“Were any of our victims among them?”Kate asked.
“Nope,” Marcus said.“Completely different names.But that’s not the point.The guy’s obsessed with elder care.And obsessed with how kids treat their aging parents.”
Kate’s stomach tightened—just a fraction, but enough to make her pulse tick up.
Marcus gave a humorless grin.“Oh, you haven’t even gotten to the fun part.Come here.”
He beckoned her over to the laptop.
Kate stepped beside him, bracing one palm on the edge of the desk as he clicked open a browser tab.
“YouTube?”she asked.
“Conference footage,” Marcus said.“Elder Care Symposium, Baltimore, last year.Holloway was a keynote speaker.Guy loves a platform.”
The video loaded: a podium in a hotel ballroom, banner behind it readingSHIFTING THE LANDSCAPE OF AGING: DIGNITY FOR ALL.
An announcer’s voice came over the speakers: “Please welcome James Holloway…”
Then he walked onstage.
And Kate’s breath caught mid-inhale.
The man was burly—broad through the chest and shoulders, with that unmistakable heaviness in the limbs that still moved with surprising precision.His posture was forward-tilted, almost prowling.He rolled his weight from heel to toe the same way the killer in the CCTV footage had, that same oddly fluid gait for a man so bulkily built.
Marcus paused the video at the moment Holloway reached the podium.
“Tell me I’m not crazy,” Marcus said quietly.
Kate stared.
“No,” she said.“You’re not.”
And it wasn’t just the size.Or the gait.Or the eerie echo of the security footage from Jennifer Hayes’s building.
It was thepresence.
The way Holloway inhabited his own body, the coiled control of his movements, the resolute forward lean—as if he were always bracing to advance, to confront, tocorrect.
A shiver climbed Kate’s spine.
“He moves the same way,” she murmured.
Marcus nodded.“I almost dropped my coffee when I saw it.”
Kate replayed the few seconds silently.The resemblance wasn’t vague or approximate.It was uncanny.
She exhaled slowly.“So Webb gives us a name by accident.Maybe.And that name leads us to a man who has a documented fixation on elder neglect.”
“And an arrest record that reads like a handbook for escalating obsession,” Marcus added.
Kate folded her arms.“Where is he now?”
“Based in Worchester,” Marcus said.“Counselling center attached to a non-profit.Travels all over New England to give talks.”
Kate’s mind sprinted ahead.“If he’s our guy… he’s mobile.He could’ve easily driven into Boston for both attacks.”
“Yep.”
