Page 65 of Fatal Mistake
The sound of the gunshot on the audio returned. Her breath locked in her chest, and her throat seemed to swell and close. She gasped for air, wanting to run now, too—flee—as she’d done that evening, but that’s what Oren would want. Cal was right. She couldn’t let Oren win.
You’re there, right, God? You’re with me?
For the first time in ages, she felt His presence and the peace that accompanied it. She pulled back her shoulders and let the sights and sounds of the night come racing back. In her mind’s eye, she touched the bricks of explosives, ran her fingers over the slick plastic wrap. She shifted her gaze farther down the table and spotted drawings.
Yes! Drawings made by Oren of the bombs. Before he’d arrived, she’d studied them. She mentally flipped the pages to find various views he’d sketched of the exterior of his necklace-shaped bombs, much like the one Cal had shown her. But these sketches had a skull and crossbones added to the front of the bombs.
No, oh, no.
The cameo necklace was connected to the bombs, and with her name engraved on the back, she was even more connected, too.
“The necklace in June’s house…his bombs,” she called out to Cal. “He uses the skull and crossbones as a symbol on the front.”
“I know,” Cal replied, far too calmly for just having learned of it.
She opened her eyes and shot a look at him. “You knew that already?”
Nodding, he strode across the space, his boots kicking up the ash.
It should hurt that he hadn’t shared this with her, but she understood his reasons for keeping parts of the investigation a secret. “Do you think he’s visualizing his mother’s necklace when he sets off these bombs?”
“It fits his profile.”
“But why a skull and crossbones? I don’t get the relationship to his cause.”
“We think he’s taking a literal translation of the symbol.” Cal met her gaze and held it. “The skull rests on bones that resemble an X, which in our culture can symbolize being wrong. The skull indicates death. Add them together, and it can be interpreted as man is wrong about the truth and therefore he dies. We think Keeler takes this view, as it fits with ISIS’s theology that anyone who doesn’t hold their beliefs should die.”
“With the symbol on the necklace and my name on the back, this is further confirmation that he thinks I should die.” Feeling like she might pass out or be sick, she pressed her hand over her mouth. The need to run came flooding back, to be anywhere but at this scene of destruction that resembled the scenes where so many women had lost their lives.
“Look at me,” Cal commanded. “Breathe, honey. Just breathe.”
His calming voice helped, but more than that, him calling her honey sliced through her panic. Until the memory of Oren calling her honey replaced the thought.
“He called me honey, too. That night when he asked me out, and then…then months later, this is how he responds?” She gestured at the ruins, and a collage of images from the night flashed through her mind.
Red-hot anger replaced her anxiety. She’d been too afraid or consumed with staying alive the last few months to let her anger loose.
“He deserves the same fate that he’s meting out.” The words came flying out before she could filter them. “To know the same fear.”
“But he never will,” Cal said. “He’ll spend his life behind bars instead.”
She turned to look at Cal. “Forget that I said that. No one deserves such horrific treatment. Not even Oren.”
“Which is why we have to find him now before he strikes again.”
“Yes, and I’ll try my best to remember everything I can.” She closed her eyes again to mentally return to the table. She continued flipping through pages in the binder. On the back cover, she found laminated yellow notepaper holding a list written in Oren’s neat, square printing. He’d scratched the numbers one through ten and behind them listed women’s names in bold print.
She remembered running her finger down the list. She strained to remember each and every name, but could recall only the first one.
She opened her eyes, so very glad to be back in the present. Glad to see Cal by her side.
“He had a list of women’s names,” she said. “Ten of them. I think the first three were women he’d killed. At least they were names I remember hearing on TV. I remember thinking the next seven were the women he’d target next, but I didn’t have time to really look at them before he came back.” Tara twisted her hands together. “If only I’d thought to grab the binder and take it with me when I ran.”
“You were terrified for your life.”
“Still, I wish I’d thought of it.”
“With Keeler’s change in focus to you, these women might not be in danger right now anyway. Or Keeler might think you gave us the names, and he could have moved on.”
