The killer returned to his hideout. That was, the best version of a home he could acquire these days. After all that had happened, money and possessions meant very little to him. Getting his hands on Helen Beck’s neck had become his number one goal.
Inside, a foul, fecal scent polluted the air. The killer hurried through the crowded corridors and found a small, almost empty room. There was one woman sitting on the floor in the corner, but the rubber tubing secured around her arm and the whites of her eyes suggested she was too far out of it to move.
He shut the door and pulled out the rickety wooden chair, then shrugged off his coat. The hat came off next, and he threw them both onto the chair while he began to pace up and down in the small confines of the room. It irked him how close he had come to finishing the job. If only the private eye hadn’t interfered, he would already be relaxing with the knowledge that he’d done the right thing. If only, if only, if only…
The killer lost his temper as these ideas stormed his fragile mind. He screamed and kicked the wooden chair across the room. It struck the wall beside the woman, who moved, looked into space and asked for a man named Martin, then fell back into her stupor. He stopped then, watching her, using her fascinating waste of an existence as a distraction from his rage.
It was all he could do to control it.
But what came next? Something had to. All he needed was a little planning. A little patience, and it would be time to strike again. Only next time, if that investigator got in his way, he would do more than run away. The papers that detailed his daughter’s exhumation said his name was Logan Fox, and the killer remembered this.
It was valuable information.