Page 56 of Royal
Chapter 14
Gray
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said, scrubbing my hands over my face and taking deep, calming breaths.
“Nope.” Ruby slapped the morning newspaper on my desk.
The headline read: “Spring Fever Festival in Jeopardy? The Vanity Killer Still on the Loose.”
“The Vanity Killer?” I rubbed the back of my neck where it was suddenly tight. Goddammit, I’d been in a great mood, too. “The fuckers really named him?” I skimmed the article, growing more pissed by the second. It was a complete rundown on how he killed his victims, even detailing the placement of the bodies. “I’m going to wring Rogers’ neck for running his mouth to that anchor.”
It hadn’t been hard to find out which cop had told Royal’s co-anchor Michelle about the narcissus flowers: the youngest, unmarried one who had blushed scarlet when I’d confronted them all. The kid didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to tell, so he hadn’t been reprimanded. But because of his stupid actions, and despite Agent Stone’s warning about it being a threat to public safety, someone had spilled to the papers about it.
And now the killer has a fucking name.
Agent Stone barged into the room, his face grim. He walked over and grabbed the newspaper and briefly looked it over, before carefully placing it back on the table in a controlled rage. His nostrils flared, and he took a deep breath, much like I had.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” he said in a steady tone, nodding to his team. “Get back to work.”
I didn’t see how he could be so calm.
“Shit, the movies make this look so easy.” Ben, one of the other detectives, popped a squat in one of the empty chairs. “Feds come to town and two days later the guy is caught. Here we are at over a week, and we still have no leads.”
“Let’s go over the profile again,” Agent Stone said, staring at the victim board.
“We’re looking for a white male in his mid-twenties to early thirties,” Luke responded. He was younger than the other agents, and I’d gotten the impression this was one of the first big cases he’d been assigned since joining the BAU. “He’s an outcast, someone who has difficulty being in social settings, so he’ll be standoffish. Since he targets people he views as being vain, we can assume he has a poor self-image and has struggled with romantic relationships in the past. Has probably been rejected by many desired partners.”
“Bullshit,” Ben said with a scoff. “I’ve been rejected several times, and I never killed anyone because of it.”
“You’re not him.” Agent Stone gave Ben a hard stare. “Serial killers don’t think the same as other people. In order to catch them, we have to think as they do.”
“We believe the trigger for the killings must’ve been either a betrayal from someone he loved or an anniversary of some kind,” Luke continued. “Perhaps an ex-lover marrying someone else.”
I listened as they tossed around theories and debated on how the killer must’ve been traveling. Perhaps hitchhiking across state lines and then finding somewhere to hole up once in town. The likelihood of him having a job was low, so he had to be living off the bare minimum to get by.
It seemed like he’d never be found. He had no ties that we knew of to any of the communities he targeted, and he didn’t rent property or get a motel that we could trace. He was like a ghost. A very vengeful ghost that took lives.
Lieutenant Anderson walked in and pointed at me. “You. In my office. Now.”
Well, fuck. Had I done something wrong?
I followed him into his office. He slammed the door and went to his desk, but he didn’t sit. His weathered face looked even more so than normal.
“I’m getting way too old for this shit,” he said. “Reporters are outside wanting a statement. They want to know what we’re doing to find the sick bastard butchering people and if the feds have any leads. Just the usual bullshit. The paper this morning has stirred up a lot of fear among the people.”
“And you want me to make a statement?”
“Yes. Tell them we’re on the case, working hard, whatever you need to say to keep the panic at a minimum. There haven’t been any more deaths, so hell, tell the reporters that the killer might not even be here anymore. The Spring Fever Festival is in a few days, and the last thing Addersfield needs is a bad reputation.”
“Reputation doesn’t matter when lives are on the line,” I snapped, and then added, “sir.”
“This festival will bring in a lot of revenue for our community,” he said. “So go out there, make a statement, and make the people feel safe. When it’s festival time, we’ll have men there watching the place just in case, but we don’t need a panic. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
I left his office, grinding my teeth together. I didn’t give a fuck about the stupid festival, and the peopleneededto be cautious and on alert.
“Are you okay?” Agent Stone asked, approaching me.
