The Illusionists

Part two: 49

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Chapter one: Cab Driver

The drive back to her motel was a quiet one. Jamie tried to keep her mind empty of any thought and constantly checked her rear view mirror. Her mind always wandered back to the warehouses. She could not tell whether she was happy or even satisfied at all. Sometimes she could feel her hands trembling when she looks at shard on her passenger seat.  

The motel was nothing special. It was basically a run-down building that was mostly unoccupied which gave Jamie a lot of privacy. She walked into her room with the empty water bottle and the piece of broken glass. It was a small room with a single bed, a bathroom that emits a foul smell and a tiny kitchen that has no appliances at all. Jamie checked to see if the binds are closed before stripping out of her blood stained clothes. She threw the clothes on the growing pile of her laundry and went to the bathroom. Breathing through her mouth, Jamie scrubbed herself clean. Her arm was itched and skin flaked off.  

Jamie turned the cold water off but continued to stand there, suddenly over-come with hopelessness. Forty nine of them were left and she knew each would be a tougher opponent than the other. It seemed impossible that she could stop all of them. Then there was a chance that the police would know of her involvement in the Acid Man's death. She was not as careful as she should have been. This made the challenge even more daunting. 

After Jamie got out of the bathroom, she put some clothes on, went to bed and drifted off to an uneasy sleep. In the morning, she went to a diner for breakfast after buying as many newspapers as she could find and read them over a cup of coffee. The death of the Acid Man and the discovery of six more of his victims made front page news on all of them but behind the sensational headings, the papers did not give any new information. Jamie wanted to know more about how much the police knew. At this point it occurred to her that they would get finger prints from her revolver, perhaps a DNA sample from any of the many shards that pierced her and tire tracks she left can be used to find her car. She had to be more careful this time. 

Jamie went on her laptop when she returned to the motel. She hacked into the Tulsa police's database. Her next target killed fifteen people in the sub-urban area. All of them were tied up to their beds, which were found upright in their homes, with stab wounds on various body parts. The number of stab wounds depended on what number the victim was. The wounds were 3 1\/2 inches deep and 2 1\/2 wide. There was no signs of forced entry. An officer have reported seeing a man inside the house of one of the victims but he disappeared in a 'black cloud'. They could only describe him as a tall man having no time to notice anything else in his physique.  

She had read all police reports by night fall. She felt discouraged at how much time it would take her to track him down. Not to mention the number of people who will die before she finds him. She became very tired after that but it took her hours to sleep. The next day, Jamie paid the owner of the motel and left for Oklahoma on road. There was almost 2000 miles in between which gave Jamie proper time to plan her moves. She switched to Bed and Breakfasts when she could no longer handle the tacky food in some of the road-side diners. They cost more than the average motel but the food was worth it. Everyday, Jamie read the New York Times on line. The police had released a statement saying that the Acid Man was killed by a person he intended to kill. They said that they had blood found on broken glass and they would cross reference with the DNA samples from the bodies to make sure that the blood is not from one of them. 

Five days later Jamie arrived at Tulsa. She had decided to stay in Tulsa while she tracked him down. On the first night she got out a map of the city she had bought and taped it to the wall. She had already marked the areas where the murders where happening and saw that there was no pattern. She then hacked into the database again and began profiling the victims. She turned on her tape recorder. 

" The first to be killed was Arlene Adamson, a thirty year old paralegal. She was found two days after she was murdered by her mother, a single wound to the heart. The next victim was Ruth Mercado, a maid, was found in the same position. There was evidence of physical assault because her stitches from a recent brain surgery had been opened. The stab wounds were in both lungs." Jamie looked at the pictures of her face. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth covered in blood.