Stone Maidens

Content Warning: This section of the novel contains depictions of violence and child abuse.

The similarities of the case to her experiences in Papua New Guinea trigger a traumatic response in Prusik. She begins to worry that her bosses will consider her incompetent and fire her, as her mother was fired before being hospitalized for depression. Prusik theorizes that the killer adopted the practice of implanting the amulets in his victims after seeing the museum exhibit and that he adopted the ritual to reinvent his sense of self. She interprets the urine found near Julie Heath as evidence that he struggles with shame. Brian Eisen calls with news that Betsy Ryan’s corpse shows evidence of throat damage consistent with the other victims. However, he believes the stone was rough and made of local stone, suggesting that the killer did not use one of the amulets stolen from the museum in Chicago.

Two days after attacking the girl at the farm store, Claremont feels anxious and agitated. He waits outside of a church in Weaversville and chooses a teenage girl to follow. He believes the girl is signaling her desire to him as she walks by. Claremont drives erratically past her, then pulls over and begins chasing her through the woods.