Copycats were almost a requirement for high-profile cases. They came out of the woodwork like clockwork, hungering for their fifteen minutes of fame, even if they didn’t achieve their goals by getting their name in the press.
So why was the entire situation bothering me?
With the mug brewed, I grabbed it, ignoring the note and heading into my office. As soon as I hit the space bar, the screen flashed with the items I’d shown her last.
Including Maria Rivera’s photograph.
Doing so had been at her insistence, but I’d easily seen how much the picture horrified her. Taken only two weeks before she’d been kidnapped. The difference in those taken afterwards had been horrifying.
She’d lost weight and her face had been gaunt, but the worst thing had been the horrible lifelessness of her eyes. Dull and flat, as if everything amazing in her life had been stripped away.
She’d rebuilt so much, yet I could still see a haunted feature in her iridescent irises. Much like the flash I’d seen in mine.
People didn’t live through the kind of horror we had without receiving permanent scars. As I stared at the picture, I sipped my coffee. Why in God’s name hadn’t I noticed the resemblance? There was one logical answer. I hadn’t wanted to.
Plain and simple.
And why? Because in my mind I hadn’t done enough to protect her or the others.
Another ten seconds of staring and I couldn’t take it any longer.
I shifted from the photographs to the summary pages I’d put together for the case. Every scrap of information stored on the computer had been all about the book. Or was I lying to myself? At this point, I wasn’t entirely certain. Not that it mattered.
The fucker was going to be dead in a couple of weeks.
It was time for me to let it go. Alexia was right. She was simply having nightmares, which were manifesting into what she’d thought was someone following her.
I’d advised her to change her number and to protect herself. She knew when to contact the police if she had a stalker. She was a big girl. Yeah… I wouldn’t worry. Right.
Right before I clicked off the file, I remembered the original sketch put together by an artist who specialized in using those with special mental skills such as reading minds and seeing visions of crimes. I’d forgotten all about it.
Then I pulled the actual photograph of Samuel Wells, doing a split screen. In color, they allowed for actual comparison that was decent.
The hair color was almost identical. Every feature was remarkably similar and the artist had been going from images drifting into her mind after touching a couple of victims.
Why did I have a feeling something was off or missing?
Everything was just about the same.
With one exception,
The eyes.
I looked more closely, zooming in by two hundred percent.
There it was.
A slight difference. Maybe not enough for anyone to notice or even care about, but in this world, the most subtle differences were important.
There was no doubt in my mind the two pairs of eyes were different.
Because they came from two different but close to being identical men. The thing was, I’d checked and double-checked every database including the dark web to ascertain whether Samuel had any family out in the big, bad world.
I’d found none.
There’d been records of him being born in New York, but his parents were dead and there’d been no siblings.
There hadn’t been a single person who’d care if anything happened to Samuel or if he went to prison. While he’d lived in an upscale neighborhood with houses lining a pretty little street, not a single person had stepped up and admitted to being his friend. Not one. His work on the internet as a consultant meant he had little interaction with his coworkers or boss.
