Page 21 of Girl, Sought

He’d been posed like a Christ figure, but this was no crucifixion. These spikes had pinned him to the wall, just like one of the specimens in the frames on the walls.

Their killer had turned this man into a human insect.

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Luca breathed.

CHAPTER TEN

Ella couldn’t take her eyes off the display in front of her.

Blood dripped from Alfred Finch's hands and feet. Not the messy arterial spray of a fresh kill, but the slow, sticky ooze of a body going cold. The industrial nails that pinned him to his living room wall had done their work with surgical precision. Four spikes through his palms and feet, another two through his shoulders. The human butterfly, spread-eagled on his own wall like just another specimen in his collection.

Crime scenes had their own personalities. This one screamed ‘look at me’ with every detail.

Somewhere behind her, Detective Reeves barked orders at a group of uniforms setting up tape around the perimeter. Luca was pacing, clearly trying not to decorate the carpet with his breakfast.

‘Hawkins,’ she shouted.

‘What?’

'I don't know. I just want to check you're not going to hurl.' It was a lie, she reasoned. She just wanted Luca beside her while she processed the fact that someone could do this to another human being. All these years studying serial killers, and sometimes she still felt a million miles away from understanding them.

‘It’s give or take,’ he said. ‘Look at the holes in his hands and feet. Our guy pierced him, maybe drilled him. We can add sadism to the list.’

Luca, as sharp as he was, always struggled with the visuals. One of Ella’s late-night shows of choice involved a celebrity doctor who drained cysts, and Luca would always wince at that. She could only imagine what havoc this scene was playing with his stomach.

‘You want to take a breather?’ she asked.

‘Do I hell. I want to figure this maniac out.’ Luca gestured to the creatures behind glass. ‘No prizes for guessing what our vic got up to in his spare time.’

‘He was a collector,’ Ella said. It was obvious, but someone had to voice it.

‘Just like Eleanor, only it’s insects instead of dolls. Our unsub has a type.’

The questions came in violent waves. How did the killer find this victim? How did he get access to the house? How did he pull this off without anyone hearing?

And why did he seemingly have a grudge against collectors?

‘We can safely say that this isn’t about dolls,’ Ella said.

‘Nope. It’s about a type of person, not a type of collector.’

Detective Reeves ambled over in a sweat despite the cold. ‘I haven’t seen anything like this in thirty years. Who does this?’

This unsub’s psychopathology was still a mystery. Ella had a lot of thinking to do if she wanted to try and scratch the surface of this killer’s worldview. ‘Still working on it. What do we know about the victim?’

‘House belongs to a man named Alfred Finch, who I can only assume is…’ Reeves gestured to the crucified man on the wall.

‘Any details on him?’

’51 years old, twice divorced. Works as an entomologist at the Virginia Museum of Natural History.’

Entomologist. The dead things behind glass suddenly made a sick sort of sense. ‘Well, it’s definitely the same unsub. That’s our only positive right now.’

‘We sure?’ Reeves asked.

'One hundred percent. Scenes and victimology might be different, but the brush strokes are the same. The eye for detail, the personalized method of murder. Serial killers usually select victims based on appearance, but our killer's targeting a personality type.'

‘Which is what? Collectors?’

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