The Crush List Killer

Number 10

I held a stare and my jaw the same as I glared into the payment. My clothes were wranked beyond repair and by the look of the time I was far past any reasonable explanation for tardiness. 

Even if I wanted to leave, my feet held firm. And something inside coaxed me to move forward. To ask him questions. About graduate school. Traveling. If he plans on staying for the end of the semester. I try to stop myself and the giddy,  boiling feelings that rise into my throat and threaten to pour out. Pushing it down to a sizzling ember of dramatic rage. And I pull my head up and smirk, imaging the horror the inner drama queen. 

He seems unaffected. As if he had meant to knock me to the ground in order to get an audience and possibly a reaction. He tilts his head from one side to the next. Eyes trailing. 

"You have grown." Another head tilt. 

"That is what comes with time. Well until we get to a point and start shrinking." I could not tell if it was a try at humor or not, but he laughed anyway. A deep yet soulless sound. 

"I was hoping I would run into you." 

"Why is that? Here to drag me into more of your lawyer nonsense. Oh wait that was your father, you never made it into law school." 

He expression darkened. Good. 

"Law school or no I think im doing alright. Being a sports agent pays the bills and then some." A smirk. 

"Congratulations. Now if you will excuse me, I have a forensic class to attend. I am already late." 

I turn, shoving my phone in my pocket and keeping my head up. I could feel his gaze bearing a hole in my back. I tried my best to ignore it and the sound of his footsteps following. We walk in silence for a moment. My mind a tangled web of infinite possibilities. Be followed all the way to the steps of the building my classmates and I call 'The death lab' and stops short. 

"From your silence, I can guess you have not heard the news as of late?" His voice is brittle and dry. 

"I can not talk to you right now Nick, I'm already late." 

I reach for the handle to the main set of doors, "you might not want to go in there!" I stop short. 

His voice had changed. Not longer his smooth accent. Paniced. As if behind the door held some real danger. I turned to him only slightly, holding the door open and feeling my flesh prickle up with more bumps at the cold ac air. 

"What? Did a dog die?" I could have sworn his eyes got big. 

"Not quite." 

"If you are not going to provide a strait answer oh Ex of mine, I will be on my way." 

There was no mistaking how large his eyes grew at my bluntness. No mistaking the large gulp of air he pulled in as he fiddled with the cuff of his blazer. 

"What about I tell you over lunch. A late one I understand," a slight glance at his watch, "Its nearly three." 

His body tensed to the point of agony. Something inside me heated into a scolding boil. Was it the way his brow arched at his question? The way his eyes watched my hand as it held the door? The fear behind his always composed persona? I could not tell. But relaxed my hand on the door and allowed it to close. 

"What is it that you can not tell me now?" My body burned. My palms itched and I dug my hand in my pocket to keep it from twitching. 

He licked his lips and I watched. As if in slow motion. My mind hummed. 

He sighed finally after a long agonizing moment of silence. "Charlie Barker was killed." 

I did not react the way he expected. That was evident in the several large steps he took back, nearly stepping into the street. I did not move. Did not scream. Nothing. I simply placed my hand back on the handle and pulled my foot into the doorway. Trying to keep my hand from shaking. 

"I am sorry for your loss. Nicky. But I had no love for that man. So I will continue to feel no love or loss over his passing. Now, if that is all." I move to enter the building. Hoping the lie I was telling came off as truth. As the image of my list at home floods my vision and slowly crosses the number ten with a red ink, it oozes down the paper. I shiver at the mental image. 

"WAIT!" His deep voice echoes along the halls. "There is more. The killer left a note. It had a date on it. June 17th. And a message… you know who is next." 

"And why does that concern me? MY BROTHER was a part of that incident all those years ago, not me!" 

I walk inside. But as the door closes his voice echoes again. "Because under it had your name!!" 

I stopped. The air around me burned and sweat slicked my shirt to my torso. I turned slowly and glared at him through the door. He had ascended the steps and stood outside the key card doors. Hands in his pockets. 

That man lived in this town. 

There are no other forensic facilities in the city. That means he is in this building. Shoved in a metal drown several floors below.

Footsteps echo from somewhere down the hall. Male, by the deep tapping of the heel. I turn once more and refrain from choking on the panic that fills my lungs.

"Hello Detective." 

                                  *
(2 days ago) 
PoV: Killer

My hands are slick. Damp and dry at the same time that it takes several hand washing attempts to clear the dark splotches from my skin. The sound of the sink dripping into the red water is the only thing I can hear. Save the rushing of the wind outside and the pounding of my own heart against my chest.

 It had not taken long. After I sent the note. Printed out and handled with care and gloves to keep my finger prints off the paper. He showed up in a black Mercedes. Stepped out with a shotgun poised in both hands. Baral aimed at anything that moved in the shadows of the warehouse. 

When he saw me, he froze. Not out of fear. No, if he had felt fear he would have ran. He would have shot. He would have yelled. No. He was surprised and lowered his weapon until he just had one hand around the shaft. He put his other hand up and greeted me kindley. 

He did not see the glare I gave him in return. He did not see the gun the held in my hand. He only heard the loud bang as I pulled the trigger the first time. The impact knocked him into his car door, that he had left open. 

I stepped out of the shadows. Walked up to the car. Letting loose three more into his legs. One into his abdomen. All non lethal shots. 

He screamed. A guttural sound. And then he begged. Tears streaming from his eyes words slurred. 

I pulled my gun to my chest and loaded three more bullets. I then sat before him, humming a tune that left him shaking and soudless. With my glived hand I pulled out a note and dipped it in his pool of blood before rising and placing it on the hood of his car. 

I then stalked back to him. Eyes gleaming. He mumbled something. I still can't recall what. I unloaded two more rounds. 

Into his head.