No Control (Chris Motionless)

Chapter 30 - The Sinners

We ended up spending most of the afternoon with Kamaria's mother and despite the pleasant conversation between the four of us, there was still an unspoken tension in the air. I kept glancing at Lea and Kamaria, but they seemed at ease, so all of the anxiety was clearly coming from inside of me. Lea and Kim had been discussing what got Kamaria so interested in architecture when I noticed her grab a small notepad on the end table beside her. Kim continued to nod and respond to Lea as she scribbled something down quickly. 

When Kamaria saw her mother let out a small yawn ten minutes later, she remarked, "I think we should head back to campus before the train gets too packed. It was nice to see you, Mom."

They said a quick goodbye and hugged for a moment. Lea and I told her farewell as we got up from the couch, but as soon as I stood, Kim touched my elbow. I turned back to her as she discretely held out the note to me and held a finger up to her lips at the same time. I slip the note from her fingers and stuff it in my pocket.

"Be careful out there." She told me and I had a feeling that she wasn't just talking about our trip back to Cambridge. 

I knew that I had to wait until I was alone before reading whatever was on that paper, but I itched to know what it said. Was it simply another warning or could she have given me some sort of answer to help untangle the web I was obviously caught in? The whole way back to the dorms I felt like I wasn't even present in the moment, like I was trapped somewhere in the back of my own mind. 

I wanted to let out a heavy sigh of relief when we finally made it back to campus and I wasted no time to use the excuse that I needed a bathroom break. I made sure to lock the door behind me before taking a seat on the closed toilet lid and pulled out the slip of paper swiftly from my pocket. 

I hastily unfold it to find the message, 'Search for the cardinal sins in each of the sacrifices. Find what connects them and it should lead to the one responsible.'  

Underneath that, she wrote her phone number. 

Why did all of this have to be so damn cryptic? I read over the note several times before recalling that cardinal sin was another name for the seven deadly sins. I chewed on my bottom lip as I thought that over, I had to look for the sins these women might have committed and that might show me how they were connected to each other? That seemed like a long shot, but I couldn't come up with any other way to figure out who might be doing this. I refold the paper and slid it back into my pocket while I began to form a vague plan, but it would have to wait until later tonight. 

That ended up being sometime around midnight. Even though I was anxious to begin my research, I held off for twenty extra minutes just to make sure Mackenzie and Lea were sound asleep. I sat down on my bed with my back against the wall, so I could keep an eye on everything in the dorm. I could somewhat recall the name of the girl I heard about in the tattoo parlor, she had been the second victim. I struggled for a while to figure out if Stacy's last name was Andrews or Anders. It took about fifteen minutes to find the news reports on Stacy Anders' brutal slaying and of course it didn't give much information outside of a photo, that she was twenty-four, and how she would be dearly missed.

I frowned as I observed her picture with her bubble gum pink hair and her bright smile. What sins could such a sweet-looking girl have committed? I then went on to hunt down her social media accounts and her neon hair greatly helped with the task. Stacy's Instagram was the easiest to go through and at first, she seemed like a normal girl. She clearly enjoyed getting body modifications, since every other post was about a new tattoo and the odd piercing here and there.

I pulled up a new tab on my screen and searched for the list of the seven deadly sins. I wrote the names of them in one of my notebooks: Envy, Lust, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Pride, and Wrath. None of those appeared to fit this girl, but as I scrolled it dawned on me. All the showiness of her profiles, the excess she lived in, her sin was most likely pride and maybe a bit of greed. I shook my head; how could I judge a perfect stranger like this?