Steel Sapphires and Shattered Emeralds
Chapter 6
After Kayleigh had left to go to work with promises to be back by 7 am, and looking for something to do, Sage decided to see what books Kayleigh had on her bookshelf. After all, you could tell a lot about a person by what they had on their shelves, especially with a mind like hers.
Walking onto the lounge she headed for the bookshelves and found herself looking at a battered silver photo frame perched in front of the tattered books. Stuffed into the frame was a photo of about 25 people of various ages, several of them bearing a strong resemblance to Kayleigh.
It was a photo of her family, Sage realised quickly. As she picked it up to examine it closer the photo and several others fell out of the frame. Looking closer Sage saw that they had just been pushed in front of the original photo in the frame. They had been taken at Christmas, every year since Kayleigh had left.
The original photo held maybe thirty people, ranging in age from very old and frail to tiny babies. In the middle was a much younger Kayleigh, blushing and with pale pink hair. Over the course of the other seven photos some of these faces disappeared and others grew older. Turning the most recent one over in her hands Sage saw the inscription:
‘To our darling Kayleigh.
The family can never get too big.
Love from all of us on Emerald Isle.’
Sage smiled. Even so far away, Kayleigh’s family were looking out for her. It was a comforting reminder that people were on the whole, and for the most part good. Her natural inquisitiveness piqued, Sage decided to take the time to explore the rest of the apartment. After all, she had only really known Kayleigh for 24 hours, give or take their first couple of meetings, and now she was alone. She carefully tucked the pictures back into the frame.
Firstly, she took the time to look properly at the lounge. Although she’d taken in everything about it before, she hadn’t properly looked. The first thing she noticed was the blueness. The walls were painted blue, there was a blue rug on the floor and the battered sofa was covered with a blue throw. The curtains were a shade of off white, with blue flowers printed on them.
Sage found Kayleigh’s colour preferences interesting, considering that blue was a colour her hair went only when she was in pain or angry, and she chose to surround herself in it constantly. She shrugged slightly. Who didn’t have issues when it all boiled down?
The bookshelves followed the wall from the door to the far left corner, with the sofa placed 6 feet in front of them effectively separating the room in two. Against the wall furthest from the door was a computer, what appeared to be a rag-rug loom, and a small basket, half full of old, semi-shredded clothing, most of it male. In front of the sofa was a mostly blue rug, and upon closer inspection she found it was a rag rug, probably from Kayleigh’s loom.
In the right-hand corner of the room was a fairly old TV, with a video and DVD cabinet beside it. Sage made her way over to the computer desk and began to go through the drawers. In the she found various family letters which didn’t contain anything more interesting than birth and death announcements and a few cousins passing exams. Right in the bottom of one drawer she found a broken picture of a young man, presumably Kayleigh’s ex boyfriend. Interesting indeed. Sage assumed that the huge chip in the photo frame matched the large dent in the lounge doorframe. Kayleigh was also, apparently, a good shot.
Her work schedule was taped up by the computer. She was working 6 days a week, and doing all the overtime she was allowed. Apparently, Kayleigh didn’t like free time, and was making a large amount of money, which Sage doubted she was spending much of.
Moving into the hallway Sage knew that she didn’t need to look in the kitchen. It was mainly blue, and the standard kitchen of someone who had lived alone for too long. However, the painting at the far end of the hall caught her eye. She contemplated it for a second. An enormous dragon curled around the earth, perching proudly on top of it with its head in the stars while its tail dipped into a river below. All around it, a border of green men, faces made of leaves and vine, stared back at her.
She recognised the artist as Peter Pracownik, a British painter, although the painting itself was not one she’d seen before. It was a very good print. It was mainly blue, with the occasional aqua and blue-green. The frame was also blue.
She continued to Kayleigh’s bedroom. Sage was unsurprised to find it blue. Blue walls, blue carpet, blue cloth draped over the dresser. The curtains were cream, with blue ties. The only thing that wasn’t blue was the bed. The bed sheets where plain white, and as far as Sage could tell pure linen as well. Kayleigh apparently liked her small comforts.
Opening the wardrobe first she was confronted with rows of plain, serviceable blue jeans and plain, serviceable shirts, one in each colour, and several blue ones. The only exceptions to these were a pair of black trousers pushed to the back of the wardrobe, an ugly grey skirt suit which screamed ‘token interview outfit’ and an elegant embroidered blouse that had fallen off its hanger, apparently a fair while ago. Sage left it where it was, not wanting to alert Kayleigh to her snooping.
In the bottom of the wardrobe were another pair of boots, exactly like the pair Kayleigh had been wearing when she left in the morning, and a pair of loose sandals, new looking and wrapped in a clear plastic bag. The bag was very dusty.
Moving to the dresser she took in the top of it in once glance. Half finished bottle of cheap moisturiser and a hairbrush were all that was on it. However, the top drawers were a different matter. While the other drawers contained plain, serviceable underwear, socks and basic toiletries, the top drawer contained some old, but very nice underwear sets, a very small lacy nightdress, an almost full tub of coco butter moisturiser and some very dusty makeup. It seemed to Sage as if Kayleigh had put away part of herself in that drawer, probably when her boyfriend left.
Sage finished her snooping in the bathroom. Although most of it was pretty standard stuff, and mostly all in blue, there was one thing that caught her eye. On the sink was a cup, holding the toothbrushes and toothpaste. The cup had an image of a very drunk leprechaun and bore the logo ‘Happy Fucking St. Patrick’s day!’ in lurid green letters. She remembered reading about it in one of the family letters; it had come from one of Kayleigh’s cousins.
Sage smiled slightly. She had enough info for now. Heading back into the living room she went to the book selves and picked up a book that had caught her eye before the photograph. Karin Slaughter’s ‘Blindsighted’. It looked interesting, if slightly ironic considering Kayleigh’s job.
Sage sat on the battered sofa and put on her glasses. After all, what was the point in doing one thing when you could to two? She accessed the files that Bishop had sent her the last night and began to go through them while she read. As she did that, she also thought about what she was doing here.
After all, the attraction she had felt towards Kayleigh had started out purely physical, but things had developed and she found the woman’s intellect to be attractive as well. Not that other people she knew weren’t, but she was different. Kayleigh didn’t want her for her computer like mind, or purely for her body. Kayleigh wanted her for Sage herself, and that was certainty different.
It had been a long time since she had been with someone properly, longer than she cared to remember, and this seemed like a good opportunity. For what, she wasn’t sure, but Kayleigh was an attractive woman in a lot of ways, so it was worth finding out. Her mind made up, Sage settled back into the couch and continued with her other two tasks.
Kayleigh got back to her apartment about the time she had told Sage, and the answer to her knock at the door revealed that the other woman had stayed. Closing the door behind her, Kayleigh shuffled her feet nervously and started to speak. “Now that we’re dating, erm, we are dating, aren’t we?” she asked nervously and smiled when Sage nodded slightly, “well, I bought you these.”
She brought out from behind her back a small bunch of flowers, cornflowers and a tiny purple rosebud. She had found them in a little flower shop that she normally walked straight past. She had been looking at some normal roses when the bright cornflowers caught her eye.
“They’re… lovely. Thank you.” Sage smiled awkwardly at her and moved to take them. Kayleigh moved in for a kiss, and Sage didn’t protest. “Do you have a vase for them?”
“Ahhh… no.” said Kayleigh, thinking fast. “But I think I might have a water jug I don’t tend to use.”
“That would be great, if you don’t mind.” Said Sage, looking again at the flowers, “They’re very pretty.”
Once the flowers were arraigned in Kayleigh’s blue glass water jug and they prepared for the evening, Sage brought up something that had been nagging at her during the night while she had been waiting for Kayleigh. “Although today has been nice, you realise that I'm more of a day person.” She said. “That’s when I get most of my work done, and I’ll have to sleep at night. All my colleagues are on the same schedule. It’s difficult to work together otherwise.”
“It’s alright.” Kayleigh smiled, obviously tired. Her accent always broadened when she needed sleep. “We’ll be having the twilight and dawn hours together. Like me Ma always said, ‘something is better than nothing.’ Besides, it means we won’t be getting sick of each other too quick.”
“Very true.” Said Sage smiling. “We just have to try not to disturb each other.”
In the following days the settled into a comfortable routine, Sage sleeping during the night and Kayleigh during the day, while they made sure to spend the first and last meal of the day together. It gave them up to six hours a day together, and they spent most of this talking, getting to know each other better, and swapping theories on the case.
One afternoon on her way to work, Kayleigh picked up the late paper when she went to get an extra pint of milk for the lab fridge. She settled down to read it on her break, and was horrified at what she read. The headlines screamed ‘mutant serial killer’ and detailed the 6th victim, killed only five days after the last woman, and speculations that the killer was a telepath.
“Who the fuck leaked that?” she fumed to herself, embarrassed at someone in her department’s lack of professionalism. As she continued to read she found that the latest victim, Angela Smith, [29] had been reported missing from her house two nights ago, by her husband, who’d gone into another room for a few minutes and returned to find her missing. And yes, she was a mutant. Another minor mutation too.
“Fucking holy shite.” She swore out loud. She knew what this meant. There would be a rise in mutant hate crimes. With copycats trying to hide their crimes as this sicko, this ‘psychic psycho’ as the papers were calling him, or ‘good citizens’ deciding that anybody with psychic abilities should be placed under ‘citizens arrest.’
Not only that, but she knew she was going to see Sage a hell of a lot less now. The XSE was going to have to do some serious PR scrabbling to pull this out of the shit heap it was sinking in. Since Sage was the poster girl for the XSE in LA at the moment, it was up to her and Bishop, as well as overseeing any more autopsies that needed doing.
These thoughts were confirmed when Sage arrived back at the apartment, a parcel in her hand. “You’ve probably already figured what’s going to happen.” Sage said, noticing the newspaper. She looked embarrassed and handed Kayleigh the parcel. “I was going to get you this anyway, but it seemed more appropriate now. Think of it both as a gift and an apology.”
Kayleigh opened it to find a beautiful purple skirt, embroidered with blue forget-me-nots on the waist and hem. “Its beautiful…” Kayleigh said, almost speechless. It was also very expensive, but she didn’t want to bring up money and spoil the moment.
“It’s not blue I know,” Sage began, and Kayleigh blushed, “but I know it’ll suit you.”
“Thank you.” Kayleigh said softly. “You know, I was thinking that since we won’t be seeing as much of each other and since we’re definitely a couple now, and, um… perhaps we should go on a date. A proper date.” She finished, biting her tongue to stop herself babbling.
“That sounds good. It’ll give us a chance to catch up with each other. What were you thinking?” Sage asked.
“I’ve got the night off in five days time, and I know a really good Japanese restaurant. If you can get the time off, and you aren’t too busy, and if you like Japanese food at all and…”
Sage interrupted her mid-babble. “I’ll make time for you, Kayleigh.” Sage herself was interrupted by the sound of her pager going off. Kayleigh knew that Sage was going to be busy, but she hadn’t expected it to start so soon.
Things didn’t improve over the next three days, although they didn’t deteriorate properly until the next killing. This time Kayleigh was forewarned before reading the newspaper. She’d deliberately asked the day shift coroner to call her if he’d got another one, and she’d heard all the gory details earlier that day. She was glad that she hadn’t been working when the last two had come in. from what she’d picked up from the day shift guy, and from Sage when she’d seen her, the bastard had been beating them more than before, still with no signs of them fighting back.
Glad as she was that she’d missed the last two bodies that had gone to the day shift, the following evening made her wish she’d missed this one as well. And to top it all off, Sage wasn’t there. In fact, she hadn’t seen her for 24 hours.
“She’s following a lead.” Was all Bishop would say when she asked him about Sage’s whereabouts. It was enough. She’d known that Sage was going to be busy, but this took the fucking piss. Even a hug from Bishop, which was something Kayleigh wished she could carry with her for emergencies, didn’t help much.
She quickly read through the case notes laid out in front of her, and what she found made her go cold.
The woman, Miriam Moules, had been a schoolteacher, working in a school, teaching children between the ages of five and ten, and that wasn’t the worst of it. She’d been taken a day ago from the school playground at lunch, with 400 children around her, and nobody saw a thing. The thought that he could have just as easily taken one of the children had the city in absolute uproar. Yet again, she’d been a minor mutant. An empath, with the ability to induce calm and concentration in people. She’d been an ideal teacher.
To try and distract herself, Kayleigh got ready and prepared to start the autopsy. Looking down at the woman, she didn’t like what she saw. It was obvious that she’d been strangled, but what was even more obvious was that she’d been beaten, quite badly. There was significant bruising on her face and upper torso, with several abrasions and cuts. Once again, no sign of a struggle. He’d had a lot of fun doing this.
She made her way through the autopsy like an automation, doing her job and nothing more, and as soon as she could she made her excuses and left work for the day. Right now, she just wanted to be at home, wanted to find Sage waiting for her with a warm hug and comforting words.
But Sage wasn’t waiting for her. The apartment was cold and empty, with not even a note on the fridge door to say anything, although there was more laundry in the basket, and a plate was drying on the side.
Kayleigh made her way to bed, tears streaming down her face. She was afraid and alone and all she could see when she closed her eyes was the dead woman’s face, beaten and bloody. Eventually, sleep claimed her.