Darker Still by T. S. Worthington Page B

popped into his head sounded totally ludicrous. So he said nothing. He just held her tight and tried to get her to her feet and away from the kitchen.
    As soon as he had her somewhat stable he called it in.
     
    “I don’t believe this,” Chief Michaels said.
    He rubbed his eyes and tried to get rid of the image that was burned into his brain. John knew the procedure because he had tried to do the same thing. It was to no avail. In fact it was downright stupid.
    John told the chief the whole story and waited for his reaction that never really came. The chief just stared into space in that way of his that said he had seen too much in this world to really be affected by much and it was time for him to move on and see if he could salvage just a little bit of the human being that he used to be. But that day was not coming any time soon apparently.
    John watched as the techs took the eyeballs and placed them in a secure evidence bag and put that on ice. He hoped that they were still able to get a positive ID on them since they had been above temperature for a while. Cheryl had wanted to go to a friend’s house so she had called her girlfriend who picked her up about an hour ago. John had been reluctant to let her go, but they sent a couple of officers to keep an eye on the girls. It made John feel a little better, but not much.
    “I can’t figure out how he got in. There was no sign of forced entry,” John said.
    “And you checked the entire house before you entered with her last night, right?” Michaels asked.
    “Yea. I did. I searched it top to bottom; there was no one here.”
    “Did either of you use the refrigerator last night?”
    “Yea. I saw her open the fridge several times. There was nothing there. He did it in the middle of the night.”
    “Do you think this is a message to you or to her?”
    “It would appear to be both,” John said.
    “Why would he be sending a message to her? Do we have evidence that he has ever contacted family members of his victims before?”
    John looked over his shoulder to make sure the forensic specialists were not becoming privy to their theory.
    “Chief, do you think we need to at least tell the rest of the unit what is going on? We know who is doing this. It is just a matter of time before he gets restless and kills someone else.”
    “I am planning to make an announcement at the morning briefing tomorrow. Now we have some proof we can make stick,” the chief said.
    John looked around at the other officers on the scene and most of them appeared to be freaking out like there was no tomorrow. They were holding it together for appearances only, but he saw the fear in their eyes. He had seen that way too many times before for them to fool him. He appreciated the strength of character it took for them to hold up without bursting into tears or barfing all over the place. But these guys were in way over their heads. They had never seen anything like this before. He was going to have to lead the troops through this.
    John had been trying to lay low a little bit and not be too much of an overbearing gung ho type of guy since he arrived on the force here in Belpre, but he was tired of holding back and acting like he didn’t deserve to be chief. He respected Michaels a lot but even he was in over his head with this business. The chief had a lot of experience, but most of it was book experience when it came to the things that John had seen. What he had dealt with on a regular basis made the chief seem like a mall security guard by comparison. He hated to think of it that way, but he knew that when the time was right he was going to have to take the reins and take control of the situation.
     
    “Was it my sister?”
    Cheryl’s voice was masked by tears and John felt his heart breaking as he had to tell her that the match was confirmed by the lab. The lab had put a rush on it and got the results back ASAP. Those were definitely Theresa’s eyes.
    Cheryl broke down into tears and