45
THE NEXT MORNING, Aidan walked into the office and sat at his desk. He didn’t immediately log into the database as was his normal habit. He sat in his chair, his head resting in his hands.
“Everything okay?” Shaun asked.
Aidan looked at him with a sigh. “Yeah, I’m great.”
He scoffed, looking Aidan over. “You look great. Bloodshot eyes, you didn’t shave this morning. And I saw you trying not to hobble on your leg.”
“So my knee’s bothering me. It’s not like we’re going to be able to go on a chase anyway. What does it matter?”
Shaun’s eyebrow lifted.
“Sorry,” Aidan grumbled. “Cheyenne and I had a disagreement after you left.”
“Because you got hurt?” he asked.
Aidan shook his head. “Because I don’t want to worry her about my nightmares and she knows I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night to stare at dead women’s photos.”
“You should tell her,” Shaun insisted. “It might not make anything better, but at least she’ll see why you’re affected by all of this.”
“No offense, Shaun,” Aidan snapped, “but you don’t know the half of it. And I won’t be taking relationship advice from a divorced man who chose his career over his family.”
Shaun frowned, but instead of replying to the insult, he said he had work to do.
As he walked away, Aidan's landline rang.
“Yeah, O’Reilly,” he said dryly.
“Good morning,” Jackson from the lab chirped. “I wanted to confirm with you that the blood on the tarp was positive for Maya Gibson’s and Jane Ridgeway’s blood. The fingerprints you guys lifted belonged to the victims as well.”
“That all?”
“Yeah, sorry I don't have more, man.”
“All right, thanks.”
Aidan replaced the phone on the hook and released a curse. An agent passing by glanced his way. When he locked eyes with Aidan, he scampered away.
Aidan pushed his chair back and hobbled to where Shaun kept himself focused on the computer screen.
“Hey,” he said.
Shaun looked up.
“Look, man,” Aidan began. He wasn’t sure of what to say. Thankfully, Shaun waved his beefy hand as if he was wiping off a clean slate.
“Already forgotten. We’re cool.”
Leaning against his desk, Aidan scoffed. “You know, I’d like you a whole lot better if you’d lose your temper every once in a while.”
Shaun shouted out a curse, slapped a large hand against his desk, then shouted, “I didn’t get my muffin this morning!”
An intern walking toward them froze, eyes wide. She held a slip of paper in her hand, unsure of whether to approach.
Aidan smiled at her. “He loves his muffins.”
She giggled and handed Shaun the paper and stepped away. Slipping it in one of his boxes, he rose from his chair.
“Speaking of which,” he said, stretching his limbs, “I’m going to go grab that muffin. Wanna come with?”
“Sure.”
As they walked, Aidan relayed what Jackson said.
“So, he must use gloves,” Shaun muttered. “This guy doesn’t miss a step.”
“Told you,” Aidan replied. “He’s thorough. Plans things before he even does them. He knows the process.”
As they took the elevator to the cafeteria, they discussed the suspects: Jordan Blake, who seemed to disappear into thin air although it was obvious he was still under suspicion, and his uncle, whose house the offender used and his sudden unwillingness to help locate his nephew.
Aidan couldn't help but think they were missing some vital piece of information.
After reviewing countless numbers of files, Aidan and Shaun agreed to call it a night. However, Aidan didn’t go straight home. Instead, he went to the boxing gym Shaun took him to a while back.
If it helped him feel better that first time, he figured it might do the trick now.
They had come so close to catching the killer. He fought him, but he still managed to slip by undetected. He had a lot of pent-up resentment rising in him as the minutes ticked by, and he wanted to unleash as much as possible. He had already taken it out on Shaun once and was afraid he was building toward taking it out on Cheyenne, and that was one thing he couldn’t allow.
Aidan found an empty punching bag and began knocking it around.
The noise of the gym soon drowned out with each punch, and his bare knuckles grew sore.
But he felt better.
That was the important thing.
Shaun was right about the gym.
He made a mental note to thank him later. But for now, Aidan decided to go home, put his knuckles on ice. As he left the gym, he decided he’d buy a pair of boxing gloves the next day. He could see himself as being a regular at the gym.
46
WHEN HE SAW it was finally safe to return to the house, he went around the back to grab a shovel from the shed. He didn’t need to break inside. That wasn’t where he hid what he wanted.
He jammed the shovel into the ground by the back pond and began to lift the dirt, little by little.
He whistled as he did.
He may have lost his point of operation, but he was close to finding a new one. It didn’t matter one way or another. The police hadn’t seen him. He’d even spoken to Agent O’Reilly once at the grocery store when he was shopping with his girlfriend.
If he had an inkling of an idea, he was sure he’d be in jail now instead of digging through the dirt.
But, no.
He was here, and he was free.
Free to do what he wanted.
He’d already chosen his next target. She was a teller at a bank. He’d gone to her in the pretense of considering opening a savings account. During their conversation, he found out she liked to
