The Canceled Killer’s seventh victim was a pharmaceutical CEO who jacked up the prices of a lifesaving medicine to treat cancer and then gave herself a $10 million raise. She was killed with an overdose of her own medicine.
—Crime Hivepodcast
My heart beat furiously like a rabbit trying to escape a snare as I glared at the Wagoneer’s tinted windows, trying to get a look at the driver behind the wheel.
My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and spoiler alert, it was almost always fight.
“Hey, asshole!” I yelled. I ran right toward the car, focused on the shadowy shape of someone in the front seat.
The Wagoneer screeched away from the curb so quickly that he nearly careened into a nearby minivan, causing the driver to slam on the brakes and honk. The Wagoneer kept going, speeding away down the street. I trotted to the gate after it, trying to snap a picture of the back of the car. Was that anHon the license plate?HM…P?S? Or an8? All I saw was a blur of rust.
I watched as the Wagoneer took a hard right at the end of the block and disappeared.
I pulled up Oscar’s contact info and pressed my phone to my ear.
“Hey, Ella. Everything okay?” Oscar asked.
“I need you to run a partial plate,” I said without preamble. Adrenaline still thrummed in my veins. My palm felt sweaty against the phone.
“Wait. Slow down. What happened?”
“I think there’s a Jeep Wagoneer stalking the house.” Stalking me, more like. “And I got another message from CanceledKill.”
“You haven’t blocked him yet?”
“No, but—”
Oscar groaned. “Block him. Immediately. And it’s probably nothing. But send me screenshots, anyway.”
“Okay, sure. Can you look into this Jeep, too? It’s been looping around Koi and acting all weird when I came toward it. I got a partial plate from this picture.” I texted him the blurry shot I got of the tinted windows and roof of the Wagoneer and maybe the first three letters of the Illinois plate,HMP. The tinted windows obscured the driver almost completely.
Could Oscar get something from a partial plate? An address, something. The car sped off, but something told me it’d be back.
“I can barely read any of that plate,” Oscar said. “Any markings on the car? Anything unusual?”
I tried to think. “Very dark tinted windows,” I said. “That’s about it.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. Also, I left a message for my friend at the FBI. I’m waiting to hear back. In the meantime…” Oscar sucked in a breath. “Try not to let all of this get into your head, okay?” Oscar’s worry about me came through in his voice, and I wondered who he was trying to convince: him or me.
“It’s hard not to freak out when I’ve got three skull emojis on my socials,” I pointed out.
“What does that mean?” Oscar’s tone went flat and serious.
“It’s the Canceled Killer’s calling card,” I explained. “It’s a threat he leaves on all his victims’ accounts.”
“Ella.” Oscar sounded stern. “You should’ve led with that.”
“Well, I’m mentioning it now.” My voice got high and defensive.
The line suddenly went quiet, and I could almost hear Oscar thinking. I already knew he wasn’t going to share any of those thoughts with me, either.
“Did you talk about the skulls in general on the podcast?” Oscar asked at last.
“If you listened to it, you’d know.” I couldn’t help being salty about that. Oscar seemed to only ever pay attention to me when things were dire. “But, yes, I did.”
“Okay.” Oscar’s voice sounded steadier. Calmer. “Good. Well, if a lot of people know about it, it might not be the threat it sounds like, then.”
“Or it might be.”
