Free Double Vision by Colby Marshall

deity wasn’t hard to make. “Right. But let’s say you saw a painting with threes in it. A new painting you’ve never seen. Let’s pretend you knew the painting was religious but didn’t know which religion. What might you think?”
    â€œCould be anything,” Molly said. “Depends on what else was in the painting.”
    Duh, Jenna.
The crime scenes of the Triple Shooter’s victims flashed in, one by one. This was either a really good idea or a really bad one.
    â€œJust for argument’s sake, let’s say the painting had the number three involved, then there were women,” Jenna said.
    â€œHow many?”
    Several.
But no. The Triple Shooter, until now, had killed one at a time.
    â€œJust one, maybe. Let’s say there’s more than one painting, but they’re each of a different woman.”
    â€œOkay. What are they doing?”
    Resting in peace?
“Sleeping,” Jenna blurted.
    â€œOkay. Sleeping women, one in each painting. What else is in the paintings?”
    What could she tell this kid without giving away important case facts they’d withheld? “How about . . .” The case details flitted through her mind. Each of the Triple Shooter’s first three victims had at least one chest wound. “They all have a circle right here.” Jenna indicated the middle of her breastbone.
    Molly scrunched her eyebrows, deep in thought. “Geez, Dr. Ramey. I’m not sure I know. Once you take out the numbers, I’m kind of out of it. I mean, there are the Triple Goddesses in Wicca. That’s what I thought of first when you said more than one woman, I guess. They correspond to the three phases of the moon, I think. Full, waxing, and waning, but even then some people say there’s a fourth unseen goddess. The Celts had three goddesses. Maid, mother, crone. What paintings are these? How many of them are there?”
    Ten.
“Oh, never mind, Molly. I was just speculating. We should probably get back upstairs, yeah?”
    Molly nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”
    Jenna followed Molly back upstairs to the living room, where they found Liam and Raine sitting at the coffee table, looking through papers from the file folder Liam had retrieved from the office. When Liam noticed them, he stood.
    â€œGoing through Rita’s lease at the apartment she rented to figure out what we’re responsible for after the incident,” he said. Then, he frowned at Molly, who had blanched at the mention of her grandmother. “Sorry, Molls. Hey! I bet you didn’t think to show Dr. Ramey your new invention, did you? I’m guessing not, since you left it on my nightstand last night. Run up and get it, huh? I bet she’d like it.”
    Molly’s eyes lit up again. “Yeah!”
    She dashed away up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
    â€œSorry about that. I’ve been trying my best to get Raine through the logistics of Rita’s passing, and Molly through having maybe seen her grandmother’s shooter while she was with her at the grocery store, but those two things don’t always align in a simple way.”
    â€œMolly’ll be okay,” Jenna replied. “Kids are resilient. Do let me know if you need me to recommend a good child psychologist, though. I’d be happy to give you some names.”
    Liam Tyler smiled warmly, but he shook his head. “I doubt that’ll be necessary, Dr. Ramey. Even if we’re stretched a bit thin, Molly has a good support system here at home, and anything else she needs, we’ve got a counselor at the church she can talk to.”
    Molly came thundering down the stairs, holding a Rubik’s Cube in her hand. Each of the colored squares on the cube had been numbered in Sharpie marker. Molly began to twist furiously, causing the block to become a mix of different numbers and colors.
    â€œI can’t do it by the colors, but once I numbered the