by C C Simeon
He knew that it was a work meeting, but there was no way that he was going to give up the opportunity to chat with a like-minded individual. That would have been silly, right?
At least, that was what he told himself.
He didn’t want to admit that he only used the dinner as an excuse to have dinner with her. It wasn’t in any romantic sense, but he did long for a conversation with someone who understood his work and was, well, interesting and new to him. He was lucky that his friend, Jeff, had offered him this opportunity, and he knew from the get-go that he was going to get Amelia to help him with it. She was his most promising employee. She was straight to the point and spoke her mind when things weren’t right. He knew that she wouldn’t let him walk all over her, which was exactly what he wanted. He wanted input, not a cheerleader who told him everything he did was amazing. He wanted someone who would tell him when his ideas were stupid; he wanted someone he could believe when they told him his ideas were particularly good. Amelia was the only one in the office that he knew could do that. He didn’t have much to do with her, but her supervisor spoke very highly of her. He figured it was time to give her a shot to move up in the company.
Amelia spoke about all sorts of things that he never really considered. She talked about soul mates and twin flames. He didn’t understand any of it, but he nodded along anyway as she spoke about it—about karma and manifestation, about higher powers and everything in between, things that he’d had questions about all his life.
It was attractive, he wasn’t going to lie. The fact that she didn’t laugh at him when he asked something, or that she didn’t sigh when he didn’t understand the first time was pretty damn hot. Aside from her looks. Amelia was a gorgeous human being and despite himself, despite knowing that it was wrong, he wanted to do something for her. He didn’t know what he expected to happen or rather if he expected something to happen. But what he did know was that he was incredibly attracted to Amelia.
There was something pulling him toward her. One night, one conversation, and he was head over heels. She was his employee—not to mention that Hunter had vowed not to start anything with anyone from work, or in general for that matter. That was a road he didn’t want to take.
But the glint in her eye, the way she enjoyed the food in front of her and ate like no one was watching, the way her entire face lit up when she spoke about something she was passionate about, made him rethink these vows. He knew that he had to have her, even if it was only as a friend. He knew exactly how he was going to win her over.
So, when he dropped her off at her house, not wanting her to take a cab at that time of night, he called in a favor from an old friend, hoping that whatever he was planning would be well underway by the time Amelia got to work the next morning.
He didn’t know what was between them, if there was anything at all. All he knew was that he felt something, and it terrified him.
But along with the terror came excitement.
Chapter 4: Makeshift Forts
Hayden leaned back in her chair, riding on the hind legs as she’d done since kindergarten. She was chewing on the end of her pen. There were already teeth marks on it after weeks of gnawing on the pen, and at this point, it was seeing its last couple of days. It was nearly dry and the end was close to being chewed off. But chewing on something and writing things down helped Hayden think. Seeing something on paper felt easier to investigate than the phantom of a memory or a made-up image of it in her head. It was much easier to figure things out when they were in front of her instead of having to sort through the mess in her head.
There were few things that Hayden hated more than not being able to figure things out and this… this was probably the worst. She had to get some information, and fast. She had already seen four of the local shop owners in the area and no one knew anything about the victim. No one saw anything, no one knew who he was. It was as if he’d appeared out of thin air just to be murdered.
There were still a few shops that Hayden hadn’t had the time to visit yet, and the apartment buildings surely had something to offer. At least, she hoped they did. She didn’t know what she was going to do if she couldn’t find anything that gave her some sort of clue. The killer couldn’t have been that smart and careful. They always messed up—always. There was always something not quite right in their heads that had them make mistakes. Usually, those mistakes came much earlier, but this was something else. This was the case that every movie detective dreamed of and every real-life person dreaded. It was a make or break, and Hayden was certain that this was going to break her entirely.
“Why are you still here?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Warren,” Hayden said, looking up from her work to raise an eyebrow at the medical examiner. He had his signature cocky grin on his face, and Hayden contemplated chucking her file at him. The man pointed behind her, toward the makeshift fort she had constructed.
“Is the little guy in there?”
“Yeah,” she replied with a nod, looking at the fort as if she could see inside. She sighed. “My husband is working late and well, I guess so am I.”
“He enjoys the station.” Warren fetched a chair from the desk next to Hayden’s and pulled it closer before pulling the files in front of her closer to him. He didn’t say anything.
“Yeah, I think he enjoys coming here more than he would going to his father’s work. Here, he gets to pretend like he’s a policeman. What is he going to do in a normal office?”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to role-play Michael Scott,” Warren said as he loosened his tie.
Hayden chuckled. “Oh, dear God, no. He already drives me mad. I can’t deal with him being obnoxious, too. He has enough energy as it is.”
“So, you decided to build him a fort?”
“No, he built a fort,” Hayden corrected him. “I was too happy when he crawled in there and fell asleep.”
“And Martin let him use his jacket?” Warren asked.
Hayden looked back at the roof part of the fort, spotting Martin's badge on display. She groaned. She was going to get it in the morning. Martin was the one pain in her ass who didn’t like having Levi around. Hayden knew her son was energetic, but he didn’t bother anyone.
She didn’t allow him to annoy anyone. She was too anal about things like that. She would have hated someone else’s kid digging around in her desk. But it was other people coming to get Levi to take him to the vending machine and buy him snacks or let him play with their badges. Levi was a sweet kid and Martin was just a miserable, balding 30-year-old with anger management problems.
“Hey, Martin left his jacket on display for the kid to see.” She shrugged, deciding that there were more pressing matters than a stupid jacket. “If anything, it was an invitation for Levi to take it and use it.”
“You should go home,” Warren said out of the blue. “The case will still be here in the morning.”
“Yes, and the killer will still be out there in the morning, too. I need to find something tonight, at least. Even if it’s irrelevant. I just need something.”
“Well, then, prepare to be satisfied.” Warren rubbed his hands together and licked his lips in the way he did when he got really excited about something.
Hayden couldn’t help her next comment. “That’s what she said.”
Warren’s smile disappeared and he looked at her in utter shock. Whether it was a good or bad look, Hayden still had to decide. “Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to be Michael?”
“You missed your chance.” Hayden shrugged again. Shrugging was becoming a bad habit. Her mom would’ve had a heart attack if she’d seen what her little girl was doing. Hayden made a mental note not to shrug when she saw her mother next. “Now, tell me what you have.”
“So, I was filling out the report for the latest victim and something seemed awfully familiar to me. Aside from the stab wounds, of course.”
“Get on with it, will you?” She hurried him along with a wave of her hand.
“The time of death.”
Hayden blinked. That was it? Nothing else? He was going to tell her the time of death? “What about it?”
“They all look exactly the same. They were all killed around midnight and found around 6 am. They were all tortured beforehand, and it seems like when the clock strikes twelve, he just offs them.”
“The Midnight Butcher,” Hayden mumbled. The timestamp didn’t really help the investigation, but at least they knew that they had until midnight to find the killer—or risk another murder.
Warren pulled a face. “Honestly, I never knew why people give serial killers all these cool names. That’s probably why they become serial killers, to begin with. Do something nasty enough and you’ll get an awesome nickname.”
“I doubt that’s why they become murderers, Warren.”
“Just think about it. Do you think a guy called One Stroke Steve or Egghead Eddie would continue murdering people if they had names as awful as those? Think about it.”
“You are an idiot.” Hayden chuckled. “Well, I guess it’s something, Warren. Thank you for letting me know. It might not be a pattern, but I guess we know what to look for with the next victim.”
“You think there will be more?” Warren asked.
“Don’t you? If we’re right and the victims have no connection to each other, the killer is just offing random people. There’s no pattern, no motive. That’s the scary thing. If he is killing for the hell of it, for the high it gives the psychopath, then there is no way this man will be his last victim. That, I can assure you.”
“Do you have any idea what the motive might be?”
Hayden shook her head. As much as she hated to admit it, she had no clue what was going on. This was the first case that really had her working for answers and as much as she enjoyed a challenge, she didn’t enjoy the fact that there were lives on the line. There were people out there that were in danger because she couldn’t do her job. She knew that none of the detectives in this department could have done a better job than she did, but there was always going to be that nagging feeling in her back of her head that told her that she could have done better. She could have done more.
She should have done more.
It was a feeling that would follow her to the grave if she didn’t find the killer, a feeling that she was going to lose her mind trying to forget. New York wasn’t safe until the killer was dealt with. And if she didn’t find him, she was not going to raise a child in this place. She was not going to raise Levi with a crazy person killing random people on the streets. No, that was something she knew she had to deal with. She had to get her parents out of there. She had to get her friends out of there. No one was safe, and the scary part was that no one knew what to look out for.
“Not a clue,” she admitted after thinking it over. “There is nothing that leads me to a conclusion.”
“Well, right now, I’m thinking that we need to get to the safety of our homes.”
“Honestly,” Hayden replied, looking back at the little fort, “I don’t even think our homes are safe.”
“I would have been content going without that comment. Now I’ll have to sleep with my light on.”
“Don’t you already?” Hayden grinned, and Warren narrowed his eyes at her.
“Only when there’s lightning and thunder. Now, get to packing up and getting that kiddo of yours into his bed. You both deserve a night’s rest.” Warren got up and returned the chair to the desk he’d taken it from, then shoved his hands into his pockets. He seemed to be waiting for something.
Hayden furrowed his brow. “What are you waiting for?”
“You,” he said simply. “I’m not letting you walk to your car alone in the dead of night with a child on your hip. I’m selfish, but not to that extreme.”
“I still have some things to do...”
Warren sighed, then pulled the chair closer again. “Fine, then let’s get to it.”
“You really don’t have to.”
“Honestly, Detective.” Warren took up Hayden’s habit of shrugging now. “If something were to happen to the one detective who can crack this case, I won’t forgive myself. My ass is on the line here, too.”
“And you think you will be able to protect me?” She raised an eyebrow but smiled slightly.
“You’re right,” he said as he rolled his eyes. “I want to use you as bait. As soon as a shady figure emerges, I will push you toward him and run for my life.”
“You forget that I will be holding Levi.”
“Oh, so you believe I’ll sacrifice a woman and not a child? Honestly, I thought you were smart.”
“Warren—”
“Go on, I don’t have all night,” Warren said before Hayden could go on. “I still want to catch tonight’s episode of The Bachelor, so get your ass moving. What are we working on?”
Hayden looked at Warren, both in awe and annoyance. Never had he extended himself so far to help her. Either he really was really afraid of the killer and wanted this case solved as soon as possible, or he really wasn’t such a bad guy. Hayden was willing to bet on the former, but what if, just maybe, it was both? Maybe he was as nice as he was afraid. Hayden didn’t complain as she handed him a file.
“Fine, go through those. See if you can find anything suspicious,” she ordered.
Warren sighed as he opened the file. “Remind me again why you can’t do this at home?”
“This stuff unsettles me. I don’t want it in my house.” Hayden figured there was no harm in admitting it to him.
She didn’t want this thing to invade her home. She didn’t want it anywhere near the one place where her son was supposed to feel safe. Besides, somehow, it felt better to be at the station. There were still some officers loitering about and if anything happened, they were right there to respond. Hayden didn’t know why the last victim had set off the paranoia in her, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She was going to stay at the station as long as possible.
“Fair enough.”
And, just like that, they were quiet, going through file after file together. They sat in complete silence, but somehow, Hayden enjoyed the company. She’d never experienced that before, and it was surprisingly comforting. The station was large and cold, but at least now she had a friend—or at least an acquaintance—to keep herself company.
She hadn’t known how much she’d craved it until they’d spent the night in silence together, investigating a serial killer.
Chapter 5: Catching Up
There were eight kids in total, including Amelia. Eight kids that Aunt Helena had taken in without wanting anything in return. The old lady could never have kids of her own, and instead of adopting only one child, she decided that she’d foster more children. She never married and had four dogs and two cats that used to chase the kids around the yard until they played with them. The dogs were nice, even though Amelia was terrified of the bigger ones. She didn’t know their breed, because just like the children, Aunt Helena took in strays. She took in the things nobody wanted.
She never threw away a doll because she could fix it. It wasn’t because she didn’t have the finances to buy them a new one—she always had a suspicious amount of money from her younger days when she was a business tycoon—but because she believed that things that could be fixed shouldn’t be tossed out. That was something that Amelia kept with her even in adulthood. Everything could be fixed, and everything deserved to be put together to be given a second chance. Amelia still had the Raggedy Anne doll that she’d gotten for her fifth birthday. There were more patches of random fabric on it than what was left of the original. It had been fixed quite a few times.
Amelia thought back to when she was a teenager and Aunt Helena had brought home a new boy. He was older than her, maybe two or three years, which would have made him seventeen at the time. He was a beautiful boy, Amelia remembered thinking, but he was damaged. To some, perhaps, even beyond repair.
Hilton had no family, no friends.
He had no backstory, but that was backstory enough. He was abandoned and broken, which meant that there was a sad history that he kept to himself. He didn’t mingle with the other kids. Amelia had always been the oldest one around, and when he had shown up, it had been her job to make him feel at home. She’d done her best. She’d shared her treats with him. She’d invited him out when her friends snuck her out of the house to go clubbing. He’d never accepted any of her attempts to include him in the family, so she’d just kind of given up on it.
Even Aunt Helena had gotten fed up with him. She had taken him in off the streets, had given him a home and siblings. She gave him everything a kid would have wanted and needed, but he didn’t seem to appreciate any of it. He just stayed in his corner, either sketching or writing in a journal. It was strange for a kid his age. Then again, Amelia always supposed he was just in a permanent emo phase. He had the dyed black hair, the eyeliner-ringed eyes, the black nail polish. Amelia had always known that he’d stolen the cosmetics. There was no way Aunt Helena had bought him all of that.
He listened to My Chemical Romance and The Offspring. Sure, he had a reason to be depressed—they all did. Every single kid in the foster home had been abandoned or tossed to the streets. They didn’t have the loving parents other children had, but at least they had Aunt Helena who cared enough about them to take them in. At least they had someone to give them the things they needed. And, to top it all off, Aunt Helena didn’t have to. She did it because she loved the kids. Everyone got fed up with him because he didn’t seem to care about any of that. It seemed he couldn’t wait to get out of the home and start his own life.
When he’d turned eighteen, he’d left without so much as a thank you and Aunt Helena, as well as the rest of the kids, had breathed a sigh of relief when he’d moved out. He had been making the house a miserable place where everyone had to walk on eggshells because his temper could rival the gods. Yes, he truly was the stereotypical emo boy back then.