Page 66 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

The same information cycled beneath his ribs like an ache trying to become meaning. Three dead. All young. Invisible before they were found. They’d slipped through cracks no one noticed until their bodies were posed, carefully, symbolically, staged as if they were stories instead of people. Messages tucked into the shape of them. Candy in palm. A childhood ritual, warped into absolution.

It wasn’t the bodies haunting him now. Not even the presentation. It was how this killer didn’t panic. Didn’t fumble or flee. And they believed,deeply, that what they were doing wasn’t a crime, but acalling. Not violence. Sacrament. Mercy. Judgment.

A holy correction.

Exactly like Roisin Howell.

She still hadn’t shown an ounce of remorse. No real ownership of her crimes, only rehearsed justifications. Even the letter she’d sent Aaron, ostensibly to reach out, had been all abouther. Her grief. Her legacy. Her twisted longing. Nowhere in it had she acknowledged what she’d done to the boy she claimed to love beyond anything.

But Kenny knew better. She couldn’t love him. Not truly. Not in any form that resembled care. What Roisin wanted was possession. Control. She didn’t see Aaron as a son. She saw him as a mirror, a symbol, a belonging. Hercreation. And Aaron had grown up believing that was what love looked like. Not affection, but ownership. Conditional safety. Attention wrapped in control. So now, he craved it. Not because he was broken, but because it waswiredinto him. Imprinted too early, too deep. A need for containment disguised as comfort.

Kenny would give it to him.

But not Roisin’s version. Not fear-dressed-as-devotion.

He would give Aaron control through surrender. Structure through softness. He would offer power, not take it. He would hold him, guide him, claim him. But withlove, not possession.

Because Aaron didn’t need to be owned.

He needed to besafe.

The fire cracked behind him, too sharp in the open-plan quiet. Kenny’s mind went elsewhere. Buried in the folder spread across the table. He dragged a hand over his face, pushed back from the table, and crossed to the alcove where his desk sat tucked beneath the stairs. The laptop was already open. He hesitated, staring at the faint glow of the screen.

Luke was the first on the island.

The others, if linked, had all been on the mainland. Which raised the question: Had the killer come hereintentionally? Was this a new hunting ground? A pilgrimage? An escape? What was the Isle of Wight to them? Hiding place? Final act? A test?

Kenny didn’t believe there were only three. That wasn’t how this kind of pathology worked. Not if the stillness was already this refined. Not if the staging had already reached this level of confidence. There would be more.Had beenmore. He needed to go back. Further. Deeper. Into the places no one had drawn a line between yet.

He sat down, fingers moving automatically across the keys, pulling up every system he still had access to without clearance. He logged into the public police data feed, filtering for unsolved cases involving youth victims by region, time of year, narrowing to November and December. Then he opened the ONS mortality database. Cross-referenced unexplained deaths of youths during winter. Cold weather spikes. Anomalies.

Patterns emerged.

Not loud ones. Not ones lighting up a dashboard. But patterns, nonetheless.

A sixteen-year-old boy in Nottingham, found in a bus shelter after hours. Death ruled exposure. No foul play suspected, but the placement was odd. Arms folded, head tilted. A lollipop in his hand.

A girl in Glasgow. Fifteen. He should have ruled her out as there was no sweet link. No costume either. But as she was found behind a nativity display at a community centre in a red wool coat with her hands curled as if in prayer, he couldn’t ignore the prickle at the base of his spine and the familiar whisper of experience telling him to look closer. Cause of death was listed as probable overdose, despite no clear toxicology match. The date: twenty-first of December. Ten years ago.

He needed a deeper dive into this.

He opened his phone. Scrolled to DS Imogen Parry’s number. Pressed call.

“Dr Lyons?”

“I’ve found something.” Kenny spun in his chair. “Several things, actually. Cold cases across multiple jurisdictions. Staged youth deaths. December-focused. There’s a pattern.”

A rustle on the other end. Papers shifting, keyboard clicks, muffled voices in the background.“Go on,”she said over it all.

“I’ve been combing broader data sets, but I’ve hit a wall. I need access to historical scene reports. Post-mortem files. Any behavioural notes flagged but never escalated. Especially those buried in cold case summaries or logged with signature elements but no linkage.”

“What kind of access are we talking? Oh, hang on…yeah, Duffy, I’ll look at that after this call…Sorry, go on.”

“Case files. Raw scene notes.Internal memos. Anything the NCA might have archived under seasonal clusters, youth fatalities, or victimology links. I’m betting someone noticedsomethingbut didn’t know what to do with it.”

A beat. She exhaled.

“That’s above my clearance. I can pull anything from our own case management system—witness statements, lab reports, the postmortem from Luke Wells. But if you want national behavioural logs or flagged-but-closed cross-jurisdiction cases…”she trailed off.“I’d need a DCI to sign off.”