Page 9 of The Girl He Wanted

Crucially, why here? Was the location important?

Paige looked around, taking in her surroundings. There was nothing remarkable about the area, just fields stretching out in all directions. That made her wonder why the killer had chosen this spot. The city presumably had plenty of high up places. Was it a personal connection to him? Or was it just a convenient location where he could carry out his murderous plan without being seen?

Christopher was already examining the tower, his eyes scanning every inch of it for clues. Paige joined him, taking note of everything around her. She saw nothing that stood out, nothing that might give them a hint of who the killer was or why he had chosen this location.

Paige couldn't shake the feeling that there was some significance to the water tower. It was too specific of a location for the killer to have chosen it randomly. But what was it?

"We'll need to climb if we want to see the spot where Bea Milling died," Christopher pointed out, nodding towards a rusty looking ladder that led up the side of the water tower.

Paige was fine with that. She wasn't scared of heights. But she had to admit that the water tower didn’t look like the most stable thing to climb. Still, if it was the only way to get answers in the case, that was what they had to do.

Together, they began to climb the ladder, hand over hand, their shoes clanging on the rungs. Paige could feel her pulse racing with the effort of the climb as they ascended, but she kept her eyes focused on the rungs in front of her and kept going.

Finally, they reached the top, and Paige took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She looked around, taking in the view. They were high up, with a clear view of the surrounding countryside. It was beautiful, in an eerie sort of way. Even so, all Paige could think about was that this was how it must have looked to Bea Milling as her throat was cut by the killer.

Christopher was already examining the area where the victim had been found. Paige joined him, taking note of the small pool of dried blood that marked the spot where Bea Milling had been killed.

Paige took out her phone, calling up the case files on the murder. Specifically, she pulled up the crime scene photographs, wanting to get a sense of exactly where everything there had been. Paige wanted to get a sense of how things must have happened in case it told her and Christopher anything new about the killer and his methods.

"Bea Milling must have been killed here," she said, gesturing to the spot on the very edge of the tower where the bloodstain was.

Christopher nodded, his eyes scanning the area. "Yes, it looks like it. The blood spatter pattern matches up with the photographs."

Paige shuddered, feeling a sense of sadness and horror wash over her. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Bea Milling to be up there alone with a killer, knowing that she was about to die and that there was no one who could help her.

"We need to find something," Paige said, almost to herself. "Anything that could help us catch this guy. There has to be something here."

Christopher nodded. "Let's keep looking."

Together, they searched the water tower, looking for any sign of the killer's presence. Paige was beginning to feel frustrated again. There was nothing here that could help them. No clues, no evidence. It was as though the killer had left no trace of himself behind.

Yet, as she searched, a question started to come to her, one that was hard for Paige to ignore.

"Christopher, how do you think the killer got Bea Milling up here? It's a long way up, and there's no way that anyone could climb that ladder while hauling a struggling person up with them."

Christopher looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know. Maybe he had help."

Paige nodded. It was possible, but it didn't feel right to her. "I think a killer like this is more likely to work alone. Serial killers ... it's rare that they work together. And from a practical perspective, getting Bea up the ladder would have been just as difficult with two people as with one."

"Well, maybe he rigged up some kind of system to haul her up once he was up here. The coroner's report says that he drugged her before he brought her up here, right?"

"That's it," Paige agreed. "The killer must have used a rope to haul Bea Milling up here. He would have had to tie it off on the water tower somewhere."

That thought had her looking around the edges of the tower trying to find anything that might corroborate that theory. She lay down, leaning over the edge of the water tower, trying to get a better view. She assumed that the killer would have taken the rope with him, but maybe there would be marks where it had rubbed against the metal of the tower to show how the killer had done it.

What Paige saw was even better. There were fibers there, snagged against one of the water tower's struts. Paige reached for them ...

... and felt her balance starting to give way as she did so.

"Careful, Paige!" Christopher said. Paige felt him grabbing her legs to brace her, holding her in place so that she wouldn't fall. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she could feel Christopher holding her, the strength in his arms more than enough to keep her in place while she reached for the fibers.

Her fingers snagged them, right on the edge of her reach. She pulled them back in even as Christopher lifted her back onto the safety of the water tower. Paige lay on her back for several seconds, breathing hard. Even as she did so, she held up the fibers to examine them. They were yellow and synthetic, strangely smooth to the touch.

"Rope fibers," she said, holding them up for Christopher to see.

He took them from her, looking at them intently, as if he might be able to divine the identity of the killer if he just looked hard enough.

"Not just any rope fibers. This is synthetic climbing rope."

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