CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
He sat in the darkness of his house, waiting for the end. He had no intention of living forever, and once he’d finally sullied the name of his old lady once and for all, he’d hang it all up and join her in hell.
Five had always been his desired number. Five toes, five joints between the knee bones, five joints between the ankles. Five was the golden ratio of the human body, so it was only fitting there’d be five dead bodies in total.
But who was the last person on the list? He hadn’t found a suitable candidate, but fortune had rained down upon him completely by accident. He’d watched the entire crime scene ensemble clean up the mess he’d made outside St Paul’s Church when he’d killed Irene, and from his hiding place inside the church itself, he’d spotted a beautiful young girl that bore the same mark as his mother.
It couldn’t have been his eyes deceiving him, could it? For years now, he’d seen signs of her everywhere. Blondes, prostitutes, junkies, addicts, people who shared her name. It seemed that everywhere he turned, the universe taunted him. Wasn’t it bad enough he’d been raised by a whore who had to sell herself to make ends meet, too stupid to avoid impregnation by a pervert paying $20 an hour?
His entire life, it had just been him and her. No dad, no siblings, no distant family. Just the two of them, and she’d left all of the responsibilities up to him. Just left him to fend off the horrors for himself, and if it wasn’t bullying or getting humiliated for being poor, it was his mother scolding and disciplining him.
Whenever she wasn’t on her back, she was drowning herself in booze and pills, numbing herself to the world’s cold realities. Eleven years ago, she’d gotten pregnant by a client, and after opting for termination, she found the pregnancy had induced severe sepsis in her blood. Amputation was the only possible recourse.
Since then, he’d been her sole caregiver, but the abuse didn’t stop. It just got worse, beating out any sense of willpower and resolve in the young boy. The miserable old bitch, making demands every minute of the day, all while she lay on her back. How some things never changed.
She’d turned him into a submissive weakling, unable to say no, unable to stand up for himself. His house was devoid of the pleasures that other children his age consumed. No video games, no gadgets, not even a working TV. He’d had to amuse himself with primal desires like cutting up dead animals, counting his mother’s pills as fast he could, then trying to beat that record. All he had lying around his house was a few textbooks he’d stolen. One on math, one on medical procedures. He didn’t know how useful they’d come to be in his later life.
But the old lady turned weak and fragile, and if she died, would anyone really miss her? Hell, barely anyone knew she existed, and in many ways, she didn’t exist at all. She was a nobody who added no value to society. Just a motionless ball of misery that hated the world and everything in it, and when she’d drank that concoction he’d spiked with dissolvable pills, he saw her smile for the first time. Minutes later, the bitch frothed at the mouth as demons dragged her down to hell.
The end.
No one had any idea. The coroner called it an overdose, suicide. The old lady couldn’t endure this cesspool she called a life anymore and took the cowardly way out. That was the story, and the one he’d stick to until his own demise.
His only regret was that he’d wished he’d done it sooner.
Even though it was three years ago, he still hadn’t fully ridden her from his life and thoughts. Old Irene was everywhere, and he recently came to the realization that he would never be able to shed her from his being. He was a part of her forever, bonded by misery and blood. A boy’s best friend was his mother, the old saying went.
So it was time to give it up. Go out with a bang. Give both himself and old Irene a fitting send off.
He’d left a breadcrumb trail from the last victim right to this location. If they were smart, they’d figure it out.
All he had to do was wait.
***
“How sure are you about this?” Paige asked.
Ella was closing in on one hundred percent. She was convinced. There was nothing that couldn’t be accounted for. Everything fit, more perfectly than she imagined it would. The victims, the connections, the psychopathology, the motivations. She finally saw the world through the killer’s eyes.
“Very. Are you in?”
“Ella, we’ve got a pretty good suspect down in the cells. Shouldn’t we wait until we’ve checked him out fully? What if we just waste our time? Jesse Perry could still be our man. We have nothing that completely proves his innocence.”
“And what if we save another life? What if we accidentally send an innocent man to jail? You’re an empathetic person like me, Ellis, and trust me when I tell you that shit will eat you up.”
Paige rubbed her arm and looked around the office, probably waiting for Ella to offer an alternative.
Tough, she wasn’t backing down on this.
“Alright. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Zack Harris.”
Paige went to tie her hair back then stopped when it was in a half-bun. It fell back down to her shoulders.
“Zack Harris?”
“Yeah. What about it?” Ella asked.