The Collie Murders: A Serial Killer Crime Thriller by Jared Paul Page B

was making with a mostly deaf old man? If he interjected any new information, the process would have to start all over again. Jon made a mental note that he would let Louis in on the deal later.
     
    ********
 
    Cory was standing outside in front of the medical building when Jon was dropped off in a taxi cab. After she watched him pay for his ride, she took a seat on the curb that ran along the front of the parking lot. She felt too weary to stand.
                 
    Jon took a seat next to Cory, an arm going around her like it used to whenever he knew there was something that bothered her. During the days of David’s worst bouts of illness, when watching what he was going through had been too much to handle, they would sit like this, his arm gently around her and it would be enough to let her know that he was there and that he loved her. Even now, with a divorce between them, it was still the same.
                 
    “I think the killer knows me.”
                 
    Jon’s brows knitted a quilt. Whatever he thought she was going to say to him, that was definitely not what he had been expecting. “What on Earth makes you think that? Do you know who it is?”
                 
    Cory shook her head. If she knew that, she’d have called him and told him where to find the person as fast as her neurons could give the order. She replied, “I found these little messages stuffed inside of the victim’s bodies. So far, I think I’m the only one who knows about them, but I have a feeling Drew knows. I also think that this killer has known me since high school.
                 
    “Jon, the last two victims were found in my mother’s old apartment, you remember, the one we stayed in during my senior year?”
                 
    Jon smiled. How could he forget? Once the ball had gotten in gear with them physically, they’d found all sorts of places to make out i n among other physical explorations.
                 
    He said, “Who do we know from high school that still lives here in Collie? The girls you were close with have all moved away. There’s Victoria, but she married that guy from Hadley last month and she’s living there with him.”
                 
    Jon noticed that Cory was hugging her knees, a thing she’d done whenever she was anxious or sad about something. The arm he had around her shoulders, which he was pleased hadn’t been asked to be removed yet, tightened. He asked, “What else is there, Cory?”
                 
    Cory stiffened, but then relaxed into the side of Jon’s body. He had a way of silently comforting her, or letting her feel like she was the safest person on the planet. She said, “One, one of the messages said that he was going to come for me. I don’t know what that means, but then none of this really makes that much sense. Why is this person doing this?”
                 
    Jon removed his arm so that he could look at Cory’s face by twisting the upper half of his torso and placing his hand behind her. He replied, “I don’t know why they’re doing it, but I do know that when a homicidal maniac gives you an expressed guarantee that he’s going to do you in, then he probably will. At least, he’ll try.” He cocked his head to the side. “What was the third message?”
     
    Cory answered in a near monotone, “Number three, can you catch me?”
     
    Jon swallowed, stared directly into Cory’s eyes and then said, letting his tone drift into his don’t-argue-with-me voice, “You’re going home with me.”
                 
    There was only one way that he would be able to protect Cory long enough to catch the killer, and that was having her right underneath his nose.
     
    Cory stopped on the doorstep of Jon’s house, formerly their house, and waited for the feeling crawling around on her skin to stop. She had argued with him in the car, gave him a million