“We were distracted,” he says.
I shake my head. “She left a note.” I pass him the piece of paper.
He scans it, then looks to the heavens, drawing a deep breath in through his nose. “When we find her, I’m going to tie that goddamn self-sacrificing brat to my bed and never let her go.”
Yeah, we’re in agreement on that.
Eli raises an eyebrow. “Self-sacrificing?”
“She’s going after, Oz,” I say. “She said it’s her fault he’s been taken and she’s going to get him back.”
“And she couldn’t do thatwithus?”
I run my tongue along my teeth. “Apparently not.”
River reads over the note again, his eyes narrowed. “She knows where he is.”
My heart flips. “What?”
River hands the note back to me. “She doesn’t say she’s going to find him, she says she’s going togethim.”
Eli walks over to me and reads the note over my shoulder. “Could just be a turn of phrase. How would she know?”
“Another phone?” I ask River.
He shakes his head. “I’ve been checking since I found the first one and she’s not been out of our sight since the mall.” River huffs out a frustrated breath and stalks from the room.
Eli and I follow after him. “Where are you going?”
He jogs down the stairs, paces into his office and takes out all the case files we have on the Cross-Cut Killer. He spreads them open across his desk, sifting through them like there might be a map with an ‘x’ marking exactly where to find Freya and Oz. “None of this makes sense. It’s like we’ve been playing catch up ever since Freya came into the picture. We’re missing something.”
I round the desk and help sort through the files, re-reading the notes from Freya’s interviews.
Eli stays by the door. He opens it a little then closes it again and repeats the process till River snaps at him. “Stop dicking about and come help.”
“Eli?” I say, when he shows no sign of moving.
“The door.” Eli looks back at us. “There were no signs of a break in and there were two coffees on the island.Two.Who would Oz trust enough to let them in the house? To share a drink?”
River straightens. “An agent?”
I shake my head. Oz isn’t exactly an extrovert, we’re pretty much his only friends. Well, us and Freya.
The sounds in the room fade away until all I can hear is my breathing. Everything ceases to exist except a single train of thought. I follow it like a string through a maze, gathering the different papers I need to find the center. The interview with the vet. Luke’s account of what happened the night Freya was chased off the road. The autopsy photo of Eli’s mum, Madison Briggs. “Like birthday candles,” I mutter. There. The puzzle piece that doesn’t fit.
“Jude... Jude.” River’s voice filters through my brain and I blink back to the present. “What is it?” he asks.
I look up at them. “Maddie was the first victim with the crosses, yes?”
River nods.
Eli’s fist clenches and he shifts his gaze, glowering at the wall. I hate that he’s having to see his mother like this yet again, but I needed to check.
“Freya said her dad made her start cutting his victims when she was seven. One cross for every year like some sort of twisted birthday candle, were her words. So, why,” I say, tapping my finger on the photo, “are there fourteen crosses?”
Both Eli and River look at the picture of Maddie. I turn the other papers to face them. “The vet, Colin Bennet, said he’d seen Freya with her father two years ago. The night Freya was drugged, Luke said he thought she’d come back already but Freya swore she hadn’t. Posy and Camilla have nothing in common, except for the fact they are both twins. Identical twins.” My breath shakes past my lips as I finish telling them what I’ve only just put together. “Freya has a twin.”
Eli tears his eyes away from his mother and I gently turn the photo over. “How is that even possible?” he asks. “Oz did the deepest dive on every aspect of Maxwell’s life. There is no record of a second daughter.”
