Page 60 of Death Kiss

Someone sent me here. To what? Implicate myself in killing these guys?

I keep snapping as I step closer. This one's trousers are around his ankles, nothing but a dark, gaping wound where his tackle should be. That has my balls fucking shrivelling.

It doesn’t take long to find the discarded schlong. The balls are all bunched up between the dead guy’s teeth. The eyeless, cockless dead guy.

Fucking hell.

What does it say that whatever sick fuck wanted me to find this? The fact that the killer knows I exist has my stomach churning. Or maybe that’s the dick in the mouth; I don’t know.

As much as I don’t want to touch anything, I really want to know who these fuckers are. Are they linked to the other dead guys in Ashworth’s case? And Sam? Crouching next to the corpse, I pat down the pockets of the trousers gathered around his ankles.

A wallet.

The license reads Gregory Everly. It’s nearly impossible to tell if he’s the same guy with a distorted, distended mouth and no eyes, but the hair looks right. I photograph the license before putting it back where I found it.

I’m prepared for another body on the third map cross, but there’s nothing in that corner but a chest with blankets on top.

Kneeling, I move the blankets and open it.

Please don’t be a head.

Please don’t be a head.

The horror that meets me beneath the blankets is notably worse. Photographs that I wish I could unsee. Amongst the depravity, I see faces I recognise. A young Sam, the same scared face as in the newspaper image. Some photos are likely from thirty years ago, while others look like they could have been printed recently. Every one makes my heart ache. I catalog as many as I can.

Among them are faces I recognise from the news. The missing and dead men, including the ones out there. The cottage is the backdrop for most of it.

My breath catches as I see one image that sets my brain aflame.

Ashworth.

A recent picture.

A horrific picture.

I photograph it and go to put it back with the others. A creeping voice in my head tells me to hold onto that one.

They are more involved than you think.

That’s why the killer is warning me to take and conceal evidence. If Ashworth gets his hands on this, I can imagine the photo would disappear like magic.

He’s not just consulting on the investigation; he’s hiding in plain sight. Likely altering evidence to keep his name out of it.

And that will make career-changing news.

This is more than a serial killer. This is vigilante justice, confronting systemic corruption. Revealing that will set fires under so many asses.

And no one knows, as far as I can tell, except Ashworth, the men involved, the killer, and now me.

Placing everything as I found it, I close the door behind me, leaving it unlatched, just as I found it.

Dew drops collect against my shoes as I cross to the one clue I haven’t checked.

There’s nothing there but slight mounds of turned soil. I look down at them as some animal part of my brain screams at me not to look. But I have to.

Like it or not, this is my story now, and I need to know what the killer meant for me to see.

Two sticks are crossed at one end of the mound, and I crouch beside it, gently sweeping the soil aside.