Total number of words = 5945
Cyndia rolled her eyes. Murdock and his equipment was gone. “It’s safe to come out now.”
Part of the orange mass slid out from under the bed. “A good agent doesn’t always resort to sarcasm. Especially if they need something from the other party.”
“She shouldn’t always jump to stupid conclusions.” Cyndia scowled. “And I better do what she says, otherwise she’ll be barging in every five minutes.”
#
Sleep was disjointed between the unfamiliar glow from Murdock’s equipment and feeling hands wrap around her throat. After the fifth time of waking up having almost drifted to sleep, a warm tendril smoothed back her brown hair. “Fear not, Zy. He will not harm you here.”
She didn’t answer Murdock. She didn’t know how. But sleep stayed after that.
#
Cyndia had never skipped school a day in her life so far. Therefore, she felt reasonable sure Mrs. Baton wouldn’t call to make sure she was there. But she still had to hide before the woman would leave for her excursion into the city—usually about late morning. She straddled a root and leaned her back against the Millers’ back yard. The lake’s brown waters sparkled where the sun shone on its laps.
“Where are you going to strike next when you come out? You’re following some logical plan, vision, something. We just can’t see it.” Murdock had muttered the same thing while she got dressed this morning. Then he had showed her his comparisons of the two crime scenes, pointing out Thestern’s signature touches. Eating breakfast wasn’t an option after that.
“You shouldn’t be here, trespassing on a crime scene.” Officer Peterson closed the back yard gate.
“I didn’t realize the yard was part of the crime scene. Sorry.”
“No harm done if you’re staying out of the house.”
She took a deep breath and averted her eyes. “I saw enough of it.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I couldn’t.” She looked back at him. “The lights never went off at the Johnsons’ and nobody left for work this morning. They’re across the street from us. I told Mrs. Baton last night, but she didn’t think it was important enough to bother the police about.”
Peterson frowned. Yes, he understood what she was implying. “You didn’t go over to look?”
She looked away again. “No.”
“Well, I won’t tell the trauance officer on you, if this is the last time.”
“It will be. Will you check out the Johnsons’?”
“Yes. You’re not going to stay here all day?”
Cyndia smiled. “Just until Mrs. Baton leaves, and then I’ll lock myself back in the house again.”
“All right.” He left the yard, shutting the gate after him.
That was one less thing to worry about. And said in such a way that she wouldn’t be number one on their suspect list. She looked back at the lake. Astronomy, that was telling the future from where constellations were when you were born. No, that was astrology; astronomy must be the scientific one. So he liked to look at the stars. And constellations came from mythology.
You disturb God’s name. He was spelling out names with the murders, names of the gods and goddesses from the mythology books.
She peered around the fence. Mrs. Baton’s car chugged down the street. Cyndia ran to the house, pausing to unlock and lock the door, and running back up the stairs. She threw her book sack on the bed. “He’s spelling names of gods and goddesses with the murder!”
Murdock’s eye hollows shifted to the side to look at her. “We thought of that. None of the Odrichan murders matched their written language.”
“What about constellations? How many of the gods are pictured as constellations?”
Murdock bent over the vidplayer. Cyndia draped herself over the bed so she could see the screen over his shoulder shape. He opened up multiple windows, maps with marked locations and star maps with the constellations drawn on them. “He paused between sprees, waiting at least a local Odrichan week. But the sprees always had a different amount of killings, different number of houses struck.” He typed in something and some of the marks disappeared on the street map. “Let’s see if the computer can match the first spree.”
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