CHAPTER TWENTY
He ate a fast-food burger as he watched the red Ford Explorer pull out of the pharmacy parking lot. There were two people in the Explorer—his next victim and someone he assumed was the victim’s caregiver. According to the list, this victim was Brittany Neal, sixty-eight years of age. He’d selected her at random from the list and had worried that her age might make her a little harder to get to than the other three he’d taken so far.
He’d staked her out here and there over the past two days and was finding that he may have to skip her. If things went perfectly, he’d come back to her but for right now, it seemed like too much trouble, and too much time to put into one single person. Still, he’d come this far so he figured he may as well follow the Explorer back to her home, just a mile or so away from the pharmacy.
He made sure not to follow too closely because it seemed safe. But really, he doubted the driver would be too worried about the possibility of being followed. Even if they had it on their radar, surely they were too focused on Brittany Neal to keep an eye out for such things. When the Explorer turned into the concrete driveway of a two-story home in an affluent neighborhood, he kept driving by. He watched in his rearview as the car parked in a garage attached to the west wing of the house. He thought he also saw another car parked in the small, rectangular driveway.
He came to the end of the street and made a U-turn—not a difficult feat at one in the afternoon. He drove back by the house and confirmed that there was another car in the driveway. It was a black Acura, the same car he’d seen there yesterday. As far as he knew, it hadn’t moved. Also, when he’d come by yesterday, there had been several other visitors at the house as well.
Given Mrs. Neal’s age and the number of visitors she seemed to keep at her home he couldn’t help but wonder if she might be in her final days. And if that were the case, he was pretty sure there would be a constant influx of people coming in and out of her home over the course of those days—however many more there may be.
It was disappointing, but not enough to get him off-course. He passed by her house as he finished off his burger, drove several streets over and parked inside a random office park. He had the waiting list saved to his phone, so he opened it up and read it over. There honestly wasn’t a lot of information on the list, just enough to get him started: client name, client age, name of the person that filled out the application, and, in some cases, the client’s address. One thing he was beginning to note was that it was typically the ones who filled out their own applications that were the easiest to approach. From what he could tell, these were people who were usually on their own, with no family or real support systems around them. At first, he was surprised to also find that this was overwhelmingly the sort of person who signed up for the services that Life Fulfilled offered. But the more he came to understand these people, the more it made sense; if there were loved ones surrounding you, there was a lesser chance you’d actually need to go to such lengths as to seek services from a foundation like Life Fulfilled. It was those who were on their own that seemed to come to them the most.
There was no real rhyme or reason to how he selected his victims. It was almost like a playful game of choice. Even now, he ran a ketchup-smeared finger down the screen of his phone, stopping it at random. The name he was pointing to was Donna Kelley. She was forty-nine and had filled out her information herself. She lived roughly twelve miles away from where he was currently parked, but that was fine. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do this afternoon.
He studied the address one more time and set his phone down. He wasn’t being so brazen as to attack the victims in their homes. In such enclosed spaces, he knew there was a much higher risk of leaving behind clues in the form of loose hairs or footprints. It also seemed that just about everyone had a camera-driven doorbell now, too. Still, starting at their homes was a good way to track them and learn about their comings and goings. And when they posted things on social media, that helped a great deal, too.
He pulled out of the office park and got back out onto the highway. Though he was in no rush, he still found himself speeding. While he may not have any sort of timeframe to work within, most of the people on this list did have a limited amount of time. And if they were on a clock, then he supposed he was, too.
It was a strange and almost ironic thought that had him grinning as he drove in the direction of what he thought might very well turn out to be his fourth victim.