A thick bruise marbles her throat. It reminds me of another girl, another time not so long ago, and I have to blink several times to distract myself.
“Have yourselves a look,” I say quickly, handing the phone over to be passed around. “This is what we’re dealing with. This is who he is. He’s going to go down in history—they’ll make documentaries about him. They’ll write books. Name him before someone else does.”
Everyone saw images of the first body. Its location meant it was all over social media before forensics had gotten within ten feet. It’s a cliché, but there’s something worse about a younger victim—she’s somebody’s daughter, someone’s best friend. This one can’t be older than sixteen, and even in death, her cheeks are rosy, her limbs graceful and lean. You can only tell she struggled by her mussed-up dark hair, and she was most likely still alive when he cut her—veins congeal quickly; corpses struggle to bleed. She should be posting pictures of slutty prom dresses on Pinterest, whining about douchebag boys and choosing an overpriced college, not being slowly dissected in pursuit of a killer’s DNA. Now this, sports fans, is her legacy: blood-soaked bed sheets and an empty space where a girl used to be.
My team know all of this. It’s why the plate of breakfast muffins is untouched besides for Posner, and why their lattes have turned cold in their cups. The room reeks as much of stale coffee as it does cleaning fluid. Have to say, on this occasion, I prefer the lie of perfume.
“He hates women. All women,” Camden says slowly, wincing at the screen. “The last one was old, right? It’s like he picked someone younger just to make a point.”
“I don’t know.” Mira, who edits for Truth Daily and appears to have missed her last Botox appointment, fiddles with the diamond pendant sitting between her flaccid breasts. People overlook older women when they’re hiring, but they’re cost effective—they have so much to prove. “The way he gives them pet names…it’s affectionate. We should call him The Lover; it’s there, right? Even if he’s just playing with the idea.”
The Lover. Does she honestly look at these photos and think this guy ever loved anything? “Not memorable enough,” I say bluntly. “Next. And keep it relevant. Abstract shit never sticks.”
“So we just pick something that describes what he does,” says Camden. He picks a pen up and swats it against his lower lip a few times.
Mira sighs. “What, like Cunt Splitter?”
“Jesus—you think we can say that on primetime, huh?”
“You have a better word for vag?” she snaps.
I must not roll my eyes. But I want to. “Even if we did, it sounds like some shitty death metal band. Keep going.”
Leo raises her hand.
I nudge her beneath the table. “Go on.”
“They’re already calling the first one the Honey Murder,” she says, “but they’re not going to call this one the Darling Murder, not when it’s clearly the same perp. The Honey one is what he’ll be associated with first.”
“Keep going.”
“I’m done.” She blows a stray tendril of hair from her eyes. “Just thinking out loud.”
Camden frowns. “So the Honey Killer, then. Simple.”
“Not creepy enough. Come on. Look at that picture and give me something that does this psycho justice. He likes choking people. He likes blood. He clearly has issues with *. There are a hundred ominous names in all that junk, but all I want is one.”
Somewhere down the hall, a vacuum blares to life. My phone sits alone in the center of the table; nobody can bear the sight of Jane Doe.
“Blood Writer,” someone says finally.
“The Skin Graffiti Murderer,” says another.
I put my face in my hands.
“I like the graffiti angle. There’s something there.”
Camden mumbles in agreement. “Blood Picasso?”
“Oh, I like that.”