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K ylie worked for several hours, finding a spot a little bit away from the craziness all around her. Clean-up was happening. Photos were taken. Bodies were moved. Several times people asked Kylie to move out of their way, and she did so willingly. Then she had to regroup and finish the drawings still in her head, before she could move on to the next section. She sketched as fast as she could, hampered by something that others wouldn’t recognize, but she did—her need to get this down, to document this scene, to have every ounce of data available so the cops could solve who had done this and why.

She knew there would be a why, even if nobody cared about it. Motives were always important. She’d somehow found herself in this very strange field after going to art school, against her aunt’s wishes, when she had literally written Kylie off. She apparently didn’t have the brains to be anything important, but she should have done something a whole lot better than becoming an artist, at least according to her aunt. Maybe Kylie had done it on purpose to get back at the aunt.

Kylie felt such a sense of relief at having her aunt out of her life. If ever Kylie should have cut out someone from her life, it was her aunt. Yet it had been a long time coming. It took time to get here, but Kylie finally managed it and ended up at art school, following one of her passions. If she could follow at least one, she figured that could be something important later on in life. Something she could be proud of, but how the hell did she end up doing this work for the local authorities?

She stopped drawing, as tears rolled down her face. People looked at her strangely. Yet nobody mentioned anything because, in this situation, she was not the only one crying over the devastation laid before them. Nearby three family members had huddled together—at least seemingly related from their similar features—all three shot, as if one bullet had taken them all down. Kylie’s breath caught in the back of her throat, and a sob threatened to escape.

She quickly moved outside into the back alley, where she took several long, slow, deep breaths, trying to regain control. Of course Porter found her not very long afterward.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his tone sharp.

She turned and glared at him. “As well as anybody else in there is.”

“Good point,” he replied, his tone a little gentler. “Just so, it’s hitting all of us pretty hard.”

“I’m fine,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “Go on back in there, where you can deal with more of it. I’ll be inside in a minute.” His gaze searched hers, and she shrugged, then gave him half a smile. “I just saw the family where the bullet went through the father and right into the child.”

Porter’s face turned grim, and he nodded. “An extra victim for the shooter, and one he didn’t even have to work for,” he noted, his voice tired. “We’ll be here all day and all night, so pace yourself.” And, with that, he turned and went back inside.

“All day and all night,” she repeated to herself, staring off into the distance. She wasn’t sure that she could do this. It wasn’t quite how she thought her career would go. And then a reminder slipped through that she wasn’t doing this for herself but for them, for all the victims. She had to remember that. Looking around, she was thankful to be alone. She knew the crowds were out front of the casino, with all the TV reporters, their artificial lighting, the cameras, working in the garish morning light. It was all so surreal. She’d come up against it a couple times in other cases, but nothing to the extent of this one. This surpassed everything she had ever seen so far.

Gearing up, she took several more bracing breaths and gave herself some harsh truths, then pushed herself back into the room of death. She had only taken a few steps, when somebody stopped to talk to her. She looked him over and noted he didn’t have a badge. She pointed outside and declared, “Get out now. Move it.”

He held up a recorder, the microphone in her face, and asked, “Could you give us a statement?”

The man was quickly picked up by the scruff of his neck and hauled to the nearest exit. Security was being slammed for letting anybody in, and yet, in this blurred sea of pain and the shocking reality of what was going on, the guards were as overwhelmed as anyone else.

Even as she had that thought, she felt it coming over her. She didn’t want it and desperately needed it to go away, but it wasn’t listening. It was coming in harder and faster than ever before, and all too soon the room had morphed into something completely different, and she grabbed onto the nearest wall.

The transition would be hard and fast, though usually she could keep that private, while Kylie tried to not let others watch when she went into these trances. She could only hope that, with all the chaos going on around her, nobody else would notice. By the time the transition was completed, she stood in what appeared to be a matrix-like room. She understood that her role in this would be larger and more in-depth than any other time she had been involved—up until now.

It was one thing to stay professional and to just do the artwork as needed. It was another thing to realize that, in this crime, the killer could go free. And, God help her, she couldn’t afford to let that happen. Before she realized it, her pencil moved at lightning speed across her page, and she filled page by page by page, as she sketched out the scene before her.

*

Porter pivoted and caught a quick glance of Kylie, just to confirm she was doing okay. In fact, she seemed to be really focused on her work now and, with a nod of satisfaction, he returned to the body in front of him.

His partner, Neil, looked over at him. “She’s one weird chick.”

Porter smiled. “Maybe, but this is pretty traumatic for anybody.”

“It sure is,” Neil muttered, as he looked around, slowly rotating his shoulders and neck. “What a completely fucked-up mess this is.”

“I’m not sure those are quite the right words.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out the killer’s had all kinds of social issues, yet he managed to buy a gun without any problems,” his partner hypothesized in a sardonic tone. “Plus unemployed, so living in the basement of his mother’s home. He’s probably been stocking up ammo for a while to avoid raising any alarms.”

“Which is very typical of any mass shooter,” Porter pointed out. “They want to take out their rage on the world, making sure everybody suffers, before disappearing. They all go out via suicide-by-cop, so why did this one not go out in the line of fire too?”

“I don’t know,” Neil replied.

Porter stared down at the elderly man on the ground in front of him. “It makes no sense in some ways, but we also know that, if the shooters can get away, they do. It’s not as if they always walk through a police barricade, just waiting to be gunned down. Suicide-by-cop is not everybody’s choice, particularly when these shooters feel all-powerful and can make this happen.”

“Yet,” Neil noted, “all I’m seeing so far is carnage, as if he didn’t have a specific target. He just hit randomly, without discrimination. If someone was available to shoot down, he shot them down.”

“Also fairly typical of mass murderers,” Porter pointed out.

Neil glanced back to where Kylie was working. “I don’t even know what she does.”

“She’s doing crime-scene sketches.”

“That would make sense,” Neil replied, “but what can she see from over there?”

Porter rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming.

Neil began his usual spiel, “We are in the modern technology age. Starting with a photographer. And then a step up from that is called security cameras. Why do we need somebody out here hand-sketching the crime scenes?”

Porter didn’t say anything, yet he understood very well why Kylie was here. Most common were artist sketches done in courtrooms, but the captain had specifically requested that Kylie come here to the casino. Porter guessed that people on the federal end were making suggestions too. Certainly an unlimited budget would be set aside for this case because all kinds of government money and federal agencies would flood in to help solve it. It would entail a massive manhunt, and the local officials would need all the help they could get. So, if Kylie could provide something in the line of help, Porter was good with it.

“What a fucking waste of time. She’s such a…” Neil groaned. “I don’t know why I’m picking on her today, but you’ve got to admit that she’s pretty weird.”

“She’s definitely her own person,” Porter noted in a noncommittal tone.

Neil snorted. “It’s almost as if you’re sweet on her.”

With a shake of his head, Porter groaned. “Why don’t we just do our work and forget about any of that BS?”

“I would love to,” Neil said, “but it’s not exactly an easy thing.”

“No, it’s not an easy thing, and, if you need to take five, there’s no shame. Go out, grab some fresh air, and then come back in.” Just as Neil went to do that, Porter added, “After all, that’s what Kylie just did.” Neil glared at him, so Porter gave him a wry smile. “See? You’re not so different from her after all.”

“That’s a low blow,” Neil muttered, as he now rejoined Porter, where he was crouched beside an old guy.

Porter shook his head and muttered, “It makes no sense. You come to a casino, spend a few hours of fun, probably to just get away from the wife for a little bit of a break, and you get shot down, doing a hobby you enjoy.”

“You don’t know that,” Neil pointed out.

Porter gave him a one-arm shrug. He’d already searched the man for an ID—Richard Norman, a local who lived not very far away.

“Shit,” Neil muttered. “I hope we don’t have to do all these death notifications. That would really suck.”

“I imagine in this case we’ll spread it out, but I’m okay to do a few of them.”

“I’m not,” Neil declared, swearing under his breath. “Don’t you go volunteering my ass for this.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Porter replied cheerfully, as he straightened and glanced around. So many bodies, so much chaos, and so many crime scenes. People were trying to do their best, but, with so many victims, it would be hard. Then again, it’s not as if this shooter had hidden what he was doing. He had stormed into the casino, where tons of cameras caught an abundance of evidence against him. The problem was, the good guys didn’t have an ID on the shooter and still hadn’t found him.

Porter heard someone calling out to him and turned to see his captain, talking with the mayor.

With a wave for the mayor to follow him, the captain walked over and announced, “We have an ID on the guy, a local.”

“Name?” Porter asked.

“John Smith.”

With a groan and one eyebrow raised, Porter snorted.

The captain laughed. “No, really. That’s his name. Not a fake. The tech guys triple-checked his image against facial recognition and online driver’s license photo, yada, yada.”

“Good enough,” Porter replied. “Have you sent a team to his house?”

“SWAT is en route as we speak.”

Porter frowned at him. “Wouldn’t it have been better to check if he was there first?”

“He was seen heading in that direction on the road. His vehicle was spotted. And, yes, he was driving his own car.”

Porter whistled. “Do we know if anybody else is in that house? That’s who is most likely to get the brunt of the shooter’s next move.”

“He lives with his mother.” The captain grimaced.

“Of course he does,” Porter muttered, hating the fact that this scenario so often was the case. “And we don’t know if she’s alive or dead at this point, do we?”

“No, but we’re also getting reports of another shooting at a school, where a teacher was shot, currently alive.”

“Oh, that’s interesting. And we’re thinking it’s the same guy?”

“Don’t know. I want you to go there and find out.”

Porter nodded. “Good, I’ll take my partner with me.”

“Why? Is Neil having trouble handling this casino scene?”

“Everybody is having trouble handling this,” Porter stated, turning to look at the captain, “as expected.”

The captain nodded. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“I know,” Porter conceded, “but today is not the day for everybody getting on each other’s case.”

“Which just means it’ll happen more and more because we’re all so edgy,” the captain pointed out.

Porter winced. “I’ll head to the school. Let me know when all the forensics stuff here is done. I want to have a walk-through, after I see the camera footage.”

The captain nodded. “What about the shooter’s house? Don’t you want to go there?”

Hesitating, Porter sighed. “I don’t think he’ll be there. I would hazard a guess that he’s got a hit list of who else he wants to take out while he’s still free and clear. Now that he’s been this successful, I wouldn’t be shocked if he isn’t currently adjusting that mental list of who he wants to take down, and he’ll get there pretty damn fast at this rate. Then he’ll book it someplace, where he’ll be ready to hole up. But this teacher could be connected, so I’ll check it out.”

His voice shaking, the mayor interjected, “We don’t know much about this shooter.”

“Within the next ten minutes, we should know everything there is to know,” the captain claimed, his features hard, his tone flat. “We know that he doesn’t currently have a job and that he got fired from his last one.”

“Was that the inciting incident, do you think?” Porter asked, turning to look at him.

“It’s quite possible, but we haven’t confirmed that yet. We need to talk to his mother and see what’s going on.”

“You’re hoping his mother is still alive?” Porter asked.

“Yeah, I am at that.”

Tilting his head, Porter thought about it and nodded. “Look. I could go to the mother’s place first. I still don’t think our shooter will be there. However, if you’ve already got SWAT there…”

“Right. SWAT’s already there and handling this, so don’t worry about that. You go find out if the teacher was involved in any way with the casino murders.”

“Great.” Porter nodded and called out to his partner, “We’re heading out, Neil.”

Neil raced to his side, as they walked out the back and got into their vehicle. “Thank God we’re getting out of there,” Neil muttered. “You can get only so angry and not do anything with it before it all starts to churn in your gut, and you gotta explode. I was about ready to clock somebody.”

“I know,” Porter murmured, “but you won’t like the next stop any better. Looks as if he may—and I say may because we don’t have any proof it was our casino shooter—but there was a school shooting, so we have a suspicion that it may have been our guy.”

“Great. So, what then? Is he on some binge spree now?”

“Looks as if he might be, and we’ve sure seen that before.”

“That sucks. They take out anybody, everybody, whether they deserve it or not. It’s a hell of a way to go, facing somebody with a private vendetta against you.”

“I know, but we don’t know if the shooter’s mother is alive either. The captain already has SWAT on their way to the house.”

Neil looked over at him and snorted. “Yeah, I wonder why he sent SWAT, not you?”

Porter shrugged. “Look. The captain and I have our issues. As far as I’m concerned, we’re dealing with them.”

“Whatever you say, man.” Neil shook his head.

Porter snorted at that, as he pulled into traffic, which was completely snarled for blocks.

“Jesus, we’ll be lucky if we get the hell out of here in time to even get to the school before dark,” Neil complained, as he turned around and stared at the traffic. “Head over in this direction.” Neil pointed off to the right. “The traffic is much better over there.”

Following his partner’s directions, Porter managed to get them out of the congestion around the mass shooting locale. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief, as they got farther away from the casino.

“That’ll be a fucked-up mess for days.”

“It is until we find him.”

“That’s exactly what we should be doing, not going to a school.”

“Maybe so, but this is what I was told to do, and orders are orders.”

“It’s bullshit,” Neil stated. “As much as I didn’t want to stay at the casino, I didn’t want to be sent on a wild goose chase either.”

“We don’t know if it’s a wild goose chase, and somebody has to find out what happened at the school. So, if we get that done, we can head over to the mother’s house afterward.”

“I can’t believe they sent SWAT in, especially if they didn’t know for sure our mass shooter was there. The poor mother is liable to have a heart attack.”

“Let’s hope not,” Porter noted, “because we both know how hard this stuff is on the families.”

“Christ, what a mess.”

They drove in silence for the next ten minutes. As they pulled into the high school parking lot, they found several other cops there. Hopping out, Porter and Neil quickly walked up to the front door, flashed their IDs, and headed inside.

As soon as they strode down the main hallway, Neil looked around and whispered, “It feels different.”

“Yeah,” Porter murmured, “but that’s not the issue.”

“Are you sure?” Neil asked. “This doesn’t feel right.”

They walked through the high school to the rear of the building. They got to the back exit, where the ambulance was being loaded. Porter stopped at the side of the gurney, where the injured teacher was in pain but conscious. “Do you know who did this?” he asked.

The older woman nodded. “A former student.” She gasped for breath. “Tom Leroy.”

He frowned at that, and she nodded. “Do you know where he went?”

She nodded again. “Told me that he would go out back and blow off his head, but he wanted to confirm I paid first.”

“Personal grudge?”

“Apparently I was a shitty teacher,” she shared bitterly. “Nobody ever tells you of the dangers of being a teacher in this world.”

“I’m sorry,” Porter replied. “Hopefully your injuries aren’t too bad.”

“They’re not life-threatening, that’s for sure. Honestly, I don’t think Tom planned them to be. I think he was looking for a chance to be heard and for somebody to listen.”

“And did you?”

“I tried. God knows I tried. I tried all throughout his school years too, but he wasn’t very happy to be listened to back then. He was angry and wanted people to pay.”

“The paying part worries me,” Porter noted. “I don’t know if you heard, but we had a mass shooting at the casino, with the shooter ID’d as John Smith, also a local.”

She stared up at Porter in fear. “Do you think that was related to Tom’s shooting too?”

“I don’t know, and that’s what we need to figure out. When did Tom leave?”

She blinked several times and then whispered, “I’ve lost track of time, but I think it was maybe twenty-five minutes ago.”

Porter considered that. “I suppose it’s possible that Tom could have been at the casino earlier, before he came here. Yet our tech guys followed John Smith on the casino’s camera feeds. They didn’t mention a second shooter.”

She nodded in relief. “That would be good.… I would hate to think Tom would put such a stain on his soul.” Porter stared at her, and she nodded. “I don’t think Tom planned on surviving this, just like his best friend. Now that’s a different story.”

That piqued Porter’s interest. “Who is this best friend?”

The teacher took several deep breaths, as she tried to regain her composure and to breathe through the pain. “The name he went by was Devil, David the Devil, and he was a devil. I couldn’t wait to get him out of my class. His grades were terrible, and he finally dropped out in grade eleven, or maybe twelve, but he was heading for trouble. His father was convicted of a murder-for-hire apparently, but I don’t know if that was just a story or the God’s honest truth. His mother abandoned him to the system years ago, so I doubt he ever knew her. So Tom and David bonded real fast. I tried hard to get Tom away from him, but it wasn’t easy to do. Tom was pretty hooked on having this guy as his friend. It wasn’t good for Tom at all. My God. David was such a terrible influence. All he could talk about was taking the world by storm and forcing people to stand up and to listen.”

“Could you see Tom’s friend, David the Devil, being part of a mass shooting?”

“Oh God, yes,” she declared.

“Do you know any more about David?”

“Only that he lived in a foster home, but he spent most of his nights on the streets. If there was ever a definition of evil, I would have said David was it. Honest to God, at one point in time, I was convinced that this kid was completely possessed by something beyond evil.”

Just hearing that made Porter’s skin crawl. “Did you ever see anything like that?” he asked.

“Like what?” she asked, frowning at him.

He shrugged, not knowing how to ask the question delicately. “Just wondering if there was any sense of this evil coming off him. Like, do you think it was medications, or do you think it was an evil soul? I don’t really even know what I’m asking here, but you brought it up, and I wondered what you might have seen, heard,…” She silently stared at him for a long moment, and he saw the fear in her eyes. “You’re wondering the same thing.”

“Wondering and putting it into words are two different things,” she whispered in such a low tone that Porter could barely hear her. “Let me tell you this much. If there is such a thing as an evil spirit, David was one of them.”

“How so?”

“He was a character beyond anything I have ever seen in all my years. God placed him on this Earth to torment us all, and I don’t know why God would do that. Yet, if God cared for us, God would have raptured up this David asshole a long time ago.”

When the paramedics started to move her toward the door, she called out, “Wait, wait, wait,” and the paramedics stopped. She twisted slightly, so she could look over at Porter. “Detective, David’s not your man, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Porter walked closer and asked, “Why not?”

She gave a wave of her hand. “David the Devil died last year, so he’s definitely not involved.” And, with that, the paramedics wheeled her out to the ambulance, leaving Porter staring after her.