Page 24 of The Butterfly Killer

“Ew. What the fuck, Marcus?”

Lilianna’s voice could be barely heard from where his phone had fallen on the mattress. He gasped as a string of saliva dripped down to the floor. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten anything last night. It would have been all over the carpet if he had.

He closed his eyes and took a sharp breath between his clenched teeth. He slowly leaned back and grabbed the phone.

“Listen to me carefully, Lily.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses?—”

“I’m serious Lily. I didn’t send you those emails.”

The line went quiet. When she spoke there was a clear quiver to it.“You didn’t?”

“No,” Marcus said, regretfully. If he wasn’t zoning out of his body, his voice would have been shaky as well. “Get the kids and Daniel. Go up to his parent’s cabin. Do it, Lily. Now.”

Lilianna’s breaths sped up. She panted into the receiver.“You’re scaring me.”

“Good. Call me when you’re almost there.”

He hung up. He stared at his phone for a few seconds before he grabbed Mercer’s business card he’d given Marcus and dialed his number.

“This is Agent Andrew Mercer.”

“It’s Marcus.”

Marcus grabbed a fresh pair of clothes from his dresser and yanked them on.

Mercer was stone quiet.“The techs aren’t this fast.”

Marcus groaned. “That’s not why I’m calling. Someone sent emails to my sister about the killer. She thought it was me.”

“It could just be a troll.”

“They also sent a magazine through the mail. She’s removed herself completely from the family when mom died. This is intentional.”

“Where is she now?”

“I told her to go up to her in-laws cabin with her husband and children. It was the first place I could think of.”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry, but you might be overreacting. There hasn’t been any evidence to say the killer would stalk or taunt his victims before.”

Marcus held the phone between his neck and shoulder as he pulled his shoes on. “Well, I guess call this overkill. He’s taken one person from me, he’s not going to take another.”

Mercer was quiet for awhile after that. Marcus had thought maybe the line had cut while he grabbed his keys off the stand by the door. He was just walking out when Mercer spoke again.

“Where are you going?”

“To my sister’s house. If he wants to harass anyone, it’s going to be me. I just thought you might want to know. Tell Chief I won’t be in for a couple of days.”

Before Mercer could talk reason into him, he hung up.

Running on three hours of sleep, Marcus jumped in his car and headed out on the road for a six hour drive. His sister had left her old life behind and tried to make a entirely new one, but she hadn’t moved that far away. He was glad. He had a spare key she’d given him just in case he was in the area, but it wasn’t like he’d ever thought about using it.

He’d visited her once in the years after their mom’s death and that had been two summers ago when he’d been forced to take a vacation. It had been the cold trail of the Butterfly killings that had sent him into a frenzy. He wasn’t proud of the little breakdown he’d had which almost got him kicked off the squad. Looking back, that might have also been another factor in people wanting to distance themselves from him.

He was a freak. It seemed people could take one look at him and know instantly.

He pulled off the side of the road at a motel when his vision started to go bleary. His phone was full of text messages he didn’t want to read. His sister was the only person he wanted to hear from.

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