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“Social media is a powerful thing Sir,” Soto says knowingly. “Videos go from nothing to something in a matter of minutes and half the things that trend shouldn’t. She’s collected a group of women who seem to be in love with Alastair Constantine.”
“There’s a good amount of those,” I grumble, thinking of what the prison turned over to us. Alastair received a sickening amount of fan mail and letters, but he stopped opening anything years ago according to the records. Some of the letters are yearsold, dating back to the weeks following his original arrest. “Are the Slayers supporting this video?”
“Looks like it,” she continues, and I hear her tapping slowly. “Uh, Sir?”
“Soto?”
“The video of you was just uploaded. It was a live feed, and it looks like she’s cropped it to show her interview with you and the Warden.”
“Not really an interview,” I tell her, but I can already feel a headache forming. “Great to know it’s posted.”
“We’ll have Gabe look it over,” she says sarcastically. Gabe has the best camera presence. He’ll tell me if I said something critical in the recording. “I’ll send it to him. And ask some of the other teams here?”
“It’s trending,” I groan. “They might see it anyway.”
“Right,” she replies, but the lightness in her voice is gone. This impromptu questionnaire could cause some serious problems since Heather so kindly uploaded directly to the internet.
“Do a preemptive search on Heather and any of her close friends,” I sigh. “I’m going to relay what I learned with Wallsburg and Bradshaw to the team, and I’ll have more for you to search after. Did you find anything new about our two victims?”
“Unsub Six I haven’t pulled anything up on yet,” Soto admits. “Briggs says her fingertips were sanded down? Where did they find power tools?”
“They could have them on hand,” I reply with a sigh. I don’t know if that’s an Alastair move or a Porscha one, but it reminds me of the unidentified body that was supposed to be Porscha. They’re trying to hide identities again, but this is due to the brutality of the murder. The poor victim didn’t have any other significant identifiers.
“That’s unfortunate,” Soto grumbles. “The seventh victim, Tanya Gomez, her parents are planning cremation. We haven’t found a key, and her car shows no forced entry. Her online presence was minimal and she was a grocer in town. Briggs ID’d her from dental records. It’s probably in your messages, Sir.”
It’s all information I mostly already know, and running it over in my mind doesn’t help me see anything clearer. Porscha, or Alastair, spent the time to sand down fingerprints to avoid an ID but forgot about dental records. It’s an oversight I wouldn’t expect from the true killer, since everything was so precise years ago.
I scrub a hand across my face as I drive, anxiously messing with my beard. I don’t like the distinctions because they don’t give me enough to know who is who. The seventh victim could be an accident aside from the fingertips, because Tanya Gomez wasn’t a blonde like every other victim. If the wound pattern was different, we wouldn’t even connect her to the case.
She was outside of Citrus Grove too, close to Walters County. So like we suspected, Alastair and Porscha aren’t in the town. Whoever is doing the killing moved their hunting grounds, and Tanya was found closer to her hometown. She works part time at the grocer, according to her parents.
“I’ll do some more research on Heather. Jensen has me searching for any highway cameras too for the roads around Walters County, but unless it’s private property, I’m doubting we’ll find anything. There’s no traffic cameras in the area.”
“Probably a dead end,” I agree. “Keep me updated, Soto. Good work.”
When I hang up, I see the message I left on read before walking into the police department. It’s from Jo, demanding updates like I report to her.
Maybe I do. She’s been on my mind a lot, Vinny too. We didn’t have any time together after visiting with his family, and all that experience made me want to do is grab a warrant against Massimo and Gloria Ajello. While that would cause major issues for the Organized Crime division, that's not my issue. I’m hunting a serial killer.
And every time she asks, I have a mental war with myself over what to tell her. We might be at odds right now, but they invited me into their world. And in their world, Alastair exists. He might be in the past now, and he’s on borrowed time pending his capture, but he’ll always be a part of their lives. He’s their past, and he lingers in the present and future. Death Row or not not, Alastair is a part of them.
How I fit in, I’m not sure yet. I’m probably a fun addition for their time here in Florida, but once Alastair is apprehended and the copycat case closed, I’ll return to Quantico. And they will go back to Denver.
There won’t be anything left of me to hinder the two of them. Instead of trying to figure out what to tell her, for now, I continue to leave her on read.
Chapter 9
“You’re not doing a very good job surviving,” Fake Porscha tells me.
I’ve successfully left the downstairs area since Real Porscha left the house. It took me a ridiculous amount of time to cut my way out, and her psychotic episode both helped and hindered me. I wanted a knife, but I could do without the bitch stabbing me.
My subconscious apparently wants to really fuck me over as Fake Porscha glares at me. “You gonna go find my daughter now? Romance Jo off her feet? How does that work after you’ve tried to kill her?”
“Youtried to kill her,” I snap, trying to focus on not falling over. Since I haven't used my legs in God knows how long, it’s difficult to stay upright.Weeks. My muscles protest the movement, but there’s no time for complaints when I need to get the hell out of here.
“Just trying to help,” Fake Porscha purrs, batting her eyelashes at me.
“If you really want to help, just go away.”