as well, ignored, unknown. Gerald Mueller, to the neighbors, had seemed like such a nice man... But nice had nothing to do with it. Neglect and nice had never seemed so familiar as in Ilse's childhood.
Hilda had been a victim. But Ilse was a survivor. Not just that, but a guardian.
As she thought this, feeling a familiar sense of righteous indignation rising as she stared at the postcard, the emotion also came with a sense of... silent defeat, of sadness.
She hadn't been able to protect Claudia, nor Lauren. She'd suggested a name change might help. They'd both agreed. By using a different name, it allowed them to take on a different history, a new future. The past died with the old identity.
In the same way, Ilse had changed her name...
But someone... someone wanted to drag her back to the dark.
She remained seated on the carpet, blocking her front door, beneath the brass locks above her head.
Changing her name hadn't allowed her to escape her past after all...
Ilse closed her eyes, her expression flickering into a frown at this vague consideration. Ilse had tried to change her name...
Claudia had...
So had Lauren...
Ilse's eyes snapped open, and a sudden rush of energy propelled her back to her feet. She stepped intentionally on the postcard as she marched across the room towards her kitchen, frowning as she went. She hadn't yet set up her old dinosaur desktop computer yet...
But she'd started. The device was on the kitchen table for the moment. The scent of cinnamon from homemade oatmeal lingered on the air as Ilse plugged the monitor into the two decade old machine.
She hated technology... with a passion.
But sometimes, one had to make a deal with the devil to take him out at the knees.
She lowered into a seat, facing the computer. Once she'd plugged in the monitor, she adjusted the power strip and turned on the old dinosaur.
For a moment, thoughts of the postcard were gone. Thoughts of Hilda Mueller had faded.
Ilse would expend herself protecting those who couldn't. Which meant she couldn't ignore any connection. None.
It would take her computer a while to boot up—just another one of the inconveniences of attempting to live in the previous century.
But it also allowed her to think.
What if the change in name was also a link?
The killer had targeted three victims of serial killers. Four, if she included herself. He'd re-targeted survivors. But what if he'd also targeted new identities?
What if, like the person sending the taunting letters... What if the killer had found out who they all were?
Ilse stared as the computer slowly booted up. She gritted her teeth in frustration, watching it slowly wake.
The only missing link was Abigail Rubin... She hadn't changed her name. So maybe the connection was tenuous... Still, Ilse needed a way to predict the next target, the next victim. She had to be there to protect. If not...
It wouldn't end well.
Ilse refused to let him win. Not again.
As she waited for her computer to boot, she turned, marching towards her bedroom, to the giant, metal cabinet she kept in her closet. Bringing this upstairs had taken four men. And even then, it had been a big ask.
She didn't like electronic files for her clients. So, the big, metal, fireproof case housed all the information over the last decade and a half from her work as a therapist.
She could hear the whirring sound of the old hard drives in her dinosaur computer as she stood in front of her closet, examining the file cabinet. She reached into her pocket, pulling out the Boat's keys and there, on the end, was a small, silver key.
She fit it in the lock and opened the third drawer.
Everything was alphabetical, neatly organized, arranged. She'd done it three times before getting it to her liking. Ilse stared inside, frowned, shut the drawer, slid it open, shut it and opened it a third time.
A small trickle of dust dislodged from the sliding mechanism as she did. New clients were in the top drawer. Old clients who'd stopped coming in the third.
Now, she scanned the alphabetized names...
“There we go,” she murmured beneath her breath. She snatched Claudia's file and pulled it, opening it to scan through.
The first image was a familiar article. A police sketch of the Icicle killer was displayed beneath a headline that declared, “Victim survives serial killer!”
They'd had three sessions alone discussing the impact of the article. Claudia had hated seeing her story in the news, and Ilse couldn't blame her.
Now, though, wasn't about the article.
For a moment, Ilse felt chills down her spine as she studied the face of the police composite sketch. They'd never caught the Icicle killer. Never had a name. The description, in large part, had been thanks to Claudia.
The composite sketch displayed a sneering face with dark, neatly combed hair. He didn't look like much... save the eyebrows... This was the feature Claudia had remembered most. Curling, slanted eyebrows, like wicked gashes in stone. A perpetual scowl, she'd said. Or a look of angry surprise.
Ilse stared at the police sketch a moment, feeling disgust.
The Icicle killer had been named after the road he'd haunted. The Icicle Road in Leavenworth circled through the mountains and over a river. The killer had preyed on young women with car trouble, hitchhikers, or anyone he could entice to stop and lend aid. More than once he'd pretended that he'd been injured or needed help finding a lost pet.
A familiar trick. One that Ted Bundy had often used to lure his victims as well.
The Icicle killer had been a sexual sadist. He'd picked targets of the most vulnerable he could find. Ilse flipped past the police sketch, moving to the later file.
She scanned the information, then paused.
There. June fifteenth. Nearly six years ago. Claudia had changed her name. Ilse still had the receipt to show it. Six years was a long time...
What had triggered the killer now?
Ilse began to close the file, but then heard the faint beeping sound of her computer finally rising from slumber. She slipped the file back into the drawer, slid it shut and then hastened back towards the kitchen before plopping in front of the old machine.
She let out a whooshing sigh before logging in and checking into her dial-up internet email. Another long moment passed, allowing Ilse to sit in silence. She preferred a slower pace to life... But the closer she got to the city, the faster things seemed to move. Fast-food culture affected everything. A way of life was slowly dwindling—at least, that's how it felt.
Still, for the moment, she refused to join the twenty-first century.
She didn't mind a few minutes wait between web pages. A small price to pay for her own peace of mind.
Once the site loaded, she scoured her inbox for the emails Sawyer had forwarded.
She spotted an untitled entry with three attachments.
Bingo. The rosters from the community center.
She downloaded the student roster, waiting again. Then, the roster opened automatically. “Alright,” Ilse murmured. “Where are we?”
She ignored the roster for the trauma class. She already knew the story for Claudia and Lauren. But the question was simple: had Abigail changed her name too?
Or was Ilse sniffing up the wrong tree.
Her expression flickered as she scanned the Alcoholics Anonymous list. No Abigails. Ilse frowned, hesitant. Mrs. Rubin had seemed adamant Abigail was taking a class. Rudiger had confirmed her phone number was registered on the list.
So where was the third victim's name?
Ilse scanned again, reading through the list of names, and then pulled up, blinking once.
There, two names from the bottom, she read, Rubin, Irene.
Irene?
Ilse licked her lips as nerves tingled through her. She glanced back to the attachment sheet Sawyer had sent and scrolled down, instead, to the case file from Agent Rawley's office. She opened it, moving to the third file...
Abigail Rubin.
She hastily scrolled past the autopsy photos, landing on a picture of the poor woman's driver's license.
Abigail I. Rubin.
I for Irene?
Ilse let out a little puff of air, leaning back with a sinking sensation in her stomach.
Abigail had been using her middle name. From a psychological perspective, allowing people to address her differently, with a different name, achieved a similar effect. It allowed a transition, seamlessly, of identity.
Abigail I. Rubin, just like the other victims, was no longer using her old name.
“Christ,” Ilse murmured. “Holy shit...” It took her a moment, staring at the list of names before a slow prickle spread up her spine.
With a shaky hand, she reached into her pocket, fishing out her phone. It took her two attempts to dial the appropriate number. She waited patiently, and on the second ring, a jovial voice declared, “Ah, hello—the pretty cop! How's it going, my dear?”
“Rudiger?” she said, her lips numb. “I don't mean to rush you, but I need a favor.”
“Anything for you, darling. How's Tom?”
“He’s—umm, not here right now. Sorry for calling so late.”
“Oh don't be silly, I rarely sleep nowadays. What can I do for you, my sweet?”
“Umm, look, I just need you to double-check something for me. The students at the community center—I need you to check if anyone, especially in the trauma classes, adopted a name change.”
“A name change? What like, ever?”
“As far back as you can look.”
She heard a clicking sound, then a clink of what sounded like glass and a rummaging noise that reminded her of a jar of marbles or MMs. She heard a faint munch, a long sigh, and then Rudiger declared, “Happy to be of service. Yes, yes, I can do that. Am I cross-referencing with anything?”
“If... if they survived an attack, or an assault of some sort, any sort... That'd be useful too.”
As she said it, Ilse knew it was a long shot. Even in a community center class, the odds were low... But not impossible.
If she could narrow down the list to find the next would-be victim, then she could head the killer off before he reached his target.
Ilse felt a flicker of anxiety compete with a jolt of excitement.
“Scanning now, my dear... This should take a couple of minutes. Apologies for the wait.”
“That's fine. My computer takes longer to boot up.”
Rudiger gave a long, sad sigh. “You're breaking my heart, Ilse. I'll send you a laptop. You'll love it.”
“No—no that's fine. I don't like them. Just, please... the names?”
Rudiger went off into dark muttering beneath his breath but stayed on the line as Ilse sat with her small, dumb phone pressed to her cheek, waiting patiently for the results.
Her foot tapped incessantly against the floor in a staccato rhythm, and she let out a long breath, hoping beyond hope something, anything would turn up.
“Oh, well, here we are...,” Rudiger said suddenly. “That was easy.”
Ilse blinked. “W-what?”
“I checked the teacher names first, dear,” the techie replied. “On a hunch. Much smaller roster.”
“And?”
“One of the teachers of the grief class... A woman named Alexandra Sayed... She used to be called Rachelle. Seven years ago.”
Ilse felt her mouth go suddenly dry. “One of the teachers?”
“Yes, dear. Only been employed a month, it looks like. Though she's not working tomorrow.”
“How—how is that possible? What are the odds of that—I mean, how many others are in the city with a name change?”
“Psh. Frankly, I'm stunned we found this one. Hell, look there, she moved recently too. New address and everything.”
“Is that—no that's fine. Can you send me that new address?”
“Of course. Shit—oh dear.”
“What?”
“You know those houses Rawley sent babysitters for? She's not on the list. Her name change wasn't in the system.”
Ilse felt her heart skip a beat.
Rudiger said, “Should I notify Tommy?”
Ilse was already pushing to her feet, though, her heart pounding wildly. “Yes—yes, please, tell Tom. Tell him to meet me at her home! Please, send the address. Right away, Rudiger. Right now!”
She rushed back towards her door, practically ripping a finger on one of the locks, her heart beating so loudly, she thought it might burst.
It was already getting late. The killer struck at night...
Plus... if the woman had changed her name, changed her address, then she wouldn't be on Rawley's protection list. Officers wouldn't be patrolling outside her place.
She was defenseless.
What if Ilse was too late?
What if he was already there?
She flung open the door and raced out into the hall, phone still pressed tightly against her cheek.