Gabe sat in his car munching on some fries while he watched the front door of the Prescott Police Department. His weekend had been a shitstorm of paranoia that the police were going to come bust down his door at any moment. He'd spent Friday night and the better part of Saturday—Halloween—sitting by the front window, peering through the curtain with his gun gripped in his meaty hand. But when kids started showing up at his door trick-or-treating, his paranoia abated. As long as kids keep coming by, he reasoned, the cops won't be stupid enough to try anything.
He went back to gaming on Sunday until his evening shift at Book World. By the end of his shift, he concluded that even if the cops didn't come for him right away, they needed to be dealt with—at least the ones investigating the murders. If he left the detective to his own devices, he would eventually catch up to Gabe. That's their job. It's what they do.
Gabe thought about simply walking into the police station and shifting into the detective's body—but if he went in there, he likely wouldn't leave. The best plan he had come up with so far was to stake out the station and hope the detective went somewhere Gabe could follow. That way he could try to get close without being seen. At this point, if he got the opportunity, he planned to shift into the detective's body, with his own locked in the secret room, then taking him out to the woods like he'd done with the cashier.
While he waited, he thought about what his new plan would be once he'd dealt with the detective. The dating site made it so easy for him to interact with girls who had treated him unfairly, without them ever knowing it was him. It had worked so well—they were clueless and fell for his plan without even a hint of suspicion. But that option was no longer available. Even if he succeeded in disposing of the detective, he had to consider the dating site compromised.
"Shit," Gabe said when he realized he had another problem. His plan had worked perfectly—he wasn't sure about Trudy, but he was certain he had successfully ruined Renee's and Nicole's lives. But if he didn't stop the detective, they were going to get off scot free.
Gabe really wished he could have been in the room when Renee and Nicole were being interrogated by the cops. He imagined the looks on their faces when they told their stories. Just as he was fully aware while in their bodies, they would have been fully aware while in his. But who would ever believe a story like that? Even if several people told the same story, no one would believe them—shifting into someone else's body was impossible. If the cops didn't think they were just batshit crazy, at most they'd decide the women were colluding. At least, that's what he hoped.
But if he didn't stop the detective—if the detective somehow proved it wasn't them—his efforts would be for naught. And he couldn't let that happen.
Slowly a plan coalesced in his mind.
That's it!
Gabe couldn't go into the station and ask to see the detective because the detective would know it was him, but someone else could.