“What it’s telling me is the author of Gotham Gotcha is likely female,” Lucy said. “One who’s snide, petty, resentful, and angry. A woman competitive with other women. A woman who so intensely loathes other women, she’ll mock one who was sexually assaulted. She’ll humiliate and degrade the victim all over again. Or try.”

Berger picked up the remote and pressed play.

Terri’s panicky face in the mirror talking as latex-gloved hands kneaded her breasts. Her eyes were watering. She was in pain.

Her voice shook badly as she said, “No. I can’t. I’m sorry. Don’t be angry with me. I don’t want us to do this.”

Her lips and tongue made sticky sounds, her mouth was so dry.

The killer’s voice. “Sure you do, baby. You love being tied up and fucked, don’t you? So this time we’re going for the jackpot, you know?”

Gloved hands set a jar of Aqualine on the counter, screwing off the lid, and his fingers dug into it. He smeared it into her vagina while she stood with her back to him, and he took his time, his condom-sheathed erect penis pushing hard into her upper back. He sexually assaulted her with the lubricant and his fingers. He raped her with fear. Unless he’d penetrated her with his penis off camera, that wasn’t what he did. It wasn’t what he wanted.

The chair scraped across tile as he made her sit.

“Look how pretty you are in the mirror,” he said. “Sitting all pretty. Almost the same height as when you’re standing. Who else can I say that about, right, little girl?”

“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t. Oscar’s going to be here any minute. Please stop. My hands are numb. Please take it off. Please.”

She was crying but trying to act as if this was just that—an act. She was trying to act as if he really wasn’t doing anything harmful. It was a sex game, and based on references and demeanor, it seemed a certainty they’d had sex before, and domination might have been part of the drama. But nothing like this. Nothing even close. A part of her knew she was about to die, and die horribly, but she was doing her best to will it not to be so.

“He gets here at five, poor little punctual Oscar. It’s your fault, you know,” Morales’s voice said to her face in the mirror. “From now on, baby, it’s what you created… .”

Berger turned it off again. She wrote down a few more of her thoughts.