"Oh? And I thought I was on to something Sebastian said, dejected. It was hard to tell how much of his reaction was genuine.
He appeared to be sulking, a trait which, in him, was not at all cute. An absolutely terrible way to present oneself.
"I mean, you yourself are Stanely Sebastian-S. S."
"Oh! I hadn't noticed."
"This is pointless."
She should never have expected anything from him. All that nonsense about him leading her through the deductions yesterday had been nothing but paranoia.
S.S.? "Germain."
"Huh? Oh, what?"
"Since my deductions have come to naught, do you have any good ideas?"
"No, not really. I'm in the same boat as you... can't think of any real course of action except looking for another message, like we did yesterday. I feel like I'm dancing on the killer's palms, which irritates the hell out of me, but..."
"Then let us dance. Playing your enemy's game until he relaxes and lets a hint drop is a perfectly good strategy. So, Germain, if there is a message here... then where?"
"Well, we can at least guess the contents. Presumably the message has the third victim's name, Backyard Bottomslash, or her address. The crossword puzzle led to the first case, the book pages led to the second case, so..."
"Yes, I agree."
"But where that message is hidden, I have no idea. If we can figure out some sort of pattern, that would help us catch him, but..."
Something that should he here, but wasn't. Sebastian had described it that way.
Referring to the victim, and to the bookshelves.
Was there something like that here? Something that should be here, but wasn't? Something that should be here but isn't here was starting to sound like a linguistic Mobius strip.
"So," Sebastian said. "If whatever we find will simply point us to the third victim, then perhaps it would be more effective if we skipped this scene and went right to the third one. After all, our goal is to prevent the fourth murder as well as solve the case."
"Yeah."
She was the one who had pointed out the chances of a fourth murder... but Sebastian's reaction had suggested he had been well aware of this possibility, which was why she hesitated now.
"The third murder has already happened, and we can't prevent that, but there is a chance that we can stop the fourth. Rather than waste time looking for a message when we already know what it says, it would be far more constructive to look for a message leading us to the fourth victim."
"But that just feels so submissive ...like we're following his lead. I mean we might miss an important clue to his identity if we skip this room. Even if there isn't some clear evidence, we might get a feeling or a hunch that will help us out later. I agree that preventing the fourth murder is important, but if we focus on that too much, we'll lose the chance to get aggressive, to take control of the situation."
"Don't worry. I'm a top."
"A top?"
"An aggressive top," Sebastian said. "I have never once been submissive. One of the few things I can boast about. I have never even been submissive to a traffic signal."
"You really should,"
"Never." Adamant.
"Preventing the fourth murder should lead us directly to identifying and arresting the killer. This is what my clients want, more than anything. But I see your point as well, Germain. I'm already finished checking the room over, so while you are doing that, I would like to think about the third murder, Do you mind if I look at the file you showed me yesterday once more?"
"Work different angles? Fine by me..."
She'd never intended to cooperate with him anyway.
She took a binder out of her bag, checked to make sure it contained the file on the third murder, and handed it across the table to Sebastian.
"And... these are the crime scene photographs..."
"Thanks."
"But like I said, there haven't been any breakthroughs. The contents are the same as yesterday."
"Yes, I know. But there were a few things I wanted to double check... but this is a horrible picture, isn't it?" Sebastian said, putting one of the photographs down on the table where Germain could see it. It was a picture of Backyard Bottomslash's body. Germain had witnessed many horrible things during her career at the FBI, but this picture was so grotesque it gave her chills every time she saw it. Compared with this picture, cuts on a chest or crushed eyeballs were nothing.
The body was lying on its back, and the left arm and right leg had been chopped off at the root. There was blood everywhere, all over the crime scene.
"They found the right leg abandoned in the bathroom, but they still have no idea where the left arm is. Obviously, the killer took it with him. But why?"
"That question again? But Sebastian, isn't that another example of something that should be there, but isn't? In this case, the victim's left arm."
"The killer needed to cut off the left arm... but he did not bring the right leg with him. He just tossed it into the bathroom. What does that mean?"
"Either way, we're going over there this afternoon... but I'd like to spend a few hours here first."
"That sounds fine, Oh, yeah, there was a photo album belonging to the victim in that cabinet, Germain. Probably worth checking out. You might be able to find something about the victim's personality, or her friends..."
"Okay. I'll do that."
Sebastian turned his attention back to the file, and Germain stood up and made a beeline for the bathroom sink. She could no longer bear the grainy feeling in her mouth. She quickly gargled, but once was hardly enough, so she repeated the action two or three times.
She considered trying to contact 707 again. There had been no answer earlier, so... no, yesterday had been a house, but in a tiny apartment like this there was no getting away from Sebastian. Even if she called from the bathroom, he wouldn't even need to move over to the door to hear her. She would have to tell 707 about the attack eventually... or was that not something 707 would care about?
Germain looked up and saw her face in the mirror. Tabitha Germain.
This was her.
That much was clear.
Everyone knows the sensation of staring at a word for a long period of time until you start to wonder if it is really spelled correctly. In the same way, it was possible to doubt oneself, to wonder how long one could really be oneself. Was she still herself? Which is why this was so important.
Why she stared at her reflection, confirming it again.
"But does 707 do the same?" she wondered suddenly. How many people could say for sure that 707 was 707? Was there anyone at all? Tabitha Germain had no way of knowing, but she wondered if 707, looking in a mirror, would even know who it was looking back at him.
"A mirror... a mirror?" Hmm.
She almost had something there.
A mirror... right and left reversed in the reflection... reflected light... light reflecting off a smooth surface... glass, silver... silver? No, the material didn't matter, it was the quality that was important... that quality... the reflection of light... no, the reversal of right and left... in opposition?
"Opposition... the opposite... reversed!"
Germain bolted out of the bathroom, back to the table. Sebastian looked up from the file in surprise, his black-rimmed eyes opening wide.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"The picture!"
"Hunh?"
