Page 66 of Dropping Like Flies

He nodded. “It’s extremely rare, but it happens sometimes.”

Aaron frowned. “What happens?”

I leaned closer. “What did Noah look like? Did he give you any information besides his name?” Given it was a different name to the one Rupert had provided, the name was presumably fake.

He shook his head. “I didn’t ask.”

I attempted to calm myself, my heart racing and my palms sweaty. It felt like we were on the cusp of something important, something that really could end this case once and for all. Only, I was getting ahead of myself and breaking one of the major rules of policing: not to ask too many questions at the same time. Because Aaron had done what anyone would. He’d ignored the first question I’d asked and answered the second. “What did Noah look like?” I repeated. “Hair color? Eye color?”

Aaron frowned again, like he couldn’t work out why I was asking. “He had brown hair and blue eyes.”

Frustration bit into me. We needed something we didn’t already know. “His hair… Short? Long? Straight? Curly?”

“Short, but long enough to have a slight wave to it.”

“Any distinguishing features?”

“Like what?”

“Piercings? Tattoos?”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Not that I remember.”

“Moles?”

“A few. But everyone has moles. None that stood out. He had a knife,” Noah suddenly said, his expression changing to one of anguish. “It must have been in his jacket. Once we’d had sex, he changed. I barely recognized him. He’d been friendly before… charming… smiley. But he turned cold. He told me he needed something from me. At first, I thought it was a game. I told him to stop messing about, that I wasn’t into anything kinky. But he didn’t stop. He kept coming. He kept talking about a woman and demons. He said she’d be proud of him handling things, that he’d been a disappointment to her, but that he was fixing things. That she’d see how useful he was and once they had Janessa back, things would be different.”

“Janessa?” Griffin’s question, not mine.

Aaron lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I’ve no idea who she was. I was more focused on staying away from the knife.” A sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “I tried to get to the phone to call someone. The police. Anyone.” He blinked a few times, as if struggling to get something straight in his head. “You’re the police, right?” He waited for my nod before continuing. “Maybe I did call, then. Things are a bit fuzzy.” His brow scrunched like he was thinking hard. “He hit me and I went down, and he was on me before I could get back up, pinning me down and talking about demons.”

“What was he saying about them?” Griffin asked.

Aaron let out a humorless laugh. “It made little sense. He was obviously crazy, and he’d seemed so sweet in the club. I never would have brought him home if I’d realized he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I certainly wouldn’t have had sex with him.”

“Tell us anyway,” I urged. “We want to catch this guy. Anything you can tell us might help.”

“He said…”

Aaron went to lift his arm, and I quickly grabbed his wrist, holding it down before he dislodged the towel. “Go on.”

“He said he couldn’t keep asking for more, that eventually he’d have to appear and that when he did, things would be back to the way they were supposed to be.”

Patrick shifted slightly in the background, the movement snagging Aaron’s attention and making him look that way. “Why is he dressed like a…? Did someone die?”

Grasping his chin, I turned his head back my way. “Don’t worry about him. Tell me anything else you can remember.”

Aaron tried to turn back, but I held fast. “Aaron? Anything else?” His eyelids fluttered and I knew he was fading. He went limp, and I gently lowered him back to the carpet, his eyes closed this time. “Fuck!”

“I warned you it can be short,” Griffin said.

I stood, looking anywhere but at Aaron as color once more leached from his face. No matter how many dead bodies I’d seen, I doubted it would ever get easier to have a conversation with them while knowing there was nothing I could do. Except for catching the bastard to prevent him from doing it to anyone else.

My phone started ringing again, and I brought it to my ear without looking to see who it was.

“Weaver?”

I winced, Baros not sounding too happy. So much for him not being awake. News traveled fast. “I made a decision,” I said before he could start tearing a strip off me. “And it proved to be the right one. He remembered more than any of the others. We know the demon angle is correct now, that it has something to do with his mother, and that Eclipse is a focal point, just as we suspected. We can station men there… have it watched every night. He must take the knife in with him so maybe we could get the club to carry out searches, catch him before he selects another victim.” I was thinking aloud, my words to Baros more a stream of consciousness. “Although, that risks scaring him off if he hears about it, so it might not be the best idea. We don’t want him moving to another club or we’ll be back to square one. We can talk about it when I get back to the station. I’m coming in now.”

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