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“Veronica Rowse.”
“Shit.” Laura looked at Nate, her eyes wide. The photograph in the house had been a few years old. Bradley Milford had longer hair then, and the angle was bad. She hadn’t recognized him.
Even though she’d only see him a short while before.
“What?” Nate asked, catching her look with an alarmed eyebrow raise.
“Back to the Rowse place,” she said. “Right now. We have a suspect.”
A man who’d dated one of the victims in the past. Was dating one of them now.
And he wore the number twelve on his jersey.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
They had him already – just so long as he was still where they’d left him.
CHAPTER TEN
He settled back in his seat, watching the barn.
He wouldn’t stay for long. It wasn’t safe to be around here. There were any number of things that could go wrong, and he knew that. It was why he was so careful. But at the same time, he wasn’t really worried about getting caught. How could he be?
Everything had gone so very smoothly so far.
He turned slightly, glancing into the backseat. He was thorough, liked to check things over again and again. It was clean, the whole space clear of anything that might make him stand out during a routine stop. He liked to keep it that way.
He liked the riddle of the farmer, the fox, and the hen trying to cross the river. The farmer couldn’t put the hen and the fox together on either side of the river, because then they would eat one another. He saw things a bit like that.
If he travelled with a kill kit, the tools required to put together the rigged platform, and the victim all at the same time, it would be pretty obvious that he was the one responsible for all of it.
That’s why he liked to do things in stages. First, scout out a nice remote location, like this one. The old barn on a condemned property. A place no one was ever going to go, not until the land was sold and the barn cleared – which could take decades to ever take place.
Then he’d take his tools over there. Set up the platform, get it rigged up nice and secure. If anyone happened by, they might not even know what they were looking at, once it was all set up. And if they did, well, he wouldn’t be anywhere nearby. All he had to do was turn around and drive away if he happened to notice other vehicles around the property when he was coming back to it.
As for the victim, well, that was so easy. So easy that it almost seemed like it shouldn’t be true. But then again, they deserved to die. Maybe it was the universe intervening, making things right. Paving the way.
Or maybe people as a whole were just that stupid that they made it easy for him.
He sighed lightly, running his mind over the events of the last day. How he’d gone ahead and found the next one, right where they were meant to be. Even keeping track of a few different potentials, it was surprisingly easy to build up an accurate picture of someone’s schedule. To stay in the shadows and watch them until you could predict with a high degree of accuracy where they would be on any given day at any given time. People were creatures of habit.
From there, you could easily spot the times they were the most vulnerable. The sweet spot was that combination of routine and vulnerability. Crossing under a dark underpass for the very first time, a person might feel scared, might have their wits about them. Ready to run. But walking to a car in a parking lot that was almost always empty of other people at that time, when it was something that you did every day? Most people didn’t even look up from their phones in that kind of situation.
So, it had been easy to get the latest one into the trunk of his car.
After that, it was easy to get them out of the trunk and set up inside. A matter of minutes. In and out so quick, there was little chance he was going to get caught. It was the perfect set-up. Minimum risk, just for a little extra effort.
He got out of the driver’s seat, finding that thought about the journey here crossing his mind. It was always worthwhile to check. He opened the trunk, casting an eye over the interior. He used his fingers to sweep across the sides of the area, just in case there was something small that had managed to get caught up in the seams. You never knew. Something tiny like an earring – it could be his undoing if he missed it.
There was nothing. He relaxed, walking back to the front of the car.
He took one last look at the barn, before settling behind the wheel and starting the engine. He didn’t need to stay until the end. He knew what the ending was going to be. All he had to do now was get on with the next job. This one was done.
There was another routine to check, another location to set up. He couldn’t rest now. There were people out there who deserved this, and he was going to make sure they got what they deserved. Cheaters. The kind of people who needed to die, to set things right.
He drove away from the barn, glancing at it only once in his rearview mirror. He wasn’t going to be coming back.
This job was as good as done, and he knew no one was going to make it out of there alive without help. And if help did come, well, he was better not being in the vicinity to get caught. In the meantime, he had those boards to get off the window at the new place he’d seen – the perfect place to set up another of his platforms and make everything right again.
