CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
He was sharpening his knife, the slow scrape of the steel across the whetstone both rhythmical and soothing. He’d used it so much in the last few days that he wanted to be sure that it still held its edge.
There was still work to do with it.
That was why he ground the edge carefully, making sure to keep an accurate angle throughout. Precision was important, in this as in the art of killing.
And it was an art. Lars Ingram had shown him that.
Not that they’d ever met, or even spoken. There had been a temptation to try, but honestly, what would he have said? “You’re my hero” would have sounded far too fanboyish, and in any case, he wasn’t sure that it was true. Ingram was an inspiration, even a template, but a hero?
He continued to sharpen the blade, moving to a finer grit of whetstone, while he contemplated the problem. He did the sharpening in the kitchen of his home, so that in the unlikely event that anyone saw, they would think that he was thinking of cutting nothing more than a good steak.
Had Lars Ingram ever been his hero? Even at the start of all this, it had felt more like he was the one setting a problem to be solved, rather than an awe-inspiring figure. Yes, there was the sense that Ingram was probably the only other person out there who might understand what it was like to feel this way, but that didn’t mean that there was any kind of relationship there.
That was one reason he’d never called Ingram in prison. The other was that he’d always known the time would come when he would start killing again. It would have been foolish to leave any record that might lead back to him. He had no doubt that, following his kills, the FBI would have been through every scrap of paper sent to Ingram, checked the identity of every caller he’d ever had.
He wasn’t sure what to make of the FBI. He’d seen the agent in charge of the case on the news, of course: Agent Christopher Marriott, of the BAU. There was the woman with him, as well, the one from all the news coverage around the Adam Riker case: Paige King.
On the one hand, he relished the presence of two people with an obvious record of tracking killers. It meant that there was an edge to this game, even in the absence of Lars Ingram. On the other, they hardly seemed like worthy opponents. They weren’t even truly playing the game, since they weren’t racking up kills of their own. They were simply trying to spoil it for him.
But then, maybe that was just a sign that the nature of the game was shifting. Perhaps in the future, it would no longer be him against Ingram, but him against the forces of the FBI.
He switched from the fine whetstone to a barber’s strop as he considered that, working the blade quickly along it. This knife had killed so many people by now. He’d kept it with him ever since that first kill. Ever since the night Nikki Ashenko had died screaming and begging in a stream.
He had refined his technique considerably since then.
He needed it to be perfect today. From tomorrow, the game might be changed, but today, there was still the matter of getting that one kill better than Ingram had. It had to be today. The last day of Ingram’s life. It was significant. It mattered. Taking a kill tomorrow wouldn’t just be less satisfying. It would be… cheating.
Satisfied with the sharpness of the knife now, he tested it against the hairs of his left arm. It was sharp enough to shave them. More than sharp enough to kill cleanly, perfectly, tonight.
That would be his victory when it came to Ingram, but it would be more than that. He’d saved up these last few kills deliberately. He could have killed four people at any point after Ingram had found himself imprisoned, but he’d wanted it to be on these last few days leading up to Ingram’s death specifically. It was more significant that way, but it also did a better job of attracting attention.
He wanted that attention. He’d been in Ingram’s shadow for too long.
Today would change that. The kills so far had gotten the attention of both the press and the FBI, but his next would secure his place as a legend in his own right. It was a more audacious kill than anything Ingram had taken on. He’d killed weak people, young women with no hope of fighting back. Even when Nikki Ashenko had tried to fight in his first kill, it hadn’t even come close to making a difference.
This target had the potential to fight back. She was trained, potentially dangerous. She’d handled killers before, but also cared for them, spoken with them, spent time with them. She was as much a caretaker to them as the young women he’d killed before had been to old women and children.
She met all criteria that Lars Ingram’s work had set in place, and now, she had enough of a link to him for this to be special. He’d even watched her up close, sitting in the small crowd at the execution, watching as she watched Lars Ingram die.
Yes, he decided as he put the knife away carefully, this kill would be perfect.