Larry Bilston, Owner.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Paige, remember what you just said about our killer possibly having a key to this place?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
Ella showed her partner the letter.
“That might be exactly what’s going on.”
***
The young man stood in his garage, replaying his plan over and over his head. It was too perfect, too precise. He doubted anyone would figure it out, least of all the police.
The pattern would continue, on and on, until he’d finally scratched the itch that plagued him daily. Anyone who reminded him of his past traumas was a target, and he had a long list of viable recipients.
A list as long as the leg in his freezer.
He opened the freezer up, moved some of the joints to one side and marveled at his prize slab of meat. Teri Harper’s severed leg.
He took it out and savored its icy touch. He scraped off the frost, brought it to his nose and took in its aroma. Before he’d placed the limb in the freezer last night, he’d carried out all of the medical necessities. He’d heat treated it, drained the blood, and cauterized the wound. The process had thinned out the skin and removed the top epidermis layers, so this woman’s hideous tattoos had all but disappeared.
Not that he was going to sever them off like he’d done with the other girl. That had been an anomaly. He hadn’t anticipated that he’d be presented with a reminder of his failures, so he needed to shed that reminder. If nothing else, it would give the detectives something to scratch their heads over. He idly wondered what investigation lines they might be following. Maybe the idiots were thinking he had carved the limb like a piece of meat, maybe some kind of cannibalism theory. More to fool them, he thought.
In his hands, the limb didn’t resemble something that belonged to a functioning human ensemble. It felt like a prosthetic or something he’d ripped from a mannequin. It was hard to believe that, less than 24 hours ago, this leg was operated by someone’s nervous system. It was a real piece of natural hardware, a part of the ancient, unseen stream of life.
Now it belonged to him. It was his tool, a part of his complex ritual that no one other than he could understand. As if some career-cop would be able to figure out the sequence. He laughed at the idea.
And what had this leg been used for, exactly? Not long before he’d cut it off, it had probably been wrapped about some filthy pig’s head. The kind of filthy pig that had to pay for sexual gratification. They made him sick, both the clients and the workers. They were welcome to each other.
No one knew, but this woman had a dirty little secret. She’d gone to great lengths to stay discreet, but a little investigative work had uncovered her clandestine midnight activities. Teri Harper had been a sex worker, and not a very efficient one. Once he’d found her profile, all it had taken was a fake email address, a few messages, and a request for the most explicit service she offered (the ‘A-Level’ treatment, as it was apparently known). Teri had jumped at the chance to make three hundred dollars in one hour, as most people would, but her naivety had been her undoing. The irony now, of course, was that she wasn’t going to be jumping again anytime soon, figuratively or literally.
He placed the leg on a table then reached below and turned on a small heater. The warmth would thaw it out to the point it was presentable to the world. Then it would be time to do exactly that. The thawing out would muddy the time of death for the investigators too, sending them down a different path right away. It was almost too easy.
All he needed was a place to put the leg, and in keeping in line with the theme he’d established, he required a third body to go alongside it.
He left the garage, entered the living room and sat down at his computer. He’d always heard that sex workers were easy targets, but he hadn’t anticipated exactly how easy. These gullible women opened up their doors to anyone regardless of the risk. He wasn’t surprised so many of them met untimely ends at the hands of people like him. They were almost asking for it.
Her details were already plastered on the screen in front of him. He’d picked her name out a long time ago, and the wheels of the next event were already in motion.
Name: Rena
Age: 25
Hair: Brunette
Ethnicity: White American
Services: DFK, OWO, WS, Massage, Striptease, Roleplay, A-Level.
Rates: $500 incall, $700 outcall, $1000 overnight.
He didn’t know what half of the abbreviations stood for, and the ones he did know made him sick to think about. But as long as he flashed the cash, Rena would open up her door and her heart to him.
He double-checked his VPN was active then navigated to the messages section and began typing.
Looking forward to seeing you tonight. Could you wear something that shows off your legs?