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  The sound of the home’s screen door clacking shut caught my ear. I looked over to see the Emmerson couple dragging suitcases from the front door. They loaded them inside their truck, and the husband walked down the driveway toward us.

  “We’re leaving,” Mr. Emmerson said. “You guys have my number if you need anything.” He held out a scrap of paper and waved it around for someone to take it.

  Duffield took it from him and glanced at it.

  “That’s a few more names that we thought of that knew we were gone,” Mr. Emmerson said. “If we come up with any more, I’ll call.”

  “Thanks,” Duffield said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  He gave us a quick nod, turned, and walked back to his truck. We stepped to the sides of his driveway so they could pull out. The truck slowed as they made a right turn at the mailbox, probably to look at what the forensics guys were doing.

  “Do we know where we’re at with the names that we already had?” I asked.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” Duffield said. “Just a confirmation that Houston got the image of the list that I sent to him and was going to get someone on it. I’ll send these latest ones over to him now.” Duffield snapped a photo of the names on the list, clicked a few buttons on his phone, and tucked the piece of paper into his inner suit-jacket pocket. He looked up from his phone and jerked his chin toward the road.

  A dark-gray sedan was pulling to the side of the road behind our rental car.

  “That’s them. Let’s go,” Duffield said.

  We walked toward our cars.

  Witting sat idling at the far side of the street with the window down. “We’re good?” he asked.

  “Two seconds,” Duffield said.

  Witting raised his window.

  Beth, Duffield and I walked to Agents Collette and Tolman, who were exiting their vehicle.

  “Just door knocking?” Collette asked as he slammed the driver’s-side door. “How far out do you want us to go?”

  “Let’s stretch it out to about a two-mile radius from here,” Duffield said. “I think we went a little short of that the last time.”

  “And the drop point?” Tolman pointed at the mailbox. “Do we need to sit on it for any reason?”

  “Forensics guys should be here for a bit yet. After they’re done, we’re done here. The homeowners have already left.”

  “Okay,” Tolman said.

  “Anyone you make contact with, take in their height and weight to see if it hits our suspected marks,” I said.

  “On top of that, get the names of each person you talk to as well as other adults in the houses,” Duffield said. “Run each person for priors and registered vehicles.”

  “Got it,” Tolman said.

  “Check in with me in an hour or so. Obviously, if you come up on anything, call me immediately.”

  After both agents confirmed, Beth, Duffield, and I got in our vehicles and followed Witting from the area back to the field office. We pulled into the Bureau’s parking lot a couple minutes before two o’clock, grabbed our bags with the investigation files from the car and walked toward the entrance to the office. Our group entered the building, and we followed Witting straight to the forensics center on the second floor. Witting weaved around the stainless-steel tables and workstation to a lab at the back of the room, and we all entered.

  Witting set the package down on the table in the middle of the room, gloved his hands, and looked at us with a confused expression. “Um, like I said, this is going to take me a bit, guys. I can’t just pop this open without about twenty other things first. First, I’ll need to log it in and take a couple of photos. After that, I’ll need to check the box itself for prints and trace. Then, I’ll need to remove the tape and do the same with prints and trace on that. I’d also like to try to match the tape up with the tape from the previous package. You’re looking at a solid hour or more before I even approach the point of breaking the seal. Plus, I guess I’d kind of like the room to be clear when I begin. I’m not super big with people staring over my shoulder while I work.”

  “Just do what you can as fast as you can. We’ll be right there.” Duffield pointed through the lab’s glass window at the nearest stainless-steel table in the main room.

  “Sure,” Witting said.

  We left the lab and went to the table. Duffield went to one side so he could face the lab that Witting remained in. Beth scooted up a nearby stool, tossed her bag onto the table, and had a seat. I leaned against the table and rested my elbows on its surface.

  “Sit and wait, I guess,” Duffield said. “Hell, you guys probably could have just stayed out.”

  “If you need Collette and Tolman back, we can shoot back over there and take over the door knocking,” I said.

  “We need to know what’s in that package,” Duffield said. “Let’s just stick to what we’re doing. Collette and Tolman can handle it.”

  I nodded but said nothing. The thought of just standing around for an hour and wasting the time doing nothing as opposed to something nagged away at me—I had a good hunch Beth was feeling the same. Fifteen minutes passed of brief bursts of talk about the investigation between spans of silence. I looked down at my watch. The time was inching up on two thirty.

  “Beth, do you want to maybe call Katelyn’s mother and see if she knows the route she would normally take to get from her mother’s house back to her apartment?” I asked.

  “Good idea,” she said. Beth slid her bag from the table, draped the strap over her shoulder and took her phone from her pocket. She walked into the hallway outside the forensics center.

  I looked at Duffield. “I’m going to walk up to the tech department quick to get that time-stamp on when Katelyn returned to her apartment. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  I left the room and found Beth in the hall on the phone. She held up a finger toward me signaling me to wait, so I did.

  Beth clicked off from the call a moment later. From the topic, I knew she’d gotten a hold of Katelyn’s mother and received the route.

  “Have it?” I asked to confirm.

  “Yeah. Main roads, basically.”

  “Okay, I’m going to go and get the time-stamp for when she returned to the apartment from the tech department. I’ll be back down in a second, and we’ll check in with Witting again. If he’s going to be much longer than another half hour, we should head out and start looking into this.”

  “Not a fan of standing around either?” Beth asked.

  “No. And unless he pulls prints or something inside says who this guy is or leads us directly to him, we’re wasting time here.”

  “I agree,” Beth said. “If the contents of the package are similar to the last, it will give us some information but won’t be a direct lead. We need to keep pounding the pavement.”

  “Right,” I said. “Back in a second.” I headed for the stairwell leading up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Erin ripped back and forth at her restraints.

  “It won’t do you any good,” William said. He plugged the reciprocating saw’s cord into the wall and walked back to the table in the center of the room. William lifted the saw and gave the trigger a couple of pulls. The motor whirred, and the blade flapped back and forth. “I’ve been kicking around the idea of sawing your head off while you’re still alive. What do you think?”

  “Please,” Erin said, staring at the floor.

  “Please what? Please do that?” William asked.

  “Just stop this, William. It was a job. How is losing a job a reason to do any of this?”

  “A job? It was my entire life. Everything I ever worked for, the only thing I excelled at. My passion. My only point of existence. I think it’s pretty safe to say that you took more than a job from me.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” she said.

  He walked the saw to Erin and held it out as though serving it to her. “I want you to saw your own head off.”

&n
bsp; She said nothing.

  William returned to the table, set the saw down, and lifted the ten-inch knife from the plastic-covered table’s surface. He removed its sheath, which he tossed back down on the table, and then slapped the blade against the palm of his hand. “I’ll wait until you’re dead to saw your head off, I think. If you jerk around or yank your pretty little head in an unexpected way, there’s a chance that I could hit your face with the saw, and we wouldn’t want that. Plus, the blade is kind of dull from the other girls, so it probably won’t be as clean and quick of a cut. I’ll probably have to work at it a bit. You know, I was thinking about something else as well.” William let the knife hang from his hand, walked back to Erin, and stood before her.

  “Did you just know that you’d never be good enough to take the position from me, and is that why you did what you did? I mean, sure, you’ve got the looks, but I’ve seen you stumble and yammer on camera. Did you see a life of on-location high-school games in your future? Because until I was through, there was just no way that you were taking the anchor seat from me. Your catchphrases on big plays are awful. Your timing is worth shit. Your on-camera work, even up to the present, shows that your knowledge and preparation is lacking. In reality, you’re just not that good. I think if it ever came down to a “Who is better for the position?” decision, there’s just no way that you would have won.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Do you think you could actually best me in front of the cameras in a head-to-head?” William chuckled. “Head-to-head. That’s kind of funny, considering what your future holds.”

  She still said nothing.

  “I seriously want to know what provoked your actions. I mean, I did my job every day for twenty-one years. I was a fixture at the station—respected by everyone there. And William Allen David with Channel Eight Sports,” William said in his best interpretation of the studio narrator’s deep voice.

  “Then one day, I hear from one of the camera guys that you were saying something about me making inappropriate advances at you. I was blown away by the accusation—I mean, I’d never really said as much as two words to you and damn well never made an advance at you. All I knew was your name and that the station hired you to do bit spots. But then you just escalated things after that. Told people that I’d sit outside of the women’s restroom and try to catch peeks inside. Had a drug problem. Every week or so, it was something new, all coming back that it came from you. When the rumbling finally reached the execs, they called me upstairs for a talking-to. They didn’t seem to believe that I’d done nothing wrong and every last accusation was completely unfounded and fabricated. Well, then you start sleeping with Mark and who knows who else, and the next thing you know, I have a sexual harassment claim against me. The whole “Resign, and she won’t take legal action” was a nice touch, though.” William paused and stared at her.

  “Do you have any idea how many places I applied at after that? It seems that being forced to resign due to sexual harassment doesn’t go over to well on the old resume. So after two straight years of applying for positions, I finally get a callback—some piece-of-shit station here in Louisville. I pack up and move across country, buy this ratty-ass house out here in the sticks, and wouldn’t you know it, not two days after I’m on the job, I get called into the station-manager’s office. Seems all of their background checking finally came back. They spoke with Channel Eight, who told them the reason for my termination. Sorry, forced resignation. The station manager apologizes to me that the position was offered prior to getting the background results but informs me that he has to let me go. Hell, I never even got to step foot in front of the cameras before I was canned.”

  Erin turned her head and stared William square in the eyes. “I was just trying to climb the corporate ladder.”

  “You mean you wanted what I had, so you took it. And you didn’t care about ruining my life to do it,” William said.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Tell me that you would have never been as good as I was,” William said.

  “I wouldn’t have been as good,” she said.

  “I know. Soon, the rest of the world will know, too.” William reared back with his hand holding the knife in an overhand grip. With every last bit of force he could muster, William slammed the knife into her chest.

  A gasp came from Erin’s mouth. William yanked the blade from her chest and hammered it into her again, hitting bone before he moved the blade and slipped it between her ribs into her heart. He let the knife hang from her chest and took a step back. Erin’s body jerked back and forth—her eyes were fixed on the knife handle protruding from her chest.

  “Look at me,” William said.

  She didn’t.

  He stepped toward her, grabbed her chin, and lifted her face. “I want to be the last thing you see.”

  William could feel the resistance of her neck muscles fighting his hand. He stared into her green eyes, which were opened wide in shock. He took in every last second of life that remained in her body. Her struggle against his hand lessened and then faded completely. Her eyelids hung. He took his hand from her face, and her chin dropped to her chest—she was dead. He stood in place for minutes, staring at her lifeless face, before he reached for the keys to her restraints in his pocket. After unlocking the shackles that bound her, he let her body fall to the ground. William cracked his neck from one side to the other, crouched beside her, and pulled the knife from her chest. The blade came out with a sound of wet suction. He watched blood pour from the wound and pool on the plastic-covered floor.

  William wiped the bloody blade across the side of her face to clean it before standing, returning to the table, and replacing the knife in its sheath.

  “Okay.” William turned to face Erin. “Let’s get that head off of you and get going.”

  He cleared the table of all the items on it before walking back to Erin’s body and scooping her up into his arms. He lay her across the table’s surface and positioned her so her shoulders aligned with the table’s edge and her head and neck hung over the side.

  William took the saw in hand and positioned the blade where her neck met her shoulders. He held down the trigger and began his cut. Blood spattered her chin and hair—more sprayed back toward him, peppering his face and clothing. The blood that spattered his lips and seeped through into his mouth tasted like warm salted metal. The saw’s blade popped through her windpipe, and a moment later, blood poured to the floor from the sides of her neck as the blade passed through her carotid arteries.

  Something caught his ear—a sound he couldn’t distinguish over the noise of the saw. He took his finger from the trigger and listened but heard nothing. William resumed cutting and felt the blade make contact with her spine. The dull blade caused her entire head to shake violently back and forth. The noise caught his attention again. William took the saw from Erin’s neck and placed it on her chest—he stood silently and waited. The doorbell chimed upstairs.

  “Oh, that’s perfect timing.” William walked across the room, leaving bloody footprints behind him with each step and opened the door to the main room. He stared across toward the television and the patio door leading out back—the vertical blinds were drawn shut, blocking the view into the lower level. William walked to the stairs, trying to keep his noise to a minimum as he climbed the steps to the main level. With each footstep upward, the blood on the soles of his tennis shoes squeaked against the linoleum stairs.

  William craned his neck around the stairway door and looked through the back windows of the kitchen—he didn’t spot anyone. The doorbell chimed again, followed by a couple loud knocks. He left the doorway and walked across the kitchen to where the dining room met the living room. William poked his head around the corner and looked toward the front door. The curtains on the bay window at the front of his house were drawn. The front door had no windows—whoever was outside wouldn’t be able to see in from the front—however, the side of the house was a different situation. Will
iam stared over at the two windows facing the driveway—both pairs of blinds and curtains were open.

  As he stared, movement in the left window caught his eye. Williams head snapped left, his eyes fixed on the window. Two men were walking toward his shed at the end of the driveway. Staying low, William made his way to the window for a better look. The two men wore suits and were trying to get a look through the shed’s side windows. He knew they wouldn’t be able to see his two vehicles inside—he had packed shelving units covering the only two windows.

  Then both men turned away from the shed and started back down the driveway. William quickly ducked and sat with his back against the wall next to the window in silence. He could hear the two men talking as they passed and continued back toward the street. The nature of the conversation, he couldn’t make out. A silent minute later, he heard a car’s motor start. William again stayed low and moved as quickly as he could to the front window. At the bottom corner of the window, he moved the curtain and spread the blinds with his bloody fingers. William stared out. A dark-gray sedan that looked police issued pulled away from the front of his house and drove down the road.

  William’s mind raced with everything that still needed to be completed.

  He rushed back through the house and took the stairs down to the basement three at a time. William fumbled through the couch cushions for the television remote and clicked on the television to the local news channels. He found commercials, commercials, and more commercials. William took a seat, not much caring that his bloody clothing would stain his couch. He waited, staring at the television screen, flipping back and forth between channels. One channel went to weather, and he flipped back to the others.

  “Come on. There has to be something somewhere.”

  Minutes of channel surfing passed before a man and a woman anchor sat at a desk—the top corner of the screen read Serial Killer Lurking Louisville.

  “There we go!”

  William held down the volume button to turn it up. As he stared at the television, his feet pitter-pattered on the carpet. The top corner of the screen that had the headline switched to a photo of a silhouette of a man beside a car at night. William immediately recognized where and when the still was from—when he’d stopped and taken Katelyn Willard.