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The acrid stench of death was an unwelcome companion, as insistent as it was intrusive, as I stepped under the familiar yellow police tape. It clung to the frigid winter air, weaving through the handles of an old rusted dumpster in the alley that had become our latest crime scene.
My heart sank at the gruesome sight before me. Another woman lay on the cold concrete floor of the desolate, dimly lit Chicago alleyway, her lifeless eyes staring up at the starless night sky. They echoed my own silent dread, frozen in the grip of the mercilessly cold night. Crimson blood pooled around her head where the killer had bashed her skull in.
I swallowed hard, shoving aside the bile rising in my throat. A woman, who until very recently, had lived, laughed, loved, was now just a memento mori of the most macabre kind.
Not again.
My gaze shifted to her outstretched hand, frozen in its death grip. The slightest hint of white peeked out from beneath her lifeless fingers, almost timid in its contrast to the surrounding bleakness. A single daisy, vibrant and seemingly untouched by the horror that it was part of, lay there.
The killer’s calling card.
My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. He was mocking us. Mocking me. How many more lives would I fail to save before this madness ended?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was personal. This case wasn’t just another murder investigation. It was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown by a faceless coward who reveled in the fear and torment he caused. The killer knew I was on his trail, and he wanted me to know he was always one step ahead.
But he had made a mistake this time. He had to have. It was one of the first things we learned in the academy. Lorcard’s principle—a perpetrator of a crime will bring something into the scene and leave something behind. You couldn’t interact with a location without alternating it in some way, without leaving a trace of yourself. The absolute violence of this latest kill should mean it was impossible to be entirely clean. Somewhere in this alleyway were clues waiting to be discovered. I was determined to find them, no matter the cost. This was the break I needed to finally put an end to these murders and avenge the lives lost.
Even if it killed me.
I stayed at the crime scene long after the coroner’s team had come and gone, combing every inch of the alley for clues. My eyes burned, gritty with exhaustion, but I couldn’t rest. Not yet. Somewhere in the debris, in the dirt and trash littering the ground, was the key to unlocking this mystery.
I just had to find it.
“Detective.” A hand clasped my shoulder, startling me from my search. “It’s nearly dawn. When was the last time you slept?”
I blinked at the officer, struggling to place his name. Collins, that was it. One of the beat cops often first on the scene. “I’m fine,” I said, shrugging off his hand. “You should go home to your family, Collins. I can handle things from here.”
He frowned, concern etching lines in his face. “With all due respect, sir, you’re no good to this case dead on your feet. Please, go get some rest.”
I opened my mouth to argue but closed it again at his stern look. He was right, damn him. I was exhausted, each breath a struggle through the fog in my mind. But the thought of stopping now, even for a few hours of sleep, made my skin crawl.
The killer was out there. Waiting. Plotting his next move.
And I was running out of time.
I trudged back to my car, my weary gaze wandering over the pile of documents that lay spread across the back seat. The reality of this escalating crime wave was catching up with me and it was slowly invading my every thought.
I should go back to the station, lodge the evidence, write yet another report. And yet, when I started driving my hands took me in the direction of home. It wasn’t a conscious thought, more so my body finally giving in to the near-constant exhaustion that had been haunting me for days. Just as I was haunted by the eyes of each victim in the files on my back seat. I was haunted by the fear in their eyes, what I imagined their voice to sound like. Had they realised what was happening? Had they feared for their life as the killer took his time, or had death at least came mercifully fast?
As I continued the route to my home, the exhaustion sank into my bones. Each mile was a strenuous battle against sleep. There would be no one waiting for me at home with a meal kept hot or an evening nightcap. I lived alone and spent every night alone. Every night, haunted by visions of the victims even in my sleep, driven by an enemy I couldn’t name.
As I drove, every honk, every distant siren was another painful reminder of my duty, of the lives that hung in the balance while I continued to fail at my job.
Finally, I pulled into the driveway of my house. Swiping up the files from my car, I threw my car keys on the couch, not caring much if I couldn’t find them in the morning. I trudged back to kitchen table and dropped my armful of folders, eyeing the yet taller stack of case files waiting for me. I hadn’t used the table for anything else for weeks, eating whatever I’d microwaved or had delivered standing over the kitchen sink. It was more efficient that way, I told myself.
But a framed photo on the corner the room caught my gaze—a picture of my father in his police uniform, smiling at the camera. It was a stark reminder of the legacy I carried on my shoulders.
My father had been a detective too, working some of Chicago’s hardest cases. He’d taught me everything about the job, instilling in me a strong sense of justice and duty to the people we served.
I sighed, running a hand over my stubble. He’d also taught me when to take a step back, to look at the details with fresh eyes. I knew he would tell me I needed to rest at least a little bit, if he were still here.
But this case was personal. There was something odd about this case that kept niggling at my brain. I couldn’t stop, not when we were finally getting closer.
I turned on the TV, hoping to distract myself, but the news report only made my frustration boil.
“Police are urging residents to remain indoors as much as possible following the latest discovery of a body in a lane downtown.” An anchorwoman glanced over her shoulder, footage of the crime scene flashing across the screen.
My stomach twisted into knots, a surge of guilt and anger warring inside me. Each word, each image was a damning testament to my inability to catch the perpetrator. The public was terrified while I chased ghosts. But I couldn’t give up, not when the killer was always one step ahead. I grabbed the remote and shut off the TV, the anchorwoman’s warnings echoing in my mind. How many more victims would I fail before catching this madman?
The exhaustion had long seeped into my bones, but sleep remained out of reach. I grabbed a leftover casserole out of the refrigerator and a fork from the drawer and ate it cold. Heating it would take more energy than I had to spare in that moment.
I took a seat in front of the sea of files on my table, a mosaic of grisly details and dead ends taunting me. I leaned forward, scrutinizing the reports for anything I might have missed. My eyes landed on the killer’s calling card again—a single daisy placed on the victim’s chest.
A chill ran down my spine. Something about these flowers nagged at the back of my mind, a familiarity I couldn’t quite place.
I rubbed my eyes and sighed, tempted to give up for the night. But in the back of a file drawer, a folder caught my eye.
Dad’s old case files. I pulled it out, curiosity getting the better of me. He’d always been tight-lipped about his work, but maybe there was a clue he’d left behind.
I flipped through the ageing papers, squinting at his familiar scrawl. Viewing his old, familiar handwriting usually brought me comfort of a kind. Most were run-of-the-mill cases, robberies and assaults lost to time.
Until one report stopped me cold.
A woman, strangled and left with a single daisy on her chest. The same twisted M.O.
My heart pounded as the pieces clicked into place. This was no new killer. Somehow, impossibly, this was the work of the same killer—the killer my father had put behind bars fifteen years ago.
My head spun. How was that possible? Had I been chasing a ghost all this time? Someone who hid in plain sight? I shook my head—no. This guy was found guilty in a court of law. The system had worked, taking an evil man off the streets.
But then why was everything starting up again somehow with his old M.O? The answer should have been staring me in the face but the cobwebs of exhaustion in my brain meant I took longer than I wanted to admit to think of it. He must have a copycat, someone who wanted to continue his work. But how had they been communicating and how had we missed it?
How many lives had been lost because of our failure? The guilt threatened to crush me, a weight heavier than any I’d borne before.
I slammed the file shut, chest heaving. But I couldn’t escape the truth. This was a legacy killer, one who’d haunted Chicago far longer than anyone realized.
And if we didn’t stop him and find out who he’d passed the mantle to, he’d go on haunting it for years to come.
I looked at the photograph on my desk, my father’s smiling face peering back at me. What else had he kept from me? What other secrets were locked away behind his lifeless eyes?