Disclaimer: I do not own Psych.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound echoed through Henry Spencer's bedroom, pulling him from his slumber. As he pried his eyes open, he glanced over his sleeping wife's body to the window where rain was pouring outside. Every few minutes, lightning flashed, lighting up the dark room. He sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall, revealing that it was six in the morning.
Now that he was up, there was no going back to sleep.
He pulled the blankets off of himself and got to his feet, carefully leaving the room as to not disturb his wife's sleep. They'd been fighting a lot lately and she was not a morning person. If he woke her up, he knew that she would start up again about how Henry wasn't spending enough time with his son. That had been the argument the night before. It had only stopped when they heard movement coming from Shawn's room and realized that he was still awake, listening to them.
They had fallen silent and quickly went to bed. They tried to keep their arguments away from their son's ears but the twelve year old was highly observant, a skill that Henry had taught him. He always knew that something was wrong. It was difficult to hide it from him. That didn't mean that they didn't try.
He reached the bathroom and quickly freshened himself up. He would be going into work in about two hours and he had some time to himself before his wife or son woke up.
His mind flashed to the case he was currently working on. Santa Barbara and the surrounding areas had recently had a string of kidnappings. The case was an odd one and it perplexed him. Each time, the parents of the child had received an envelope filled with pictures of their child doing normal activities. A letter was left warning the parents that they had a week to keep their child safe. If he could get to them in that week, they failed. If they could keep their child safe during that week, they won and he wouldn't bother them again. It was signed by The Rescuer.
If they failed and the child fell into the hands of their perp, their body was found three days later, a bullet in between their eyes. There wasn't a pattern as to where to bodies were found. An adorable Latina girl around the age of seven was found in the woods, a ten-year-old African American boy had been found in a lake. A fourteen year old girl's body had been dropped off at her own front lawn in the middle of the night.
It had been going on for four months now and there were fifteen children dead with the only thing tying them together being the threatening note their parents had received and the bullet between their eyes. Some of them sported other injuries (like a nine year old boy who was found in the woods car with a broken leg and bruises covering his chest) and some had been found with the single bullet wound (like the thirteen year old girl who was discovered on the side of the road.
They all had different races, different genders, different ages and different backgrounds. Rich and poor children had been taken, including a young boy whose father was the CEO of a major company and a little homeless girl. A few children had been discovered with injuries that had faded majorly and it had been revealed that their parents had been abusing them before they were taken, leading many people to believe that that was what connected them. Only, there were other children who hadn't been injured by their parents in any way. The boy with a father for a CEO might have not had a very good relationship with his father (as he was always working, it seemed) but the man had never laid a hand on the boy and it was obvious that he loved him very much.
Their perp was also smart. He never left any fingerprints or left behind any clues and the one time someone had spotted him (a younger sister to one of the victims), he'd been wearing a mask. They didn't have a single lead to go on.
Only two children who had been threatened hadn't been taken. The man always threatened them against going to the police but after the week was up, the two sets of parents had practically bolted to the station. It had been rather surprising, actually. The first child to have been successfully protected from their perp had been an Ashley Anderson, an eight year old Caucasian girl whose parents had refused to let her out of their sights during that week, going as far as tell the school she was sick so that she didn't go to school. Both the parents and the little girl had been interviewed thoroughly, trying to see if they had noticed anything strange during that week. They hadn't.
The second had been a fourteen year old girl by the name of Priscilla Richardson. Her parents (or mother, as her father had died a few years back) had responded by sending her to her grandparents' house in Tennessee for the week.
The two girls had been early on, though. Ashley had been child #3 and Priscilla was child #5. The 17th child had been killed just a few days earlier. Ronald Thompson had gone missing the day after his parents had found the letter and his body was found, like all the others, three days later with a gone shot to the head. His body was found in an abandoned car in the middle of the woods. The car had been there for weeks. They were fairly certain that the killer had found it in the woods and decided to leave the body there.
One family had broken the killer's rules and told the police. A day later, both of them had been killed and the child was gone, only to be found three days later.
He'd gotten smarter. That much was obvious. No one had been able to protect their children since Priscilla. He'd gotten them on their way home from school, from their backyards, and even from a grocery store.
He left no trace, no clues that would help them discover his identity.
The public wasn't aware of the case. At least, not as aware as the police department. Obviously, people had caught onto the fact that several children had been killed but no one knew it was linked.
Four months had passed and they were no closer to discovering the identity of the killer than they were when the first child turned up dead.
"Oh, for goodness sakes," Henry said under his breath as he shook his head. He didn't need to think about it this early in the morning. He was already getting a headache and he still had a day of investigating the case to look forward to.
Entering the kitchen, he grabbed a bowl and was about to make some cereal when something caught his eye.
There was an envelope in front of the door, having been stuck through the mail slot. It was too early for the mailman to have come and the envelope was large and bulky.
Swallowing down his fear, as he remembered going through the envelope of the many children from Santa Barbara who had been brutally murdered, he walked towards it. Thunder crashed outside, reminding him of the storm.
He stood above the envelope and could clearly see the words "To the Parents of Shawn Spencer" that had been created through letters that had been cut from magazines.
Unconsciously, his hands moved to the envelope but he pulled them away as he got some sense back in him. He rushed to the bathroom where he kept a box of latex gloves, just in case, and came back. If he was going to be sifting through the photos, he was definitely going to make sure that he didn't destroy any evidence. If there were fingerprints on them (which he doubted there were), he wanted to make sure they could get them.
He gently opened the envelope, making sure to preserve it as best as he could. Carrying it to the kitchen, he quickly sat down and began to sift through its contents.
The letter, with its bright colors due to the magazine letters, stuck out immediately and he pulled it out to confirm his worst fears.
To the Parents of Shawn Spencer,
You have one week to keep your child away from me. If I can get to him, you fail and his body will be found three days after he is in my care. If you can keep him safe, you win. Do not tell anyone you have received this letter other than your spouse.
The Rescuer.
He could feel bile coming up his throat. The monster was targeting his son. His child was #18.
There were dozens of photos along with the letter; photos of his son. They ranged from the child walking to school with his best friend, Burton Guster, to riding his bike in the street to walking through the grocery store with Madeline. There were even some more disturbing photos like one that had been taken through the windows of Shawn's school, catching the boy as he took a test, and one that had been taken through the windows of Henry's own house, catching the child watching cartoons in the living room.
He swallowed, heart thudding quickly in his chest. Sure, it had been frightening to look at the photos of the dead children and see how the man had followed them around before even threatening the parents but it was another to have his own son being the one who had been followed.
A sudden urge to see his son, to make sure he was okay, overwhelmed him and he gripped several photos in his glove-clad hand as he bolted up the stairs. He practically threw the door to Shawn's room open in an attempt to check on the child and relief ran through his veins at the sight of the twelve year old, sprawled out on the bed and sleeping soundly, unaware that his life was in danger.
Henry was going to keep it that way. His son didn't need to know that anything was wrong. Henry could keep the boy safe for a week. He was a police officer after all. No one was coming near his son.
First things first, Henry needed to make sure that someone was with his son at all times and if that meant bribing the boy with ice cream to let him take him to and from school, so be it.
He would buy his son all the ice cream in the world if that meant that some sicko didn't rip his son from him.
Taking a deep breath, he headed to his room to inform his wife of the new development that had arose.
AN: So this is my new Psych story! It's going to be pretty short (probably only four chapters) and it's set up as a Prequel for another story that I'm going to be writing. I hope you guys like it!