Page 52 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

My office sat at the far end of the corridor, the fluorescent light above my desk flickering with the same lazy determination it had shown since I'd transferred here three days ago. Maintenance had promised to replace it.

They fucking lied.

I dropped my satchel beside the desk, shrugged off my jacket and immediately crossed the room without even looking at the paperwork waiting for me. The wall, it always started with the fucking wall.

It wasn't one of those dramatic investigation boards people loved putting in crime shows, where photographs were connected with bright red string like some conspiracy theorist had decorated for Christmas. Real investigations weren't nearly that theatrical. They were messier. Crueller.

The entire wall had disappeared beneath maps of the county, aerial photographs, missing persons reports, timelines, handwritten notes, forensic reports, phone records, vehicle registrations and dozens of photographs held together by coloured pins and strips of masking tape. Every inch represented hundreds of hours of work.

Somehow… It still wasn't enough. Eight women, names, smiles frozen forever inside photographs taken before they ever knew they'd become evidence.

I folded my arms and stared at them.

"What the fuck am I missing?"

I stared at the wall as I stepped closer. Emily, Rachel, Samantha, Rebecca, Amanda, Claire, Desmary and Kyla. Different ages, jobs, routines and personalities. One was engaged, the other one had two children, and another had just graduated. They shopped at different stores, worked different hours, had different friends, families and lives. Nothing overlapped. Fucking nothing.

I picked up a black marker from my desk and uncapped it, tapping the plastic lightly against my palm while my eyes drifted across the timelines I'd painstakingly built over the last week. The dates weren't random. Neither were the locations. There was a pattern. I knew there was. Patterns didn't appear out of nowhere. People did. Killers especially.

Nobody woke up one morning, abducted eight women without making a single mistake and vanished into thin air. Everyone slipped eventually. Everyone. The trick… Was figuring out which mistake they'd made before they realized they'd made it. I reached up and peeled Emily's photograph from the wall before moving it three inches to the left, then Rachel's, Rebecca's followed. I stepped back and tilted my head, maybe.

"No."

I sighed and put them back exactly where they'd been.

"Fuck."

The coffee on my desk had already gone cold again so I took a sip anyway. It tasted like fucking shit. The clock on the wall ticked steadily behind me. 08:23. I'd been standing here for almost forty minutes. Forty minutes of moving photographs, rewriting timelines, convincing myself that if I stared hard enough, the wall would suddenly confess everything.

Instead, it just stared back. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes for a second. Somewhere out there, someone knew exactly where every single one of them was and that thought… That was the part that kept me awake, not the blood, the crime scenes or even the possibility that whoever had done this might still be walking these streets. It was knowing that every morning, somewhere, eight families woke up hoping today would be the day the phone finally rang.

Every morning… I failed them again. A knock sounded softly against the open office door. I didn't turn around.

"Come in."

The door creaked open just enough for the Sheriff to lean against the frame, a steaming mug balanced effortlessly in one hand.

"Thought I'd find you in here."

I glanced over my shoulder.

"You usually do."

He smiled, not a forced smile or one of those political smiles people wore because they thought they were supposed to. A real one weathered and comfortable. The kind earned after decades of shaking hands, comforting grieving families and attending far too many funerals. Walker had been sheriff of Blackridge for almost twenty-five years. He'd worn the badge for so many years that no one bothered with his last name anymore. He was simply Sheriff. He stepped inside without waiting to be invited further, his eyes drifting toward the investigation wall.

"Haven't moved from that spot much, have you?"

"I've blinked a few times."

"I'll count that as progress."

A small laugh escaped me. Barely. He wandered closer, studying the photographs with me. For a long while neither of us spoke. There wasn't much left to say. We'd both memorised every face on that wall, every report, timelines, dead ends. Finally, he sighed.

"You can't force answers, son."

"I know."

"Do you?"