We’ll find her.
We have to find her.
“Okay, let’s take a breather for a second,” Nico interjects, looking between the two of us. “Nobody is going anywhere on their own.” His gaze meets mine. “The sheriff is right, Matthew. We can’t find her if we don’t know where he’s keeping her or what’s going on inside his head.”
“You know what’s inside his head? He got what he wanted, and now he’ll play. He has his hands on Jessica and is doing God knows what to her while we chat here like we have all the time in the world.”
“Matthew…”
“No. Terry was the first one. It makes the most sense. They were high school sweethearts, but she died. It doesn’t even matter how or why, and now he’s hyper-fixating on other women who look like her. Two of whom are already dead. So excuse me if I don’t want to sit here, twirling my thumbs and waiting for you to find all the details while the woman I love is somewhere out there with a fucking killer who installed himself in her life and pretended to be her friend.”
Nico presses his lips into a tight line. “Any update from patrol?”
“We have eyes on his house and the medical center, but he hasn’t been seen at either of those,” George, one of the senior officers supplies. “As a matter of fact, his boss told us he missedhis last two shifts, and when they tried to reach him, the calls went to voicemail.”
“He’s not going to go to work, not now that he has her. They’ve been gone forsixhours.”
Six hours, twelve minutes, and a handful of seconds.
Not that I’ve been counting.
I run my fingers through my hair before letting my hand fall to my side. “They’re somewhere out there.”
I press my hands against the map, blinking a few times to clear my vision.
The spot where Andrea Porter’s body was found is marked with a red X. While dense trees cover most of the area, there are a few lone cabins spread through that territory as well.
“We can’t be sure. The area is just too big for us to search on foot, and spending resources on ahunchthat will most likely not pan out while we could be looking…”
“He’s out there,” I repeat, glaring at Jenkins. “It’s not ahunch; it’s a fact. Nicole Kelly was killed in a cabin in the woods and dumped within a ten-mile radius of it. Andrea Porter’s body was also found in the woods. That can’t be a coincidence; it’s a pattern. Everything about her kidnapping and killing was rushed. He didn’t plan it. There were no notes or flowers, like there had been with Nicole and Jessica. It was an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment decision done in a fit of rage.”
Rage that I probably caused.
“Jessica was also getting flowers and notes over the last few weeks. We thought it was from her ex-boyfriend, but considering the new information we got from Ward, we can assume the notes were from Aiden. Not just that. He broke into her home, wrecked it, and left a note on the wall, along with photos. He’s been stalking her for weeks, hell, maybe even months.” I swallow hard. “There were also photos of us.”
“Deny it all you want, but you’re mine,” Nico murmurs, sifting through the photos of the crime scene on the table until he finds it. “The message he left on her wall.”
“She was throwing away his notes and ignoring him. We started dating, and it pissed him off.”
If I hadn’t suggested it to her…
No, he wouldn’t have stopped.
By that point, he had already become fixated on her.
He would have come for her regardless of me.
But he got to her because you were the idiot who pushed her away.
“Why now, though?” I murmur under my breath, hoping the answer will appear if I ask it out loud, but no such luck. “They’ve known each other for years. Why now?”
“You were getting closer,” Nico comments, turning my focus back to the question at hand. “She was falling for you. That night at The Hut… He probably saw you, and that’s what triggered him. That’s why he took Andrea Porter, who just happened to be there that night. He knew he couldn’t get to the woman he wanted, so he took the next closest thing.”
A chill spreads over my skin at his words.
“That’s the only thing that makes sense. He was acting impulsively, and Andrea’s injuries confirm that. He didn’t have time to cover his tracks properly, which makes me believe he didn’t have time to go far to begin with. There were no tire marks where Andrea’s body was found, which means he was on foot.” I point my finger at the map, circling the area. “Thisis where we’re going to find him.”
I can feel it in my bones.
