The Vanishing Girls by Callie Browning (read this if txt) 📕

approached before he saw her eyes glare at him from between two wooden louvres.

“Good evening,” she said. The chill in her voice stabbed at the pit of his stomach like an icepick. In the space of twenty-four hours, he had gone from feeling the warmth of her body against his to being greeted like an encyclopedia salesman with bad breath.

“I tried calling, but you didn't answer the phone. I hoped I could come inside and talk for a minute.”

Eileen raised an eyebrow as she sighed and unlocked the door before stepping back and gesturing him into the apartment. That was when he first noticed the marks on her hands.

From afar, they looked like bruises on her caramel skin, extending from her right wrist almost up to her elbow. But when Holden stepped into the apartment's light, he realized they were paint blotches; a mixture of blues, purples, greens and blacks that had coalesced to form angry blemishes on her hands and forearms. He was about to ask what they were when he caught sight of the living room.

“I didn't know you were such a good painter,” he said in surprise.

But in the back of his mind, the cogs turned and he realized it was the only thing that made sense. The hand-painted sign to advertise the floral arrangements. The cleaning cloths. The tiny brush she carried around to dust things.

Her paintings leaned against the walls, like foot soldiers guarding the throne room of a beloved queen. Every canvas was complex, deeply layered, wrought out of something so deep that Holden wasn't sure where the art ended and Eileen began.

The portraits featured some of the island's iconic settings like Broad Street and the Garrison, but it was the people that stood out. Some of them featured solitary young women on lonely beaches or in open fields. One square canvas focused on the rear view of a woman walking naked down a busy city street. No one stared at her, and she seemed oblivious to everyone else as she walked blithely out of a luxury store, her arms weighed down with shopping bags. Despite not seeing her face, there was a lightness in the woman’s step, as though being happy with herself was the only thing in the world that mattered.

Yet, the one that captivated Holden was the scene at the Garrison Savannah that hung above the chair, the only decoration on the otherwise bare walls. In the background, the colours of the centuries-old military post and its race track were more subdued than in real life, the hues muted and demure. A woman walked on the race track's loose golden sand carrying something swaddled in its bright blue and yellow folds. He pointed at the painting. "This one is stunning."

Eileen stepped in front of it so that herded and shoulders covered part of the canvas and said, “Yeah…I paint sometimes.” She put her hands on her hips and met his eyes. “But that’s now why you came here.”

“Err…yes.” Holden rubbed his hand across his forehead, suddenly remembering why he had dared to enter the lion’s den. “I’m not going to lie. I was caught off guard by what the Grenadian student said. As much as Paul and I don’t get along, it’s another thing to believe that he's a serial killer.”

She stared at him blankly, her eyes clearly telling him that she was so far unimpressed with his speech.

“You think I want to cover up for Paul, but that’s not the case." Holden squeezed the nape of his neck and started to pace. "Look, you have to understand…I’m in a ticklish position and I got angry because I felt like this was just another bunch of crap Paul created that I have to clean up.”

“Meaning what? That you want me to keep my mouth shut?”

“No. When I left today, I went to talk to Paul.”

“You did what?” Eileen’s mouth hung open and her hands balled into fists at her sides as she glared at him.

Holden folded his arms across his chest and looked her in the eye. As angry as she was, he also knew that he had done the right thing. “Just wait a minute. I didn’t tell him what you said. I asked him some questions, and I truly believe that Paul has nothing to do with these killings.”

“Oh, so I’m supposed to believe that? Should I just keep locking my door and hope that the Slasher picks another young woman to kill instead of me? That’s how you want me to protect myself?”

“Please lower your voice.” Holden let out a breath. “I know Paul didn't do it because he's hemophobic. He gets sick or faints whenever he sees blood. Why do you think Clifford and I always say something is a 'bloody' shame when we talk about Paul? It's because we're making fun of the fact that Paul hired a mortician. That's why Paul only drives the hearse and that stupid carriage.” Holden pressed his lips together. “It’s also why my father put so much pressure on me to look after everything after he died.”

Eileen squinted at Holden, her comprehension at odds with disbelief. “Is that why Paul was at mortician school for so long?”

“Yes…at first my father thought Paul just was just playing the fool. But when Paul kept failing and getting sick, my father finally gave up and just told him to come back home." Holden rubbed his head with both hands. "All of those girls were cut; if they had died in another way, then I’d be more inclined to consider Paul.”

“So why did you question Paul if you didn’t believe it was him?”

“I wanted to know if he was loaning his car to anyone. He said he hadn’t. Not even his wife drives it.”

Eileen shifted from one foot to the other. “As much as I want to 'drop a dime on someone' as they say on TV, I guess we’ll have to keep looking.”

Holden looked relieved that Eileen didn’t think he was