“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you. I was just trying to wind down a bit before I came to bed.”
“Apparently, you wound yourself out of reality for a second there. I said your name twice before you snapped out of it.”
“It was a long night.”
She leans back and takes a sip of the coffee. He leans forward, putting his hands together and resting his elbows on his knees.
“Yeah, I had a feeling you would be in for the long haul tonight.”
He always understands. Sometimes she wonders how, but she never takes his understanding for granted.
“This one is just particularly frustrating, not to mention brutal,” she sighs, chewing on her lip. “I just want to find this guy.”
“Wren, that’s just it. You don’t have to find him. That’s the detective’s job. Just focus on what you do best. Work with the information that is presented to you.”
She knows he is right. But he doesn’t know about Philip Trudeau and the nagging sensation that there is a connection for her to find. Instead of debating this with him, she humors him and stands up from the love seat.
“You’re right, I know.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
Wren nods and makes her way to the sink as Richard shuffles toward the stairs. She dumps the slightly cold coffee left in her mug down the sink drain and catches her own reflection in the window above it. She is a sorry sight tonight.
She notices that her basil plant on the windowsill is on the cusp of wilting. She quickly refreshes it with some water from the faucet, knowing that it will have rejuvenated entirely in a few hours.
“Drink up, little one.”
She flicks off the light and makes her way up to the bedroom, wondering if this serial killer ever watered his plants.
CHAPTER 9
THE DRIVE TO SCHOOL CAN take hours in the traffic. Sometimes Jeremy doesn’t mind the slow slog. It’s a time when he can be completely alone with no one nearby to interrupt his thoughts.
Today is not one of those days.
He’s anxious, and his legs have a million tiny insects running around inside of them. He taps and bounces his foot in a fruitless attempt to calm them. It’s been a long process of figuring out what he wanted to build for himself next. And now that it’s almost here, he can’t stop thinking about it. He can’t stop seeing his game play out in his head. He feels the environment, and smells the desperation already. Jeremy turns on the radio and pinches the bridge of his nose, flicking the channel to a local station.
“The victim, a white female in her twenties, was found behind a popular local bar early this morning. The body has been transported to the medical examiner and an autopsy is scheduled for later today.”
Jeremy can feel his heartbeat quicken and his face flush. There is a particular rush that courses through him whenever he knows this crop of inept detectives has received another of his guests. The only thing stopping them from joining the ranks of the criminals they chase is a kind of false morality. A fragile thing that could shatter at any moment, like blown glass.
And then there’s the medical examiner. No matter how deeply MEs believe the dead can speak to them, they can’t. They can determine a cause of death—sometimes—but they can’t even fathom what went through each victim’s mind while sucking in their last gulps of precious, futile air. Forensic pathologists can accurately explain what happens when a heart stops beating. But they can’t publish a paper that details what true anguish looks like or catalog the unbridled pleasure that comes from causing it. They’ve wielded a bone saw but haven’t wrapped their hands around someone’s neck. Death and pain cannot be explained in an autopsy report, not really. It’s primal and cannot be taught in a classroom or lab.