The void whispers, the seductive urge to jump. To surrender. To succumb to forces beyond control.
And I answer its call.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
2
Firefly
The total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.
—CARL SAGAN
COLLINS
My life is defined by a before and after.
Before I took my last breath, and him.
We shouldn’t be so fragile that one moment out of the whole of our existence should alter us. But that’s the cruel reality every victim of a crime comes to realize, just how delicately fragile we truly are when caught in the fury of a storm.
I clench my hand until the seashell crumbles. The frail, spiral exoskeleton is reduced to chalky clusters in my palm, and I let the broken pieces drop to the sandy dune.
With a resigned breath, I swipe my hand down my slacks and send a reply text to Laurel. She gets anxious when I don’t check in while working a case. She’s retired now, hasn’t been my psychiatrist in years, yet she has always been more than that to me.
Family.
It was Dr. Laurel Montgomery who pulled the canvas away and breathed new life into my lungs.
She saved me in more ways than one.
I drop my phone into my wool-blend coat, the pressure in my chest eased enough to focus on the crime scene below.
There’s a reason he chooses such vast spaces. Right out in the open, so exposed.
It’s intentional.
Majority of ritualistic offenders select remote locations to discard their victims, like the woods, even though such sites are typically familiar to the perpetrator and can tie them back to the scene. They still believe there’s a less likely chance of discovery. The trees give a false sense of security. Secluded. Secret.
The thought provokes the unwanted mental image of dusty green branches and the smell of earth.
But that’s not him. It’s not that he desires an audience; he’s not bragging or unintelligent. He doesn’t want to be caught, despite his choice of a public area. He has his reason, and that reason lies somewhere along this coastline.
I lift my gaze from the victimized remains to stare out over the darkened shore, the night too dense to discern much else other than the blanket of stars dusting a midnight sky. A pale crescent moon hangs partially obscured by a swipe of hazy clouds. The roar of crashing waves competes with the harsh wind as it rips through brittle dune grass and sea oats the color of sawdust to toss strands of my loose hair across my face.
The night feels violent.
“Damn, they’re setting up the spotlights already.” FBI Special Agent Zeke Darby moves in beside me, his towering, stocky build blocking the activity of the busy scene.
My gaze still cast on the ocean, I blink to try to keep the horizon in sight, that nearly invisible line where the ocean meets the sky. Like an optical illusion, the longer I stare at that seam, the more it starts to blur, disappear.
Darby’s right. Once the crime-scene analysts turn on those beaming lights, we’ll lose the offender’s perspective, blurring our evaluation like the vanishing horizon.
Anxiety swells in my chest, the urgency to uncover a new piece of the puzzle before it’s lost. The fear that this could be my last chance to find him steals my breath like the next gust of wind across the dunes.
Serial offenders don’t stop killing. They often experience a cooldown period, or they’re incarcerated for other crimes—but he’s different.
