"He works with different people on different cases, and he hears them talking about him, or knows they were whispering about him in secret.It eats away at him, and even if he believes he’s good at his job, he knows others don't think so."
"Or it pushed him to understand that he wasn’t good at his job.A vocation he gave his life to," Alison commented."He took early retirement, but that still gave him a career spanning over thirty years.He had to listen to people talking about him all that time.It was what he chose to do, and he wasn’t good at it."
"Even if he isn’t connected to the Butcher case, he’ll have had access to the files.He would have had lots of time to read over them while he plotted for this.He’s older and retired now, but he’s not that old.He’s in his early sixties.He could still have the energy to kill the five victims and position them.We won't know the exact shape he’s in until we catch up with him.He’s on the run and has evaded us thus far.That tells me he could kill all five victims."
"He’s not just hiding out," Alison pointed out."He’s evaded us, but he’s also been able to kill someone in Washington, D.C.without us stopping him.That makes him intelligent, precise, and brave.My guess is that he went to Washington, D.C., and he’s moved on to somewhere else.He must know we’re after him by now, which suggests he’ll move farther geographically.That’ll only make it harder to catch him."
"Okay," Hartley said."I’ll talk to the team and ensure that they’re spreading the investigation across the country.If you’re right, then he could have gone anywhere."
"Yeah, do that," Alison said.
Hartley left her office to talk with the team in the bullpen.
Something still nagged at Alison.The killer had a strand of her hair.That was found at the most recent crime scene, and that didn't mean that the killer didn’t have more of her hair or DNA.The question was when the hair was taken.She hadn’t been in contact with Sterling, which raised some worrying possibilities.
The first was that Sterling was not the killer, and they were looking in the wrong place.There was also the possibility that Sterling wasn’t working alone, and someone else had procured the hair to pass it on.He might have begun the process a long time ago and gotten one of Alison’s hairs months ago.Or, he could have accessed her hotel room and taken hair from her brush.If it had begun long before, he could have done the same thing, but in her home.All of the possibilities were worrying, and Alison knew there were many more possibilities than the ones she could reel off without thinking too hard about it.
When her phone vibrated on her desk, she picked it up and was glad to see Derek was calling.If there was someone who always calmed her down and helped her to think straight, it was Derek.
"Hey," she answered.
"Hey," Derek said."How’s the investigation going?"
"Yeah, I’m not really sure," she said."There’s a lot to talk about, but maybe I can do that when I get back to the hotel tonight?We have a suspect, but we don't know where he is.Your office might get a call from the office here.They’re widening the search."
"If I can help, let me know, but I won't go to the office unless they need me to.We have…Well, we might have a suspect here," Derek said.
Alison thought Derek would help to calm her with his call, but he heart started to beat faster as she thought about the prospect of a suspect.They’d had suspects before, and they had all ended in disappointment.Alison hated that feeling, and there was a chance she would feel it again, but she couldn’t stop the hope that filled her.
"Who is it?"Alison asked.
"His name is Howard Mills," Derek said."He’s been with the same company for the last thirty years.Never progressed upward within the company or moved from one company to another.He has a stellar record.Never missed a day, not even through sickness.No criminal record.Never in trouble at work or caused any problems.He’s exactly the type of person we’re looking for."
"Flies under the radar and doesn’t cause any trouble," Alison confirmed.
"Exactly," Derek confirmed."We looked into his record, and he does take his vacation time every year, but never when the women were killed.That’s what we expected, too.If a vacation lined up with murders, that would cause suspicion.Everything about him is unremarkable in every way, or remarkable if you’re his employer."
"So, what next?"Alison asked."You surveil him and see if there’s anything unusual in his routine?See what he does when he’s not working?"
"Yeah, that’s the gist of it, but there’s more," Derek said."We looked at his employment record, and there’s no written documentation of shift changes going back farther than ten years, so we only have two requests to go on.He’s only asked to switch shifts twice in the last ten years."
"Seven years ago, and recently," Alison said.
"Precisely."
"He wanted jobs closer to where the women were killed," Alison commended.
"No, it’s the opposite," Derek said."He wanted jobs all the way on the other end of the city.He wanted to be as far away from the crime scenes as possible and to have a record of them.We don't know about the job seven years ago, but according to his supervisor, the job was recently a multiple-night job."
"Which means he could have killed on the first night, and then spent the subsequent nights catching up," Alison pointed out.
"That’s exactly what I was thinking," Derek said."It gives him an alibi if someone ever came sniffing around.Tomorrow, your father and I are going to do just that.We’ll watch him for a while and see if there’s anything there."
"Okay, but be careful," Alison said."If you see anything suspicious, we can get him.If he spots you, then he might run, he might destroy anything that can link him to the crimes, or he might come after you and my father."
We’ve come this far," Derek said."We don't back down now."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
