Grayson

The vultures have landed.

From Portland to Bangor, a swarm of hungry, greedy scavengers have infiltrated every city and town. News crews, journalists, law enforcement, serial killer fanatics. Those hoping to get their fifteen minutes are infesting the area and squeezing me out, pushing me farther into the shadows.

Gaze trained on the laptop screen, I complete a rep. I lower my body, muscles strung tight, then pull myself up again. My chin meets the edge of the wooden beam, and suddenly I’m thrust back into an eight-by-five cell. White walls. Bars. The footfalls of guards. I release the beam with a groan, chest heaving.

The reporter on the monitor mentions Foster, and I crank the volume.

The New Castle detective is reported as recovering well, where he’s being kept in the ICU under heavy guard. No further updates…

He’ll recover enough before long. He’s only hindered, not broken.

Despite Foster’s interference and his brainless interviews with the press, I remain in the very state I once hunted in. Where I was apprehended and served a year of a life sentence behind bars at the Cotsworth Correctional Facility.

Daring or reckless?

I heard the safest place to hide is right beneath your enemy in plain sight.

I’m not sure if this statement merits any truth, as I can’t recall who first uttered such ludicrous words, but it serves my cause, my purpose, and so here I am.

Foster forced my hand, so now my choices are limited. Either I initiate the final phase, or I run.

Only one option aligns with my objective.

London.

The thread tethered between us is too strong to be broken by the simple threat of captivity or death. Black or not, dead or not…my heart beats because of her.

That’s a bit melodramatic—but this is all relatively new. It’s like I’m lovesick, belting ballads at her window. Or burying her alive… Which for us, is a clear affirmation of devotion. Not many possess that kind of dedication, that level of commitment, to their significant other.

Love is pain.

Real love—the one not spewed in poetry—is agony.

It tears at your soul, strips you bare, drives you mad and demands the veracity of our existence.

Love is madness.

I wipe my face and pull on a T-shirt. Adrenaline rushes my system. I pump my hands a couple times, then shake them out.

It’s time.

Foster’s meddling heroics is forcing me to initiate the next stage earlier than planned. I have to take a step back, rethink and realign the dominos. Detective Foster is not the copycat. Our little game proved as much. No matter the reason behind the killer’s motive, an imitator still has respect—admiration—for the object of their study. Meticulous analysis and recreation of a murder takes esteem on the copycat’s part, and Foster still loathes me just as much now as he did the first day he questioned me.

With Foster out of commission, I can focus my efforts on Nelson. He’s the most likely suspect.

And he’s with London.

My jaw sets. I think I’ve made a grave error on that end.

But with the FBI keeping vigilant watch over London, it can work.

A scene on the monitor captures my attention. A reporter stands in front of London’s building, giving the latest update. It’s not live. From earlier this morning.

London had only recently reopened her practice. Due to her sudden celebrity, the demand to be treated by Dr. Noble had boomed. The clinically insane and deviant arrived from all over the country. That frenzy settled once I was no longer front-page worthy.

According to the report, she’s again closed her practice. The shot clearly shows circus media freaks circling in front of her building. Then Agent Nelson emerges. My interest piques.

I watch curiously as Nelson and a couple of his proxies scatter the mob, clearing away the unwanted hindrance.

Sources report that Dr. Noble has temporarily closed her renowned practice. As you can see here, FBI agents have barricaded the downtown Bangor building, the location of the latest Angel of Maine sighting.

The scene switches, and a short glimpse of London exiting the hospital where Foster is being treated appears. A rare emotion clogs my throat. The beat of my pulse heavy and thick. My chest tightens.

I think this feeling is something akin to nostalgia. It’s difficult to feel homesick when the only places you’ve ever called home were ones you worked to escape from. But it’s the closest thing I can compare this emotion to.

She’s my home. And she’s my sickness.

I don’t push the ill feeling away; I latch on to it. Craving any feeling that I can relate to her. Then I get to work. I use the fiery ache in my chest to propel me forward.

I sit before my laptop, using the program I compiled to bounce my signal off proxies around the world. I’m not tech savvy—but the Internet is designed like any system. You just have to understand the mechanics.

You can be intelligent, a genius even, and still be fucking stupid. Using the Internet to target Agent Nelson isn’t the wisest when the FBI is hunting for my online activity.

One could describe that as stupidity. Arrogance. Conceit.

Or desperation.

But the deepening ache in my chest argues against logic. I’ve never understood the concept of sacrifice until now.

Nelson’s activities are pretty well masked. His use of the FBI’s equipment and channels makes him virtually invisible on the Net. But everyone leaves a trail. A distinct online footprint.

I’ve been shadowing his real life footprints, too. During my late-night strolls, I’ve set up checkpoints. Staging the board. The first in a series of suggestive images to trigger his compulsions.

See, regardless of his copycat nature, he’s still a deviant. He’s just simply an unoriginal one.

There’s a lot of unknown variables surrounding him. The biggest unknown: the why. He has the inside knowledge in order to get away with murder. He even has a couple stressors kicking around for us to ultimately decide the when. We don’t need his motive to trap him, but it would be beneficial to the design.

We do, however, need Agent Nelson to act on his compulsions sooner. We’re accelerating the timeline. If I’m devolving, my counterpart must devolve with me.

I pull up a map and mark off the checkpoints. The locations along his routes to the Rockland crime scenes.

To anyone else, the strategically placed posters of domestic abuse hotlines for women are inconsequential. To Nelson, the pictures entice deviant cravings. The farther along he gets, the more explicit the images become. Erotic images. Right in his line of sight.

The power of suggestion.

As Nelson moves through his day in pursuit of his target, he’ll become agitated. Off kilter. His subconscious primed.

If someone wants to fuck with you in today’s age, it’s not a difficult feat. It doesn’t take much technical skill to uncover an account password. Fill an inbox with spam of violent pornography. Target a user’s social media accounts to receive allusive content. Activate Web ads during Internet searches to recommend discrete call girls for those seeking release.

Keywords like “release” are trigger words.

The evocative images will arouse him, push him to act on his compulsions sooner.

A smart man once told me the wait for something to happen can drive a sane man mad. His wisdom got me through a year at Cotsworth. This man was my biological father, what little I recall of him. He also stated that when the madness started to creep in, there was nothing wrong with giving fate a push.

Take the initiative.

If people didn’t want to be manipulated, they wouldn’t make it so damn easy.

One final preparation secures that when the agent acts on his compulsion, it will be where I want him. In a controlled environment. That’s important. That’s key.

Every lock has a key.