Six AM

Chapter Six

"It looks good," Ethan commented distantly, rubbing one finger over the glossy words, feeling the divots and valleys in the notebook from Madison's handwriting as if he could read them like braille. The journal splayed its pages on the seat beside him while he held the printed article tensely with one hand. Information that he knew so intimately now seemed unfamiliar, having been written in a foreign hand and stripped of all the emotional gravity. He looked at the Ethan Mars pictured in the article from a space that was outside himself and couldn't recognise the grainy black and white face that stared unblinking back at him, despite that the photo was only a few days old. Purpose and determination was locked in his expression as the police had cuffed and questioned him. He glanced over the printed words and rubbed at the handwritten pages absentmindedly.

"If it's too upsetting to read, you don't have to," Madison observed, watching his nervous habits follow each other like clockwork. First the fidgeting, then touching his face. He'd roll the corners of her notebook before pacing the room after a while, if she let him read and reread for too long.

"I'm not upset," Ethan said so calmly Madison almost believed him. "I'm just... thinking." His eyes scanned the page again, stopping at the photo, the title, the last few sentences. Madison could map out the article by the way his eyes darted across the paper. The photo. Ninth Victim. Shaun Mars. Form a lead. His gaze switched between these four pieces of information, whether nostalgically or incredulously, she couldn't tell. Maybe a part of him wished he could do it all again. Feel that fire and that determination in hopes that maybe, in some other timeline, he would be sitting here with her in her apartment reading "The Ninth Victim: Shaun Mars Saved!"

"You left out my suicide attempt," he said levelly, breaking both their thoughts.

"I thought about it," she replied. "I wanted this one to be about Shaun. Not to mention I don't think paparazzi have any place at a funeral. Not everyone deserves to know everything, you know."

A thoughtful silence followed. His eyes remained unfocused and static on the page, processing her spoken words instead of the written ones. "Thank you," he said softly, and smoothed the scruff on his cheeks before his eyes scanned the page again. The photo. Ninth Victim. Shaun Mars. Form a lead.

Madison let him take his time, scavenging for any piece of closure he could find from the article. He deserved to know every side, to fill in every gap, so when he stayed up at night thinking about what more could have been done, and what he was missing, he didn't fill those gaps with his own invention. She considered that she could be fuelling an obsession that he should be trying to move on from, but didn't follow the thought for long. Those empty spaces that remained within him were platforms for self-blame and loathing, and any answer she could provide would help to end that.

Ethan knew he was missing pieces. The blackouts, visions, and possible schizophrenia had skewed his trust in his own memory, and he trusted few others besides himself. Only Madison and Agent Jayden had been reliable in trying to find Shaun's location just as much as he was. He scanned down to the paragraphs about Jayden and read and reread and reread for anything that might have saved his son, if only he knew.

Agent Norman Jayden from the FBI was the first one on the scene that morning...

Ethan knit his brow and reread the first paragraph.

...the body was found early Saturday morning, around six a.m.

"Six a.m." he iterated to himself, speaking the thought more to the article in front of him than anyone else. "That was less than two hours before he came by the house." He turned to Madison and asked, "why wouldn't he have told me that he had just found Shaun's body?"

Madison shrugged, trying to find any suggestion that might fill the charged silence "Legalities? I don't know if they can say anything before they make a formal report. Maybe forensics had to look over it first, before contacting you or Grace for identification."

"Or they were too busy checking in to see if I had killed myself," Ethan quipped under his breath and between his teeth. Then the crease in his brow deepened as an inkling of suspicion swept him. "What time did you call in?"

"Call what in?"

"Saturday morning," Ethan explained rapidly, "when Jayden showed up at my door. You called it in. What time?"

Madison looked to the ceiling and blew a thoughtful sigh through loose lips, trying to remember back with practised, journalistic accuracy. "I want to say seven," she decided. "Yeah, the receptionist...Charlene, I think. Well, she said that he wasn't in the office at that time but she'd let him know. Why, what time did he come by?"

"Seven-thirty," Ethan said stonily. "I mean, I'm doing the math here, right? The wasteland must be only twenty minutes away from the police station. Anonymous finds the body at six, Jayden's there by six-twenty. I only live ten minutes from the station, so that leaves Jayden forty minutes to investigate the crime scene. Anonymous might have been there. All the clues would have been fresh enough." His eyes refocused from the mental map in front of him to Madison, who listened patiently. His eyes narrowed. "Is forty minutes enough time to find something incriminating?"

Madison shrugged and laughed lightly, "I'm a journalist, Ethan, not a cop. I don't know what to tell you."

"Yeah," Ethan concurred, sitting back in his seat and knitting his brow to solitary inward contemplation. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Try not to make something out of nothing, here," she said patiently. "Yes, it's possible that the anonymous person could be the Origami Killer calling in his own crime. It's possible, Ethan, but we don't know. I'm sure Jayden went through all the formalities and let you and Grace know Sunday morning once everything had been processed."

"Why wouldn't he tell me he had just found the body?" Ethan iterated, too wrapped up in thought to listen to what she had said. "We were planning on burying an empty casket."

"He's a professional," Madison rephrased shortly. "Don't you trust him?"

"I don't know," Ethan said quietly to dismiss the presumption he had tried to run with. "Of course I do. I just-- I just want answers."

"What will you do with them?" She probed, wondering if Ethan was the type of man who could live and let die. Memories can only hurt so much.

Ethan only looked wistfully at the article, and said nothing. The photo. Ninth Victim. Shaun Mars. Form a lead. His brain felt cluttered with visions and dreams. The real information mixed with the unreal so seamlessly, he couldn't tell which was which anymore. The verisimilitude of the blackout's dreams and the waking visions skewed his perception of reality just enough that he lived in constant uncertainty. He had to be sure he was in Madison's apartment and felt her handwriting like braille. He had to be sure he remembered her article without adding or forgetting anything, so he read and reread it. He thought about Madison's question, but his silence was only one more answer he didn't have.

Madison held her thumbs and forefingers in the shape of an L and placed them together so they made a rectangle. She closed one eye and centered Ethan in the frame of her fingers. "Ethan Mars!" she exclaimed excitedly. "You just caught the Origami Killer, what are you going to do with him?"

Ethan turned and looked stoically into Madison's one open eye. "Well, I've killed a man before," he stated, wreathed in the white halo of her hands. "I had no choice. He put me through hell just for Shaun to die anyway. When I come face-to-face with him -- and I will -- I hope he understands that anything I do to him, I learned from him."

Madison lowered her hands with an acutely sick feeling in her heart. Ethan looked down, scoured the article, and quickly rolled the corners of her journal back with his thumb in short, rapid gestures. His eyes stayed static on the top left of the page, where that grainy photo grimaced back, unchanging.