10:00 am

Bev called. They found magnesium nitrate in the victim’s fingernail scrapings. There’s an abandoned fertilizer factory south of town. That may be where Ben kept his victims. Lydecker seems to think so. He took off the moment the results came in. If Max ended up there, I hope to God that she gets out before Lydecker arrives. I wish there was a way I could warn her, but she hasn’t responded to my pages in forty-eight hours. The truth is, I have no clue where she is or even if she has managed to track down Ben. I don’t even know if she is dead or alive.

Max has successfully frozen me out of this search. I still don’t understand why she is not responding to me. She should know by now that she doesn’t need to protect me. She was happy to have my help with Zack, Brin and Tinga, but she is determined that I have nothing to do with Ben. Lydecker tried so hard yesterday to make me doubt Max, but the truth is, she is the only one who can do that. And I have to admit that for the first time since I met her, she is succeeding. It was bad enough that she lied to me about the body in the morgue. It’s even worse, not knowing what is going on. How can I trust her when she doesn’t trust me?

6:00 pm

Max came in earlier this afternoon looking like she had been in a fight.

"I need a shower," was all she said.

I was about to ask if she was okay, but her expression said ‘don’t talk to me.’ I have never seen her so emotionally drained or so weary. She obviously needed some time alone, so I pulled a bathrobe and a few clean towels out of the linen closet and led her to the bathroom. I had barely opened the door when Max was already stripping off her clothes. She didn’t care in the least that I was there. Her whole focus was on getting those clothes off as fast as possible. It seemed like she couldn’t bear to wear them for another minute. I left the towels by the door and turned to leave to the sound of the shower door slamming shut and the water running. I did my best to give Max the space she needed, but with the water still running an hour later, I felt compelled to check on her.

"Max?" I asked, tentatively knocking on the door, afraid to disturb her, but also afraid that something could be seriously wrong.

"Just trying to get clean," she replied, but she didn’t offer anything else.

I left her alone after that. Thirty minutes later, she finally came out, wrapped in the bathrobe. She went directly to the window to stare at the rain pouring relentlessly down the windowpanes. She pulled the robe more tightly around herself, as if she couldn’t get warm.

"Can I get you some clothes?" I offered.

"No thanks," she said quietly, her eyes never leaving the window.

She’s been standing there for two hours now. I pulled out a book a while ago, but I’ve barely glanced at it. I feel like I can’t move either. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I can help her.

11:30 pm

I’ve been sitting here for hours watching Max. She has barely moved. She is still staring out the window at the rain. It is obvious that neither of us is going to sleep tonight. I don’t know why I gave her a red robe to wear. It seems to mock the bleakness in her expression. Every so often, she turns around and looks at me, but her face is a blank and so are her eyes. They have always revealed her inner feelings, but tonight, they are completely closed. She is revealing nothing. I have never seen that barrier before, complete and impenetrable.

I managed to pull myself away long enough to retrieve Max’s clothes from the bathroom floor. She has used the bathroom many times in the past and has always been meticulous about picking up after herself. "Don’t want to spoil the pristine Chez Cale atmosphere," she kidded me once about my neatness. But today, her clothes were still in a heap outside the shower door. The way she acted, it seemed that the last thing she wanted to do was touch them again. Before tossing them in the wash, I picked out the bark and twigs that I found snagged in the fabric. She has definitely been in the forest. Probably fighting Ben. I wonder if she killed him. Whether she tells me or not, I’ll know for sure if and when the bodies stop appearing.

A couple of hours ago, Lydecker’s photos arrived. That was the moment that Max finally decided to say something. I had barely pulled the photos out of their envelope when she walked up behind me, but it was long enough for me to realize what I was seeing. The man in the photos was dead and Max’s X5 group was obviously responsible. I instinctively pushed them back in, knowing that she would never want to see them, to see herself with blood on her face, a dead body at her feet and nothing in her eyes.

Max apologized for shutting me out and thanked me for not questioning her. I told her it was no problem, but I lied, too. She doesn’t know the photos exist, and she has no idea how many questions they bring up. Just because I haven’t asked them, doesn’t mean I don’t have them. Everything in the photos matches the details of the current murders, the setting in the forest, the body displayed on the rock, the arm broken and dislocated. Now I know what Ben was doing. He was recreating that old murder, the hunt, the capture and the killing. And I know why Max was so sure that Ben killed those men. She was there. She participated in that first killing and knew exactly what happened and why. None of this is new to her.

I hate those photos, I hate looking at them, but I still keep turning back to them. I can’t forget the eyes, those absolutely remorseless eyes. Every single one of the children in the photos has them, Max, Zack, and the others whose names I don’t even know. I keep looking at them, standing there with blood on their faces, as if they had done nothing more than complete a training exercise. That is exactly what it was to them, a training exercise, an exercise in murder. I used to kid Max about being a genetically enhanced killing machine, now I’ve realized that this is not a laughing matter. When I look at those photos, I can’t get Lydecker’s words out of my head…they were designed to kill. Is Lydecker right? Are they so damaged and twisted by their upbringing that they will never have a hope of a normal life? Have I been deceiving myself about Max? Is she destined for a bleak and soulless existence?