Page 20 of The Girl He Wanted

Christopher shook his head. “It’s complicated, and I don’t want to get into it now, like this. We need to get some sleep. We have a case to solve.”

He went into his motel room then and, although a part of Paige wanted to follow him, she knew that she couldn’t, not now. They both had to focus on the case.

It was a struggle to get to sleep. They were back to square one on this case, and she couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something crucial. They and the local PD had looked into every obvious lead and interviewed everyone they could think of, but nothing was adding up.

Jack Reynolds had been the obvious suspect, but his alibi checked out. If he wasn’t the killer, then who did that leave? More to the point, where were Paige and Christopher meant to find new information?

Paige slept badly that night, still trying to think of an answer. By the time Christopher came knocking on her door the next morning, Paige thought that she had one.

"I want to go to the clock tower," Paige said to Christopher, as he held out coffee for her. "We checked out the water tower, but when we hit on a lead there, it meant that we never took the time to look over the spot where Ellie Kane was killed."

She saw Christopher nod his agreement. "Maybe we'll find something there that will point us in a new direction. At the very least, it will give us a better sense of what's going on."

They headed out. Paige had the files from the case available on her phone and started to read through them again while Christopher drove, just in case she'd missed something the first time around.

"What are you looking for?" Christopher asked, without taking his eyes from the road.

"I don't know.Something. Anything that stands out. Anything that might point us in the right direction." The hard part was that Paige didn't know what that would look like, so she had to pore over every detail, reading through the crime scene reports, staring at the pictures there, hoping that something would jump out at her and spark a new train of thought.

"I still don't know what to make of the letters the killer drew on the victims with their blood," Paige said. That was probably the strangest component of all of this, even stranger than the way the killer had displayed his victims so high up after he'd killed them. "The Greek lettersalphaandbeta. What does he mean by doing that?"

Christopher pulled the car to a halt in front of the administrative building that held the clock tower. "It's obviously meant to be some kind of clue or message, presumably aimed at us. Maybe it's just a sick game to the killer. Or maybe it's like you said before. Maybe he's just working his way through the alphabet."

Could it be as simple as that? Would there be women marked with the lettersgammaanddelta, all the way up toomega? Was the killer planning that many murders if they didn't find a way to stop him? The thought of that only added to the pressure Paige felt to solve this case.

Something about the letters continued to tug at the edges of Paige's mind, though, something that wouldn't let her let go of the thought of them. She realized with a start that this couldn’t just be alphabetical, for one simple reason.

"They're in the wrong order," Paige said.

She saw Christopher frown at that. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Bea Milling was the first victim, but she was labeled with the letterbeta," Paige explained. "Ellie Kane was second, but she was labeled withalpha. They're out of order if he's working his way through the alphabet. It must be something else."

"But we have no way of knowingwhatelse right now," Christopher pointed out. He looked over at the clock tower. "We need to focus on what's in front of us. Maybe that will help us."

They were parked in front of the town's administration building, with its grand clock tower that stretched up in almost gothic splendor, with spikes and jutting gargoyles that seemed out of place against the backdrop of the coastal town.

They got out of the car, looking up at the towering structure above them. Paige took a deep breath, feeling a sense of unease wash over her. The Greek letters still wouldn’t leave the back of her mind. She had a feeling that they were getting closer to the truth, but she didn't know if she was ready for what they might find.

They headed into the clock tower through a door marked off with police tape. Ellie Kane had been killed at the top, and that meant a long climb.

They made their way up the winding staircase, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the walls. When they reached the top, Christopher went to the edge of the platform, scanning the area while Paige went to look at the spot where Ellie Kane had been killed.

From there, she looked out over the city. As with the water tower, the view was stunning, but all Paige could focus on was the empty spot where Ellie Kane had once been. She couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something crucial here. Why put the victims so high up? Why doanyof this in this specific way when it must have taken the killer so much time and effort to do it all?

Paige tried to focus on the physical scene around her. It didn't take long for her to spot something that made her heart race. There was a small piece of rope on the edge of one of the stones caught on a rusted nail.

"Christopher, come over here," she called out.

He made his way over, taking in the sight. "That's interesting. It looks like the same kind of rope we found at the other murder scene,"

He pulled out an evidence bag to collect it.

"It looks like it's been cut, rather than untied. Let's get this to forensics and see what they can find out. Maybe this will lead us to the killer."

"If it's the same type as the previous rope, I'm not sure if it gives us much more," Paige said.

"It's something, though," Christopher insisted.

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