Page 19

That’s when I realised no one was going to do this for her.

So I did it for her.

I signed up for the academy in my early twenties with one goal and one goal only: to get access. To get inside the system that had not only failed her, but also my father, and every single victim that came before and after them. It took years of training, of proving myself, of learning how to think like the people I hated sitting across from all those years ago. Years of keeping my mouth shut when I wanted to scream, of playing by rules I didn’t believe in. But I made it. I had the badge, a desk, and doors that opened instead of shutting in my face.

So the first thing I did was reopen everything I could.

The second was a push for a task force.

It took time, but eventually, I got it. Profilers, analysts, people who knew how to read patterns instead of just filing them away. We built it from the ground up, piece by piece, determined to do what should’ve been done the first time. We had spent the last seven months combing through files of information and alleged evidence, finding ourselves no closer to unmasking the elusive killer than the others before us. We had no proper leads, no promising eye-witness accounts, or any close encounters to work off of. All we truly had were the gruesome images of skinless corpses.

Over the past eleven years since The Skinner killed his first victim, not one person in the whole town had been present for any of the abductions, never witnessed the killer dumping the bodies or placing the infamous notes in mailboxes. It was as if he was a phantom, a scary story parents told their children at night to keep them from staying out past their curfew.

Don’t go out alone, or The Skinner will get you.

But ghosts didn’t leave bodies behind. Ghosts didn’t write notes. So how the hell did a man do this? How did someone hunt, take, and kill, over and over again without leaving a single trace behind? No fingerprints. No fibres. No mistakes. Nothing you could hold onto. It didn’t make any sense then, and it still didn’t now.

When Evie was taken, the only thing we had was grainy CCTV footage from the front entrance of the arcade. It was short, had no audio, and didn’t show her abduction, but it did reveal what direction she went. I’d watched it more times than I could count. She pushed through the doors, shoulders tensed, looking both ways like she had somewhere to be. Like she wasn’t about to vanish off the face of the earth.

A girl working that night told us Evie left right after she’d said something to her. She’d mentioned Jackson Easton was at the hospital with his mum. That piece of information hit like a physical blow, knowing that Evie wouldn't have hesitated, wouldn't have questioned it. I can picture it too easily. Her hearing his name. The way that would’ve lit something up inside her. She would’ve gone straight out those doors thinking she knew exactly where she was headed. Thinking she was going somewhere safe. And instead—she walked straight into him.

And that was the piece of evidence that hurt the most. Not just that she was taken, but that she went willingly toward whatever waited for her, because she thought she was going to someone she trusted. And I would never know if in those final seconds…she realised she was wrong.

Evie had loved Jackson for years before they got together. I remember teasing her when we were little after she wrote Mrs. Evie Easton in her diary, over and over again, like she was trying to make it real. And as we got older, her feelings never changed. It was blindingly obvious how much she loved him. The way her voice changed when she said his name. The way she watched him when she thought no one was looking. And I knew Jackson felt the same, so when he asked for my permission to date her, I didn’t even hesitate. Not only because I know he was a great guy, but because after Dad died, Evie…disappeared. Not physically, not like…now. But something in her dimmed. She stopped laughing the same, stopped being loud, stopped joking around.

Then Jackson happened.

And she bloomed again.

And I remembered thinking at the time, as I watched them through the kitchen window when they thought they were alone, that…things were finally going to be okay. That she’d have a life full of everything she deserved. That they both would. I couldn't have been more wrong. And I’d never forget the look on his face that night when we found the note.

I sped well over the speed limit, the growing feeling of dread causing my hands to tremble on the steering wheel. “What if she’s not there?” Jackson said anxiously from the back seat. He’d been the last one to be notified that she was missing. Showed up late to the arcade, said he’d been at the hospital with his mum all day. We had searched everywhere—inside, outside, every shop, every alley. But Evie was nowhere to be seen, so Nicola suggested we all cram into my car and see if she’d gone home.

When our house finally came into view, the pitch-black windows turned my blood to ice. Evie was afraid of the dark—she would never be home without the lights on. I pulled into the driveway, didn’t even turn the engine off, just threw the door open and ran up the porch stairs, slamming the front door open.

It was unlocked. I knew I’d locked it before we left.

“Evie?!” I shouted as I switched the lights on and ran down the hallway, straight towards her bedroom. I turned on the light and cried out as I found the room empty. Fuck. I was frantic as I turned around and searched through every room in the house. The bathroom, the laundry, the garage, they were all empty. I turned in a circle, running back into the rooms as if she’d appear.

“Evie!” I shouted again before my voice echoed throughout the house.

“Peter!”

My stomach plunged as Nicola screamed from the driveway. I ran straight through the front door, the fly screen slamming behind me as I bolted down the wooden steps. Nicola was on her knees by the mailbox, crying while Jackson was frozen beside her.

“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded, my voice breaking as I reached them. Nicola couldn’t even speak. She just shook her head and shoved something into my hands.

I already knew.

I already knew before I opened it.

GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT,

AND MY PATIENCE HAS REWARDED ME GREATLY.

THE SKINNER

My knees buckled as I collapsed to the grass, a deafening roar in my ears drowning out my girlfriend’s cries. No. No, no, no—there’s no way. There’s no fucking way this was happening right now. I just stared at the words. “No…no, that’s not…”