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turn. Random words and dates were highlighted. Crudely drawn diagrams created senseless data.
    The real zinger was the familiar name that kept popping up with alarming frequency throughout. His own.
    He turned a page and recoiled at what he saw. A photograph of himself, at the height of his fame in the early two-thousands. His eyes had been blacked out with ink, his face bore the pockmark jabs of repeated attacks with a sharp object, and a single word had been scrawled across his chest, the letters traced over again and again until they had scored through the page like stencils…
    “KILLER.”
Lazarus slumped back in his chair. “Oh, dear Lord.”
    His sweat had turned cold. He was shivering. And a cold realization washed over him like an arctic wind.
    He had absolutely no fucking idea what to do.
    The door slammed open and Lazarus nearly shouted out in shock. He sat frozen as Kitty dragged both him and the chair back to their original spot. It wasn’t graceful, but she did it.
    “I see you’ve been doing your homework. Good boy.” She patted him on the head as she walked away.
    He thrust his foot out and kicked the book, sending it sliding across the floor toward her.
    “What is this?”
    Ignoring the question, she sauntered back out of the room, returning a moment later with a bundle wrapped in cloth.  There was a loud, metallic clatter as she heaved it onto the table.
    “What’s the deal with this basement, anyway? These rooms are crazy!”
    “Upstairs, Downstairs.”
    “Huh?”
    “The servants lived below, the people of the manor, above.”
    “That explains the creepy-ass kitchen down here.”
    She perched herself on the chair opposite Lazarus.
    “I mean, really. It’s like a maze down here or something.”
    Lazarus motioned to the binder. “I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know what your book has to do with me.”
    Kitty opened to the first page. A photograph of a pretty brunette smiled back.
    “Lisa Connors,” she said expectantly. She watched Lazarus for a reaction. He gave none.
    “Okay,” he offered back.
    She frowned and turned the page. “Jennie Tolliver.”
    “Sorry, I don’t know what you want me to say.
    Kitty slammed the next page over. This time, a raven-hared beauty. “Susan Miles.”
    Lazarus shrugged. “Sorry.”
    She leaped from the chair and stung his face with a brutal slap.
    “Don’t play dumb!” she screeched, shoving the page at him. “Susan Miles, last seen walking down I-35 outside of Dallas after a fight with her boyfriend.” She turned the page back.
    “Jennie Tolliver. Snuck out of her house one night and no one saw her again.”
    Kitty continued, certain something would draw the response she clearly expected. Another page, another girl.
    “Lisa Connors. Told her friends that she was going to run away and travel the world.”
    Sounds like someone else we know, thought Lazarus, but he bit his tongue. Kitty turned to one of the bizarre diagrams. A nonsensical flowchart. An attempt to impose logic onto the random.
    “What’s the common thread, Lazarus?” What links these girls?”
    “I don’t know,” he said flatly.
    “The were all Black Ryder fans. And your band was playing in every city the night of their disappearance.”
    “That makes no sense!” he exploded.
    Kitty flipped through the book. “You don’t recognize any of these girls?”
    “No!”
    She turned to one of the final pages and lingered there. The same look of detachment washed over her face again, and Lazarus sat staring at it with dread roiling in the pit of his stomach.
    “What about her?” she asked, rotating the book to show him. A school photo had been pasted in. This face was sad. No… angry. The girl glared at the camera with a surly expression that did, in fact, spark a memory for Lazarus. It reminded him of the embroidery on Kitty’s skull bag. Fuck the world.
    “Sorry,” he said. It was maddeningly toneless.
    “I know for a fact she got backstage. You know her!”
    “I