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Cassie groaned. “Great, another arrogant jerk.”
“On the plus side, this guy likes to talk. Some of these letters are three or four pages long. That means we’ll be able to get more information from them.”
“You mean he didn’t sign his name at the bottom? That’s rude.”
“I miss the days when serial killers told us who they were,” David said.
“Luckily,” Harris interrupted, “we can tell a few other things from the letters.”
“For one,” David continued, “the paper.”
“It looks normal to me,” Cassie said, leaning closer.
“Every detail is important. It’s stationery paper, not ordinary computer paper. There are no lines on it and no logos, watermarks or designs, either.”
“Also inconvenient,” Cassie said.
David ignored her. “This could be his personal stationary or he might’ve bought it for this purpose. Either way, I doubt we’ll be able to track him down from the type of paper he chose.”
“So, it gave us no information?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Harris said. “Sometimes the absence of information is useful, too. It helps us rule out other factors.”
“Fair enough,” Cassie said. “What else?”
“He used black ink,” David continued. “We’ll be able to analyze that. But again, I doubt we’ll be able to track him down based on the type of pen he used.”
“He wrote in cursive, though,” Harris said. “His handwriting is nice and neat.”
“Rules out another doctor,” Cassie said. When Harris and David looked confused, she shrugged. “Their handwriting is always terrible.”
“Still, younger generations weren’t beaten over the head with cursive the way some of us older folks were. The way he’s formed some of these letters, he might be older. Or went to a private school.”
Cassie looked up at David to see if he was joking. His face was serious. “You can tell all of that from his handwriting?”
“Yes and no.” David stood up and stretched his back. “These are educated guesses, emphasis on the guess. What will help is if we can pull any fingerprints off the paper.”
“What’s the likelihood of that?” Cassie asked.
Harris shrugged. “This guy seems smart. Don’t think he would make a mistake like that, but maybe he overestimated Langford. Maybe he figured Langford wouldn’t get caught, and therefore the letters would never be found.”
Cassie looked back down at the letters in front of her. She had avoided looking too closely, but her eyes were drawn to Elizabeth’s letter. The picture was taken from Facebook or a dating profile. It was pixelated, but that did not distort how happy she was.
Cassie was overcome with immense sadness. For the detectives, the victims were already dead and gone. Their stories were over, and it was time to give them justice. But for Cassie, there was more to it. Elizabeth wasn’t gone and neither were the other three victims. Their souls hadn’t been laid to rest. Their mystery hadn’t been solved.
Cassie reached for Elizabeth’s letter, hesitated, and looked up at Harris. “My turn?”
Harris gestured toward the letter.
Cassie turned her attention back to the paper and as soon as she made contact, she felt a tingling surge in the tips of her fingers. She snatched her hand back, but the vision had already taken hold of her.
Unlike the vision Jessica had given her, Cassie wasn’t transported to another place and time. She was aware of being in Langford’s bedroom surrounded by David, Harris, and the other police officers. But a series of images flashed in her mind. She swayed on her feet as she tried to make sense of it.
“Cassie?” David asked, his voice tinged with worry. “Are you okay? Did you see something?”
“A basement,” Cassie said. The image was already fading, and she was trying to hold onto it. “With an altar.”
“What?” Harris asked. “What’s happ—”
