Annie Brown was chief of Police at the Denver Police Department. She made the struggle of being a single mom with a child, working on the front lines away from home look easy. It seemed she didn't mind the half hour drive from the cozy town of Evergreen to the station, but Annie never truly spoke her mind all that much despite her intelligence.
She had seen the worse of the worse, the best of the best, and there was even times when she wasn't so sure what she was seeing. Almost like now. The way Brian's body was found was unlike any one of Jeff's victims. That she had seen anyway. She had reviewed the report nearly twenty times now and had gained the interest of the pathologist.
"You're still reading that?" The young man asked, having cleaned up after performing Brian's autopsy. "It's not going to change no matter how many times you re-read it."
Annie sighed and threw the report down, massaging her temples with her index and middle fingers. "Glen, it doesn't make any sense."
"What doesn't?"
"When I took up my first Jeff victim, I read up on any and all information I could find on him. Believe me there was a lot, too. But every single murder file was the same; sharp knife with a wide blade, but a shallow cut and then he tore them open with his bare hands." She rested her chin on her knuckle, staring down at Brian's photo. "So what made him special?"
Glen peeked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "How is he special?" As an answer he got the manilla folder shoved into his hands.
"The knife Jeff usually uses is a seven-inch long french chef's kitchen knife, but normally any cuts are about three inches deep. Except on Brian. He shoved all seven inches of that blade into this boy's stomach, and I want to know why. Why throw off his pattern now? After all these years?"
"Annie," He said, tossing the file down again. "what do you expect? The guy is insane.."
She shook her head. "I know. But maybe..just maybe, there is a method to his madness." She heard the man scoff but did not look at him, instead she unlocked the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a thick manilla folder. Paperclipped to the front of the ever popular internet photo of Jeff. "I took a look into the first murders, his family. I spoke to some neighbors and some old friends. Just before they were killed, Margeret and Jonathon Woods were said to have often been seen arguing with one another. And a month before, Jon filed for divorce. Coincidence? I think not."
"So the guy came from a broken home, a lot of serial killers and psychopaths do."
She shot him a glare. "Shut up and listen. I began noticing a pattern. After I looked into his parents' files, I found Margeret a control freak and Jon a reformed alcoholic on the verge of relapse. His parents tried to keep their own hold on him and it cost them their lives. His brother, Lui, seemed to be the only one who cared. Must have been the heat of the moment..."
Glen took another sip of his coffee. "And what about everyone else?"
"The next victims were the boys who were said to be at the birthday party the day Jeff got lit on fire. All of them turned up dead and the supposed leader, Randy Shaul, was found in a similar way as Brian here."
"What about the hundreds after them?"
Annie slowly sat back in her chair, brown eyes hard and focused. "They were people who mocked him. People he didn't even know but they mocked him." She slowly turned to look at him, realization dawning on her and causing her eyes to widen. "That's the pattern.."
Glen blinked. "So he kills anybody who says shit about him?"
She quickly shook her head. "Not just that! It's all based on personal gain! He killed his parents because that drove him to the point of insanity. He killed the boys because of physical abuse. And everyone else didn't believe or were so cocky they claimed they could kill him. It's all personal.."
The man looked back to Brian's file, brows furrowing in some confusion. "Brian had no idea who Jeff was though. His friends said so and there was no evidence of him having any remote interest." That was true. Annie was able to connect every other murder to motive, except Brian's. It was like his murder really was at random. Nothing pinned a personal threat against Jeff in anyway.
Because the personal threat was already pinned on his shirt...
Annie shot up out of her chair, scaring Glen, and rushed over to her evidence board. She took down the crumbled and bloody note in its evidence bag, reading the words carefully.
THIS IS FOR MESSING WITH MY LITTLE GIRL!
"Oh my God..," She whispered. She turned back to the pathologist. "This is it, this is what connects Brian to Jeff! "This is for messing with my little girl"? Doesn't it sound like something a vengeful father would write?"
He stared at her in disbelief-or maybe it was fear? "Ann, are you ACTUALLY considering..-?" He watched as she nodded slowly.
"Jeffrey Woods has a daughter...and she was at that party."
The two girls bounded their way down the stairs, the redhead making her way all the way to her mother and hugging her tightly. "Hi mom! Is it okay if Emma spends the night? Please? please please please please please?"
Annie gently pet her daughter's head, glancing over to Emma and smiling brighter. "You already know she can. Emma, you're welcome here anytime you want. I swear, if I had the money I would adopt you and Jeffrey right on the spot."
Emma blushed some with a smile as she rubbed the back of her neck. "Thanks, Ms. Brown, but Jeff and I are fine on our own really."
"You say that but why don't I believe you?"
"Because you're a cop?"
The woman snorted, going to the fridge and pulling out the shredded chicken meat she had prepared earlier that day. "I sometimes think your brother wears off on you, Em."
The brunette teen shrugged. "I wear off on him and he wears off on me. Can't help it. But can we help you?" She asked, her friend nodding with her. They came closer at Annie's nod and began helping her; Christian took the meat from her as Emma grabbed a cutting knife and the enchilada sauce. Annie couldn't help but laugh and shake her head. "You're over here so much you know the kitchen by heart. You're practically my second daughter."
Emma didn't object, smiling even as Annie ruffled her hair before kissing her head.
Neither of them saw the crouched figure on the stairs, glaring at them but his stare set especially on Annie. He tightened his grip on the railing hard enough for his knuckles to crack. He slunked back up the stairs to the master bedroom, hand sliding into his pocket to grip the handle of his knife tight.
"Hey mom, do we still have brownie mix?"
"I think so, why?"
Christian looked to Emma who grinned back and both girls said in unison, "No reason."
"This had to be by far the weirdest Summer ever." Christian stared up at her ceiling, her and Emma having changed into their pajamas after dinner was cleaned up. "I mean I barely see you at all and people are getting murdered every other day, it's just weird.."
Emma nudged her with her foot. "I know..it's like everything just feels off, right? I've been having that feeling for the past month now."
"Like somethings off?"
"No," Emma shook her head and sat up to look at her friend. "Like..something big is about to happen. I don't know what yet, but it's gonna be big."
The two girls looked at each other before bursting out in laughter that had them doubling over, Chris even falling off her bed. "Oh my gosh, that was the stupidest thing I ever heard!" She snorted. Emma hiccuped, clutching her stomach with tears nearly running down her face. "I know!" They soon calmed down, taking in large gulps of air with small giggles leaving them.
"Hey, you wanna make the brownies now?"
Emma raised an eyebrow at checked the clock. "Now? It's 11:48 at night.."
"So?" Christain put her elbows on the bed at looked at her friend.
"It's a little late don't you think?"
"Come on!" Chris got up and pulled Emma off the bed. "Let's be the friends that can do this, let's be the friends that can make brownies at 11 o' clock at night!"
The blue-eyed teen groaned for a second, closing her eyes and thinking about it. Emma cracked an eye open and grinned at her friend. "Okay."
Both teenagers squealed in delight as they hurried down the stairs but Emma quickly hushed her friend. "Shut up! We can't let your mom we're still up!"
"It's not my mom we have to worry about," Chris said as she jumped off the last step, turning back to the other girl and wavering her fingers. "It's Jeeeeeeeeeff~!"
Emma snorted again, rolling her eyes and walking past her friend to flip on the kitchen lights. "Yeah right, like even he would be dumb enough to break into the house of an armed police officer."
"Jeff ain't scared of shit!" Chris shot back as she got down the box of brownie mix. "Not even my mom terrifies him, probably still couldn't even with a gun pointed at his head." Emma was about to say something before they heard a thump from upstairs and froze. Uh oh..if Annie caught them up this late, they would be in so much trouble! They stared silent for a few moments before Emma pressed her index finger to her lips. "Shh!"
"Sorry." Chris whispered, setting the box down quietly and dramatically tip toeing to her fridge to grab the eggs, causing her friend to roll her eyes again. "You're so over dramatic."
"Hey, you said you didn't want my mom to know we wer-" Another thump from upstairs stopped her midsentence, this one harder than the first. Both girls looks wearily to eachother and then to the stairs, half expecting a chair to come rolling down after an angry police chief but none came.
"Does your mom always make this much noise at night?" Emma asked Christian. The redhead shook her head, closing the fridge after completely forgetting the eggs.
"No. But lately she's been really stressed at work over this murder. She could just be blowing off some ste-" This time, the sound of a lamp smashing caused both girls to jump and yelp. Finally there was silence and neither of them liked that, walking cautiously toward the stairs.
"Mom?" Christian called up into the darkness. "Was that you?"
More silence.
"Momma?"The redhead looked to her friend, terror in her hazel eyes. Emma swallowed, slowly taking a step up the staircase, then another, and another. There was a muffled scream and both girls shot up the stairs into the master bedroom.
"MOM!" They threw open the door and froze in their tracks.
Annie was against the wall, her mouth covered by a hand and a knife pressed dangerously close to her neck. The culprit had his back turned to them but glanced back when he heard the other voices.
Chris gasped, her eyes widened in horror as her mother's attacker finally turned enough to face them. She didn't want to believe it, but the signs were all there. The paste white skin, the deep rings around his eyes and the gruesome cut up smile on his face. She gripped Emma's arm harder as tears began to climb to her eyes.
"Em, it's him..it's..Jeff."
