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Detective Jason Knox returned home later that morning after being awake for nearly thirty straight hours. As he set his keys on the kitchen table his daughter Gabby came running in to greet him.
“Daddy! I saw you on the TV!” she squealed as she jumped up into his waiting arms.
Jason’s wife, Erica, followed Gabby into the kitchen and wrapped her arms around both of them. She held on longer than normal, and Jason could tell that she had been worried.
“You actually let her watch the EPK press conference?” Jason asked, surprised. His wife typically was the one to shelter Gabby from the evils of the world.
“Relax, I turned the volume off. She just wanted to see her daddy on TV. I told her you were a hero,” Erica answered.
“Grandma and Grandpa saw it, too, Daddy! They called mommy and told her,” Gabby added.
“Did they? What did they say, Mommy?” Jason asked his wife.
“That they were very proud of their son. Your mom said that your father even asked for the phone to call Ed and some of the other guys from work that he hasn’t talked to in forever. She said she hadn’t seen him talk that much on the phone in years,” Erica replied.
“Really? I can’t picture that,” Jason chuckled.
“Well, he did. He is so proud of his boy. We all are. You captured the freaking EPK, babe. Do you know how amazing that is? Has it set in?” Erica asked as she pulled Gabby off of Jason, who then ran off into the family room.
“Alleged EPK Killer, but I’ve been too tired and too busy to let anything except exhaustion set in,” Jason answered, making sure Gabby was out of the room.
“What do you mean alleged?” Erica asked, confused.
“I just still have some doubts, is all.”
“But they said he admitted to killing that Russian girl, right?”
“Yeah, he did. I heard it with my own ears, too.”
“So what’s the issue?”
“The issue is he swore to us that he didn’t kill the other two Jane Does. Right before he pulled the trigger.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean he didn’t kill them.”
“True, but why would he care if he was just going to kill himself anyway? Most serial killers want the whole world to know what they did, especially after they’re caught. He had every reason to take the credit for the killings and go down in history as the EPK Killer. Why wouldn’t he?” Jason asked.
“Maybe to protect his family?”
“He barely had one. Just a wife who probably hated him, a brother, and no kids.”
“Well even if he only killed one girl, you’re still a hero because he probably would’ve done it again,” Erica reassured her husband.
“I know, and I appreciate you. Maybe I’m just tired, but I can’t shake the feeling that he isn’t the EPK Killer. The other two victims had been mutilated with a knife, while Stoya had only been strangled. I’m just worried that there’s still a killer on the loose and we just cleared his name… Honestly, it doesn’t matter anyway. The Chief has already made this the ‘HoJo Show’, as if he actually did anything, and that show won’t allow for an alternate ending.”
“Well, to change the subject a bit… I have a confession to make, too, Detective Knox,” Erica said as she wrapped her arms around her husband.
“Oh you do, huh? What do you have to confess?” Jason played along.
“That seeing my husband on the TV today made me…” she finished the sentence in a whisper in Jason’s ear as his eyes widened.
“Oh my…” he replied when she finished her secret confession.
“Unless you’re too tired, that is…” Erica said as she slowly led him out of the kitchen towards the hallway that leads to the bedroom.
“What about Gabby?” Jason said.
“She’s watching TV, she’ll be fine. I guess we’ll just have to lock the door while I plead my case and beg for leniency...”
“Feeling a second wind coming on, I think…” Jason announced as the two closed the bedroom door behind them.
