The Witch's Ladder Read Online Free PDF Page A

lower, stopping when the water line met her chin, and the nagging kink in her neck seemed to melt away. The candles flickered in the April breeze. Valerie closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, the bath water had cooled, the candle had burned itself out and the wrenching pain in her neck had returned.

    Three

    The next morning, the research center announced it had canceled all workshops, and once again, bright yellow crime-scene tape encircled the parking lot of the main building. The media gathered like jackals while Carlos and I scoured the perimeter for clues to the latest murder. We had little to go on, save for the victim’s name: Barbara Richardson, a Caucasian female, age fifty-seven, single; and just like the previous victim, the killer had cut out her liver and taken it for reasons yet unknown.
    The official sound bite my office put out suggested that both murders were random acts of violence, but no one in the department was overlooking the fact that the two victims participated in the same workshop at the institute. If the killings were not random, and for whatever reason someone was targeting the workshop, then the motive remained a complete mystery.
    I asked Doctor Lieberman to arrange a group meeting of the two workshops for the following evening. Although I stressed that I considered none of them suspects, everyone, including Doctor Lieberman knew that they were all suspect by association, and any detective worth his salt would have put them all on the top of a very short list of such.
    I arrived at the meeting the next night and found everyone sitting around the big oak table fidgeting nervously. The only exception was Lilith Adams, who seemed content sitting alone, her hands busy tying knots into a small length of rope. She appeared to concentrate fiercely on my movements as she tightened the knots in the line, spacing them precisely three fingers apart.
    I began by extending my sympathies to all, and went on to promise everyone I would find the killer or killers no matter how long it took. Though frankly, I was already having my doubts.
    “ We don’t have much to go on,” I admitted, “but with crime scenes as messy as the ones we’ve seen here…” A sudden chill ran up my spine and I shuddered involuntarily, visualizing the horrid details in my mind. I had never done that before, and somewhere in my subconscious I had the feeling that someone in the room had planted those images in my brain. I collected myself, shaking off the distraction, but misplacing my train of thought. “Well, anyway, I’m sure my forensic people will come up with something soon.”
    I started walking in slow, methodic strides, my head down, my gaze to the floor. I found it hard to look anyone in the eye after what had happened, fearing a greater vulnerability should anyone glimpse into my mind. The others had seen it all before, visitors stopping by the workshop, feeling vulnerable, as though broadcasting their thoughts aloud. Some might have smiled with guilt for allowing themselves to think about sex and nudity after meeting Leona, Lilith or the twins. Others might have turned red-faced for the sins they harbored on the way in, but now were no longer secret. Still others, such as me, likely turned their heads, or kept their eyes focused on the floor, as though the eyes were not so much the windows to the soul, but to the mind. That I was in the company of the world’s most accomplished psychics did not escape my attention, and I understood keenly that my usual method of asking questions without giving away too much information in the process would not likely prove effective here. I imagined if the killer were in the room, then he or she could have a decisive advantage in the game of detective versus suspect, and for the first time since my rookie years I felt the nervous lump in my throat threatening to undermine my tone of authority. I cleared my throat and swallowed hard before pressing on.
    “ I