Page 57 of Shadowface

I’m suddenly very curious as to what Lincoln’s doing his PhD on. What is his ultimate theory?

I type in my father’s name. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but it was inevitable. Hundreds of search items pop up, dating back at least twenty years. Nearly all of them are co-authored with Dr. Garcia, until they abruptly stopped three months ago when he died.

I never really understood what my father studied, but I believe that matters now, given he was the world’s leading expert on fear.

Fear. Synonymous with death. Death equated with murder.

Four missing girls…hundreds before them. One of them staring up at him lovingly in a photo.

Serial killers instill fear. Shadowface instills fear.

I look at photos from the killings of 2002 and try to imagine each victim as a person, a girl like me. Each photo represents life lost at the hands of a monster. Needless deaths…unless⁠—

His own personal test subjects…

What is a better way to study fear than instilling it? How many did he need until he got what he wanted?

Was four enough, or were there more? Was Kimberly Peters a Shadowface victim, too?

Did my father savagely murder four women? He’s the only person smart enough to do it and get away with it.

My stomach convulses as the evidence starts to unfold. I saw something as a child and blocked it out. I saw him do something he shouldn’t have done. Something so heinous, it was easier for me to pretend it didn’t happen.

My father was Shadowface…I feel it in my heart.

I quickly press the back button and close the browser. I can’t look at that right now. The back of my head hits the headboard behind me. And the sickness in my stomach spreads into my veins as an icy breeze ruffles my curtains.

“What did you do to those girls, Daddy?” I whisper. Who was Mikael to you? Are Mikael and Lincoln the same person?

I place my computer down and close my eyes, ignoring the tears streaming down my face. It only takes me a minute to fall asleep, and as I drift off, I think of masked faces and tears of blood.

Warm feelings, love, acceptance.

The years my nameless monster spent manipulating my mind to crave death. And now…now when I think about him, he has an actual face.

Lincoln’s face.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

SUMMER

Afull week goes by and nothing. It’s now early October, and with no additional evidence, the media has treated Cali’s disappearance as a missing person’s case, not a murder. Nothing to indicate a resurgence of Shadowface, other than the blistered X on my thigh and the giant hole he left in my heart. I haven’t found any new information about the Order or who’s involved—nothing to help me piece this all together. Part of me thinks everyone in this town is in on the dirty secret, and I’m nothing but a puppet.

Like everyone is watching me and the silence is mocking me.

My days start and end in a haze. I wake up, go to class, read, study, repeat. He doesn’t text; he doesn’t indicate he’s watching me or even exists at all.

I try my hardest to forget him by burying myself in my other classes, wishing my dark feelings for him will go away, but they don’t.

If anything, they’ve festered and grown. Shifted and transformed into something I can’t explain. He fills every empty part of me, eating me from the inside out, to the point I can barely focus on anything else. And I seem to have a lot of empty parts these days.

I hang out with Dani and Misty here and there, but I mainly avoid them. Misty and I can’t seem to find our footing, and that’s partly due to me being so rude to her. The distance between me and Dani is widening while I watch her and Misty’s friendship grow stronger, and I’m unsure how to fix it.

It’s Wednesday, and I head into psychology with my usual tingly anticipation as I head up the wooden stairs to where Dani and Misty are sitting in our usual place at the back of the lecture hall. Dani waves at me but frowns as someone takes the seat next to her, and mouths, I’m sorry, as I’m left in the dust.

I wave at her to let her know everything’s fine. I spot a couple of seats in a row near the front—just one row away from where Lincoln usually sits. I take one of the seats, and Lincoln enters my field of vision, rocking me to my core.