He paused, as if wanting to say something, but turned to leave.
I spun away, still trying to catch my breath as I pretended to examine the ads on the student bulletin board.
One ad caught my eye, and I pulled it off and read. Do you have a nice voice? Want to double or triple your income and work from home? Call us and leave a message. If we like what we hear, we'll call you back.
If I could double or triple my income, I could actually survive the rest of the year. I dialed the number to the telemarketing job and left a message in my most professional voice and hung up, heart racing.
With a renewed hope for the future, and not a small amount of daydreaming about Mr. Mystery Man, I headed home, completely forgetting for the first time in years what day it was.
It wasn't until I checked the mail that I remembered.
With trembling hands I opened the card, always on the same embossed cream stationary. Always typed in Helvetica twelve-point font. Always postmarked from a different city in the country.
And always with the same message. Another year and still alone. One is such a lonely number.
I dropped the card and stood there shaking, trying to breathe. I called Brig but got her voicemail. "He found me again. The man who killed my parents. He found me."
Chapter Two
The Price of Morals
"WHERE IS DETECTIVE Reynolds?"
The tall, muscular officer sitting in front of me frowned, which accentuated the dimple in his chin. "He's on vacation. I'm handling his cases while he's gone." He sounded tired and stressed and not inclined to listen to my problems, but I didn't care. If I'd learned anything since the night my parents were murdered it was that you had to make them listen.
I handed him the plastic baggie with the letter and envelope. "I touched it before I realized what it was, then only handled it with gloves to preserve any evidence."
He peered at me with cutting blue eyes that contrasted nicely with his dark hair sprinkled with a touch of grey at the temples. "What is it?"
"Another letter from the killer."
"What killer?"
I sighed. "Didn't you pull up my file?"
He shrugged. "I just got in."
I bristled at his arrogance as we sat at his less than tidy desk. "Officer… " I glanced at the papers stacked by his computer since he hadn't bothered to introduce himself… "Gray. I'm Catelyn Travis. Seven years ago, when I was fifteen, my parents were killed in front of me by the Midnight Murderer. I was left alive, and the killer was never caught, but every year on the anniversary of their death—"
"You get a letter." Gray skimmed through a folder. "Sent from different parts of the country. Always says the same thing, yeah, yeah, it's all here."
I pointed to the baggie in his hand. "It's from the killer."
"Or a prank."
"Who else would be so persistent? For so many years?"
"A bad prank then."
I tapped my foot, irritated after waiting three hours for this guy. Waiting amidst people who had forgotten how to shave and had likely pissed themselves, by the stench of it. The police department did nothing to soften the harsh edges of the environment. Everything smelled and looked run down.
"It's a clue to catch the bad guys," I said. "You know, what you guys are supposed to be getting paid to do."
"That's right, we are supposed to be getting paid, and I'm still waiting for my overtime. So unless you have information on a crime, let me be, let me do my job in peace."
How dare he take his frustration out on me? "Then do it, Officer. Catch the killer."
"It's Detective," he said gruffly. "Not Officer." An angry silence hung in the air. Then Gray sighed. "There's not much we can do with some paper in a baggie, but I'll talk to Reynolds, see if we can come up with something."
"There's a lot you can do with'some paper,'" I said with air quotes. "First, you could find out this stationary is rare and only printed by a privately owned company in Venice, Italy. It's expensive coated paper with a custom watermark. Whoever is sending these clearly has wealth and connections. They also travel, or have brought someone in on their schemes to mail the letters for them. You could test it for prints, for saliva DNA, for the ink of the printer, though that will likely not lead anywhere. You could subpoena the stationary company for a list of their clients both here and overseas and see if anyone might match the profile created about my parents' murderer. You could do quite a bit with 'some paper' if you gave a rat's ass about solving cases."
He whistled. "Thanks, Sherlock."
"Excuse me?"