Page 187 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

"Where'd you get the footage, Reed?"

The room went quiet, not completely. Someone's chair creaked. The heating unit rattled. A deputy coughed somewhere in the corridor but inside my head everything stopped because there it was.

The question I'd been avoiding for four days.

I could tell him. I could tell everyone.

A serial killer emailed the videos to me.

I pictured exactly how that conversation would end. Walker would confiscate the files. The FBI would descend on the station before lunch. I'd be removed from active-duty pending psychiatric evaluation. Someone would ask whether I'd fabricated the email. Someone else would suggest I'd become emotionally compromised. The footage would disappear into evidence. The investigation would stop while bureaucracy argued over jurisdiction.

Meanwhile...

Whoever had taken those women would keep working.

No.

I couldn't afford honesty.

Not yet.

"Friend of mine," I heard myself say.

The lie landed heavily between us. Walker's eyebrows pulled together.

"A friend."

It wasn't really a question.

"I didn't know you had friends who could recover deleted municipal surveillance."

Neither did I. The thought almost made me laugh. Instead, it twisted something unpleasant low in my stomach.

Walker folded his arms.

"Mason?"

"No."

"Derek?"

"No."

His gaze sharpened.

"Then who?"

I looked past him toward the incident board instead of meeting his eyes.

"Someone I know."

Even saying it felt wrong.

Friend.

The word scraped against my conscience like broken glass. Friends didn't bypass federal firewalls. Friends didn't archive kidnappings. Friends didn't document human trafficking with the precision of a military operation before signing the message...

You're Welcome.