After the meeting, she headed to the Cold Case Division. She had a list of files she wanted to talk about with one of the detectives.
“Detective Morgan, nice to meet you.” Detective Isaac St. Johns sat at the front desk, several folders to his side. His weary gaze matched the gray hair on his head, both speaking volumes about what he’d seen. “So, you are the one who contacted me about a couple of these cases, huh?”
She nodded and held out the case numbers. “We’re considering a connection to a registered pedophile found dead early this morning.”
He put down his pencil, steepled his fingers together, and stared at her for a moment. “Grab a seat, and tell me what you’ve got,” he said, as she sat down beside him. She quickly went through the little bit of evidence they had. He shook his head. “So, one thing that ties them together is the mark?”
“Take a look,” she urged.
He frowned at her and started pulling up information on the case files. “These photos are pretty indistinct.”
“They are,” she admitted. “Until you look at the left hand on the inside of the wrist.” He clicked through several of the digital photos, until he found one that gave him a little bit of a mark. “That just looks like a scratch,” he said, looking over at her.
“Bring up the next case file.”
He brought up the old digital case files that he had access to. He saw exactly the same looking scratch. By the time he saw the third one, he turned and glared at her.
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have seen it, but I was looking at a bunch of others.”
“This is insane,” he said. “How many have you connected?”
“With these same scratches, about nine so far. But then, we aren’t done yet.”
“And you are thinking they are all his?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But these child abductions and subsequent deaths belong at the feet of someone.”
*
Simon had triedto reach out intuitively to Leonard again tonight, but it was no good. Somehow wanting to do something was completely different than actually doing it. He could only hope the boy was okay.
And that the detective would find Leonard in time.
The last thing Simon wanted to do was talk to this detective. She wasn’t good for his peace of mind, and neither was she good for his work apparently. Although his performance tonight at the craps table had been spectacular, he was still a little disturbed by the push to play a game he’d never tried before. And, for the profit, he’d taken an incredible risk, something he didn’t do lightly. Until now, since he was apparently somebody different these days. He poured himself another shot of whiskey, and, as he went to sit back down again, management called, saying the detective was downstairs.
“Great,” he mumbled. “I will come down and talk to her.”
“She wants to come up.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “She can come up.” Slamming down the phone, he walked over to the door. At the door, he waited for it to open, leaning against the doorjamb, trying to settle his nerves. The last thing he would do was let her know how much she rattled him. At the same time, something was just so off at present that he had to guard himself as well. With defenses firmly in place, he turned to face the elevator.
*
He wouldn’t beliving in these shitty digs if he had money. His sister had the money. That was a minor issue. That was just an irritant between siblings. Even if she did have a fancy Belleview mansion, what could he do about it? She should be making decent money with her education. She was the one who had gone to school; he, on the other hand, had been so used to his lifestyle that he wasn’t at all interested in changing it. But now things were getting a little bit tighter, a little bit uglier, and that was changing everything.
He stared down at the names of pedophiles on his list, then drew a stroke through Ken’s name. He remembered how much Ken had to say, before he’d taken the man’s life. And there had been a certain satisfaction, almost justification, in purging the world of a seriously sad member of society. He didn’t believe he was above Ken by any means. But, even within the hierarchy of the type of people they were, some pervs deserved respect, and some didn’t. Ken was at the bottom of the list. He was no longer a problem, and that was a good thing. Good riddance. The police should be thanking him.
It had been odd killing him though. Harder than he had expected, until he climbed onto his chest, so Ken couldn’t expand his chest either, couldn’t inhale anymore.
He looked at the others on his list. There was a person he could ask next, but he was a whole lot harder to track down, being a whole lot farther away. Trust that guy to be somewhere close to a beach, where he could watch his prey, as they played in the sand. Lots of beaches were in Vancouver. The city was located at an incredible, beautiful ocean, with many opportunities to watch toddlers in all kinds of places.
He himself didn’t want toddlers per se; he liked them a little bit older.
His tears caught unexpectedly in the back of his throat; he really missed Jason. He had had that little boy for so many months. Jason had been such a heartfelt part of his life that he just felt so empty right now. And that little girl had done absolutely nothing to fill the void.
His sister would probably say that he’d jumped back too quickly and would feed him all this replacement therapy bullshit. He didn’t want to listen to that. He just didn’t want to feel so empty inside, and that was a hard thing to fix. Instead he went online to their special dark web group and asked if any of his cohorts had any special friends lately. Several happy-face responses made him feel way worse.
Damn it, he snapped.No way in hell you should have somebody, and I don’t.He’d be quite happy to forget about the fact he, of course, had been the one with the happy-face response for the last six months with Jason, but the tide had turned, and he was alone again.Willing to share?