Luke definitely wasn’t himself; his sweat covered body, coupled with his somewhat trembling hands which he did poorly to hide were apparent.
Sean looked at the frame on the wall once again and back at the man before asking, “Are you sure you’re fine buddy?”
Nodding and sucking air through his slit lip, Luke laughed hard. “Of course… I think I might have had too much to drink”.
Sean nodded, walked away and headed towards the window where he could have sworn he saw a car parked behind the rental he got. There was nothing there now, but he could have sworn his memory recalled a black SUV parked just a few feet behind his car when he heard a dog bark and went to look out the window.
He turned back around and the frame was gone from the wall. “You finally got the nous to take it down I see”.
Luke smiled worryingly. “Yes. I guess I finally found one”.
They shared a brief laugh and Sean took in a deep breath before letting out a sigh in exhaustion.
“What have you found out so far about Susan’s murderer?” Luke immediately shifted their topic of conversation.
Sean shrugged, sighed again in exasperation and replied, “I read the coroner’s report in the morgue and it seems her death might not entirely be from the same hands that meticulously slaughtered the other folk”.
Luke looked grilled off belief and he slowly reached for the “Papa” chair before letting himself into it.
“I don’t get it… didn’t the killer cut her up like the rest of the bodies?” he asked.
Sean bobbed his head immediately. “Yes he did but the patterns don’t match and he was cruder this time around… almost like he didn’t know the first thing about cutting a body up anymore”.
Luke seemed to have caught on and his eyes widened before his nostrils flared up. Years of experience and spending time around crime scenes taught him well and the assumption they could draw up from the information his friend got him wasn’t one he wanted to hear.
“Oh my God!” he exclaimed. ‘He might have a protégé!”
Sean had passed his intended message across well enough, and with that, he headed straight for the door without saying goodnight. Something about Luke worried him and he would find out exactly what his friend and those at the CIA weren’t telling him even if it would be the last thing he would do.
Stepping out of the house and into the silent streets, he circled around his car and gently went to the floor on his knees to check for any blinking objects or signs of a bogey but found none.
“You might be overthinking things”, he thought to himself before noting Luke waving at him through the window.
Barely caring to return the wave, he got into his car, took a minute to reflect on the bothering frame he had seen on the wall and where he was certain he had seen the same kind earlier in the day. The coincidence of finding such copies of the frame in the same day and in houses of two people he knew was striking but something else piqued his curiosity.
“Why does his have her initials on it?” he whispered.
He had caught sight of it; etched into the corner of the frame and on the clinging piece of paper which he could assume once held a picture, were the initials “S.S” in black ink. Still unsure on what to make of his discovery, he ignited the car, took another look at Luke and waved back eventually before driving off. The frame and the discovery he had made wouldn’t escape his mind still and he pondered hard on it until the lights flickered on in his side mirror.
“There you are”, he grinned upon seeing the same SUV he was sure he had noticed earlier.
They were smart enough not to drive away and find a different parking spot, but they obviously still weren’t as good as he was, seeing he would have changed cars and tried to drive ahead of the car he tailed before allowing such person to drive past him eventually.
“What is going on?’ he muttered underneath his breath. “Who are you people?”
He would find out, but first he needed to keep acting like he wasn’t aware of the fact that he was being followed.
***
Staring into his mirror and hearing the troubling noise from the croaking frogs and toads seemed to settle Detective Jake’s mind while he tried to conjure the best possible result from his visit to the morgue. Sarah’s words on a possible protégé resonated in his consciousness and he had been unable to clear it off ever since.
He wondered how such a protégé could even exist when he had kept his fantasies to himself and never thought of sharing it with anyone. It was one of the reasons he had his rules and made certain to never break them, regardless of how tempting the lady might be or what her pedigree in life might be.
“Did I make a mistake?” he questioned himself like he couldn’t recall the actions he had taken.
The problem was, he could remember each cut to the bone and every act he performed on those bodies to detail. Years in medical school had horned his skills into perfection and he boasted one of the best scores in the surgery room in his class.
“Maybe I made a mistake”, he thought again, rushing out the bathroom and heading for his living room with enough intent in his steps.
He paused, stared at the air conditioning vent and wondered what results he would find in his quest for answers and assurance that he had done everything right from the onset. Ten years of perfection looked like it was about getting tossed in the bin and he couldn’t have himself go down in such manner without finding out where he might have gone wrong.
Hurrying over to the vent, and ripping off its front cover, he pondered hard on the possibilities that may have caused
