A Killer's Watch

by Tallulah Grace

  He would have given her a life filled with luxury, catered to her every whim, loved her beyond reason.

  But she had chosen a life of squalor, married to a man who would never be more than dirt farmer, etching out a living on the whims of nature.

  Driving the truck slowly over the landscape to the cellar entrance, he wondered if Aubrey would see herself in Shelby, in Allison, and in the others, when the time came. He’d searched thousands of images on Instagram, looking for girls who reminded him of Aubrey, back when they were in love.

  He’d found six, so far.

  Hacking into their computers, activating the cameras, watching them in the privacy of their bedrooms had been no more challenging than ordering food from an online menu, if you had the skills.

  And he’d mastered them, one by one.

  Backing the truck to the entrance, he left the motor running, but turned off the lights. It would only take a moment to retrieve Shelby, toss her in the back. He would look in on Allison as well, while he was here.

  Feeling the chill in the night air, he decided to pick up a heat lamp, while he was out. It wouldn’t do for Allison to succumb to hypothermia, before they could spend time together. He’d seen how she was shivering, most of his viewers liked that, so he hadn’t worried about it, up until now.

  Besides, he didn’t have to make her comfortable, he could just take the chill out of the air.

  Flipping the light switch, before descending the stairs, Graham felt the temperature drop as soon as he entered the cellar. Tonight seemed much colder than last night, but then last night he’d been too busy to notice.

  Pushing open the door to Allison’s chamber, Graham was pleased to note that she had stopped screaming, was no longer trying to escape, futile though it was. She lay there passively, waiting for him to spend time with her.

  Allison turned her head as soon as the door opened. She’d been waiting for someone to come, wanted this torture to be over, one way or the other.

  It wasn’t that she had given up, but she could see no way out, until someone came to release her. Then she could fight, then she would have a chance to get away.

  “Hello, Beautiful,” Graham’s jovial voice seemed out of place in the dreary space. The single light bulb hanging over the bed illuminated Allison’s discomfort, and emphasized the fear on her lovely face. His viewers would love seeing her so afraid.

  “Who are you? What do you want? Let me go!”

  “Now, now, none of that.” Graham came to stand beside the bed, keeping his back to the camera, even though he wore a hood. Looking down at her, he couldn’t resist touching her. Feeling the smoothness of her cold skin made him want to stay and play.

  But he couldn’t. He must dispose of Shelby, to make room for Allison on his table.

  “Stop that, don’t touch me!” Allison commanded, even though she was powerless to stop him.

  “You don’t make the rules, Allison,” he told her sharply. “You’ll do well to remember that.” With a brutal squeeze of her breast, Graham backed out of the room. “I’ll be back later, with a surprise for you.”

  “Wait! Don’t go! Let me go!” Allison wailed as he left the room.

  Ignoring her screams, Graham made his way to the chamber next door, where Shelby waited for him to return. Wrapped in plastic, she no longer held any appeal for him. She was a chore now, something that had to be done, before he could move on to more pleasant matters.

  ~~~

  “He definitely has a type, after all,” Monique showed Chloe the side-by-side photos of the missing girls.

  “They both have long blond hair, but other than that, they look nothing alike,” Chloe commented.

  “They’re about the same height, but you’re right, their facial features are not even similar,” Monique speared a piece of lettuce. “Who knows what makes these guys tick.”

  “When are Jeri and Ethan coming back?”

  “They’re on the way. Now that he’s taken two victims, we know more about him. We’re meeting in their suite in an hour.”

  “I know you all are confident that one man killed the first two women, and took the two girls, but I can’t see any correlation, other than location.”

  “The killer is likely counting on that. Before the second teen was kidnapped, no law enforcement agency would connect the first missing girl with two dead prostitutes, either. But the fact that the first two murders were patterned after Anson’s kills, tells us that we have an active serial, but only because Ethan had someone looking for cases like this.”

  “Couldn’t there be two people? One killing prostitutes and one abducting teenagers?”

  “Sure, but the odds are good that we’re dealing with one man. Jeri said that he would show us his real targets soon, and he has. We would probably have a hard time convincing anyone that the two missing teens are related to the dead prostitutes, unless the killer drops another body in the same place. If he does that, we know he’s begging for attention.”

  “If he’s followed this dude, Anson, who was supposedly a real bad ass, then why would he leave the teenagers in the same place as his first victims? Wouldn’t he be able to fly under the radar longer, if he chose a different dump site?”

  “That makes sense to me, and to you, but serials operate under a different set of rules. Jeri is the profiler, she could probably explain it better, but something drives them to do what they do. Including where, and how, they leave the bodies of their victims.”

  “I’ve got so much to learn about this stuff,” Chloe sighed and picked up her burger.

  “You’ll get there,” Monique assured her. “You don’t need a degree in criminal psychology to do your job.”

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  ~~~

  “Check your email, Anna sent over an itemized list of similarities between Shelby and Allison,” Jeri spoke to the room, even though she and Ethan had already seen the list. “We need to know how he targets his victims, how he knows when to strike.”

  “I don’t suppose either girl reported being stalked?” Monique asked as she skimmed the list.

  “No, but Allison felt that she was being watched. We checked her house for cameras, but found nothing,” Jeri answered. “Still, he has to be tuned into them somehow. He knew that Allison would be at the club, knew that she would be alone. But how?”

  “Allison tweeted about going to the club, even posted a picture on her Instagram page. Jeez, don’t these kids worry about privacy at all?” Chloe asked.

  “No, they want people to know where to find them. That answers the question of how he knew where to find her, but it doesn’t tell us how he knew that she would be alone. Her post mentions that she and Sandy were going to the club. Most people would assume that they would drive up together, not separately. So, how did he know?”

  “He was at the club, watching. Saw his opportunity, and took it,” Ethan answered.

  Before Jeri could respond, Anna called.

  “You’re not going to like this,” Anna warned, when she answered.

  “What?” Jeri demanded, putting the call on speaker.

  “I’ve been tooling around the dark web, you know, checking out sites that might have Anson’s signature. I decided to run facial recognition for Shelby and Allison, just in case the perp posted something about them. You won’t believe what I found.” The revulsion in Anna’s voice was palpable.

  “Don’t leave us hanging, Anna. What did you find?” Jeri tried to hide her impatience, but it didn’t work.

  “The killer posted a video of both girls. Shelby is dead.”

  Stunned silence filled the room, but only for a moment.

  “Can you trace it?” Ethan asked, ready to move.

  “I tried, but he’s routed it all over the world. Once the signal hit Asia, it split into a hundred pieces, each one going in a different direction. Tracing it is impossible.”

  “Did you see the killer’s face? Can you run recognition on him?” Jeri asked, feeling sick t
o her stomach.

  “No, he wore a hood, covered his entire head,” Anna answered.

  “You said that Shelby was dead, what about Allison?” Ethan asked.

  “That’s the kicker. He’s sending a live feed of Allison, tied to a bed in some kind of concrete room. There’s one light, but no windows, and no way of telling where she is.”

  “Send us the link,” Jeri told her. “Is there anything else you can tell us, anything that will help?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I wish I could,” Anna’s voice broke, showing her emotion. “You’ve got to find this maniac, guys. Soon, please!”

  “We’re trying, Anna. Thanks.” Jeri disconnected, her face blank. She didn’t want to see the video of Shelby’s death, or the one with Allison, but she had to. They all had to.

  “It looks like some kind of bunker,” Ethan had the video on his tablet first. The man is at least six-feet-tall, if the table is a standard height.”

  “He’s Caucasian, we can see his hands, but his head is out of the shot.” Monique added.

  “He’s skinny, not very well built,” Chloe peered at the screen, trying to enlarge the man’s image.

  “It appears that Allison is in a different room, not as well lit as the one Shelby is in,” Jeri told them. “The walls are obviously concrete, so is the floor.”

  “She looks scared to death, and freezing cold,” Monique said quietly.

  “That poor baby,” Chloe’s video had reached the part where Shelby died. Tears filled her eyes, spilling over without her realizing it.

  “I can’t wait to get my hands on that son-of-a-bitch,” Monique’s anger overrode her sorrow. “Promise you’ll let me have five minutes with him, alone.”

  “I think we’d all like that,” Ethan answered. “Look at the time stamp on Shelby’s video. It was taken this morning.”

  “Long after he kidnapped Allison. So, he’s not worried about getting caught. He’s confident in the secrecy, and privacy, of his location.” Jeri shoved the tablet away and began to pace.

  “Which eliminates any warehouse, or other place with public access,” Ethan agreed. “He must have them in a basement, a cellar, a storm shelter, someplace on his property.”

  “With no windows, it could very well be underground,” Jeri pointed out. “I think you’re on the right track. This area is prone to tornadoes, it could be a storm cellar.”

  “Wherever he is, it’s wired for electricity, and Wi-Fi,” Monique added.

  “That could be a basement, or a storm shelter,” Chloe offered. “Some storm cellars are nice enough to hunker down in for the duration. This could be one of those places.”

  “The Wi-Fi signal could come from his home, with a strong enough booster,” Ethan added. “Which leads us exactly nowhere.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jeri stopped pacing. “Our guy is obviously tech savvy, if he’s able to hide from Anna so effectively. I keep going back to the fact that Allison felt someone watching her. Could he have been spying on her through her laptop camera?”

  “Wouldn’t the camera have to be on?” Chloe asked.

  “I don’t know, but we should find out.” Jeri reached for her phone.

  “Anna, is it possible to use a webcam to spy on someone, without them knowing it?”

  “Sure, hackers do it all the time. The camera doesn’t even appear to be on, in some cases.”

  “You’re saying that if I have a laptop, open in a room, that anyone could tap into the camera and have full view of the space? And nothing would show up on the screen?”

  “Yes, it’s easy, if you know how. No lights flash, no bells go off, nothing happens to indicate that someone is watching,” Anna oversimplified the point, somewhat. But she got her meaning across.

  “That’s incredible, how did we not know this?” Jeri looked at Ethan. “How is this not common knowledge?”

  “I don’t know, it should be. I knew that hackers could take over a computer, you knew it, too. But I always thought that the camera light would go on, if someone tried to use it. I didn’t realize that it was so stealthy.”

  “There’s an easy fix,” Anna interrupted. “Cover the camera with a piece of electrical tape, or something dark. Problem solved.”

  “People can only solve the problem if they’re aware that it exists,” Jeri told her. “The killer could have been watching Allison, and Shelby, too, for God knows how long, without them even knowing it.”

  “Chances are, if he watched them, then he may have published the feed to the web,” Ethan spoke into the phone. “Anna, keep searching for facial recognition, see if the killer has a server set up with other live feeds. If he’s sharing, then maybe we can pinpoint his next victim.”

  “Will do, Boss. But I can’t make any promises. Finding Shelby and Allison was a lucky fluke. Searching the dark web isn’t like searching the internet we all know and love.”

  “Do your best, Anna,” Ethan told her.

  “Anna, don’t hang up,” Jeri intervened, then started pacing again as she spoke. “Monique and Chloe found that the perp paid the escort services using iGold. What if the killer is following Anson’s lead, in more ways than one? What if he’s selling access to the videos, and the live feeds? What better way to process the payments, than through an anonymous money source?”

  “I’m still working on isolating the accounts he used,” Anna answered. “Their firewalls are massive, getting through is proving next to impossible. Without access to the accounts, we’ll never know the identity of the account owners. If he’s selling video views, he probably is using iGold. It’s more protected than some banks I know.”

  “So, that’s a dead end,” Jeri stopped pacing.

  “For the moment, I’m still trying to break through.”

  “Thanks, Anna. Let us know the minute you find anything.”

  “Of course, later.”

  “I’m calling Dylan,” Ethan told them, standing. “Two computer guru’s working on all of this is better than one.”

  “Good idea,” Jeri answered, her eyes following him as he slipped into the bedroom.

  “It seems like most of the information we need is only available through digital means,” Chloe spoke up. “What can we do, besides sit and wait for Anna to get a hit on something?”

  “Computers make our job easier, but they’re not a substitute for instinct. Allison felt that she was being watched, turns out, she probably was. We’d never think to search for his feeds, if not for speaking with Sandy,” Jeri reminded her. “For now, we continue to focus on the list of convicted pedophiles in the triangulated area, but we don’t stop there. We search for properties that have a bunker or some place that fits the rooms in the videos.”

  “Primarily, private homes with basements or storm shelters,” Monique nodded.

  “We target the triangulated area first, but we don’t restrict our focus to the pedophiles. It’s very possible that this guy has never been arrested, or even been a suspect.” Jeri walked quickly to her tablet. “We’ll split up the counties and pull property records to make our list. For now, if the home sits on less than an acre, eliminate it. He’ll need space to move the bodies, undetected. Anything sitting in a neighborhood, on a small lot, will not work.”

  “That’s still going to be quite a list, most of the homes around here are farms, with lots of land,” Chloe answered, getting comfortable with her tablet.

  “Not all of them will have a basement, or a storm cellar,” Jeri answered, dividing up the task. “I’m sending links to each of you for the property search. Set the parameters to single family properties, in excess of two acres. Chloe’s right, we’ll go smaller if necessary, but I imagine that we’ll have ample possibilities as it is.”

  “Search for properties near water. Dylan heard water dripping in the background on Allison’s video. Since it hasn’t rained here for at least a week, the water dripping could be from the underground water table, or a nearby water source,” Ethan added, coming back into the room.


  “That narrows it down some,” Jeri nodded. “But we need a better profile. Searching these properties will take weeks.”

  “We can run the owners against the DMV database, eliminate all who are not Caucasian, or female.” Ethan suggested.

  “That should help some, but it’s still not enough. I need to focus on our killer, try to get a sense of him, more than just his skin color,” Jeri scrolled through the list of properties on her tablet.

  “I’ll take over here, you go and work on the profile,” Ethan held out his hand for her tablet.

  “Okay, I’ll be in the bedroom.” Jeri stood, knowing that she would have to analyze the videos to learn as much as possible about the killer. She hated the prospect.

  Chapter Nine

  Graham pulled the truck to the side of the road, approximately half a mile from Aubrey’s home. It was as close as he’d come yet to drop a body, and he could barely contain his excitement at being so near his one true love.

  Raising the metal cover above the truck bed, he opened the tailgate, then slid Shelby to the edge. Picking up the body, wrapped in plastic, he rolled her onto the ground, before tossing the plastic back in the truck. She landed face down in the ditch, but that didn’t matter to Graham.

  Feeling exhilarated, he quickly closed the gate, and the cover, hopped back in the cab, and drove away. Thoughts of Aubrey’s shock, upon hearing that a body was placed so close to her home, thrilled him. Maybe she would even be the one to find it! She took her brats to school every day, they could very well spot Shelby’s body in the morning.

  “What a lovely way to start the day,” Graham laughed, imagining Aubrey’s distress if one of her precious children was exposed to such a thing.

  As he drove along the darkened road, he pictured Aubrey’s face. Would she realize that the girl was a tribute to her? Would she know that she was ultimately responsible for the young woman’s death?

  “She’ll know before it’s over,” he said aloud, his thoughts turning to Allison. The heater he’d purchased rode on the seat beside him. Now that he realized the efficiency of having two girls at once, he decided to speed up the timetable and take another one.