Echo's and shadows
1025 Words
The rain had stopped sometime after midnight, but the sky remained a dull, overcast grey that pressed heavily against the city skyline. Jessie stood in front of the evidence board in her lab, arms folded tight across her chest. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly above her, casting a pale glow across Leroy Thomas’s crime scene photos.
She hadn’t slept.
Even now, her mind kept circling back to the wound. The word. The message.
Guilty.
The same mark she had carved into her own victims, carefully, deliberately. Her own form of judgment on men who deserved far worse than what the law gave them. But this... this copycat had made it public. Messy. Loud. Sloppy. A body dumped in an alley wasn’t her style.
Whoever did it wanted to be seen.
Jessie didn’t like being seen.
Her eyes flicked to the clock. 7:43 a.m.
Most of the department wouldn’t be in yet, but she was always early—part habit, part necessity. She liked the silence of the building before the chaos arrived. Liked the control it gave her over her surroundings.
And today, she needed control.
She turned back to the board and pinned up the latest coroner’s notes. Time of death estimated between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. There are no signs of defensive wounds. Tox screen pending. The wounds were clean but not expertly made—deep, symmetrical, but lacking finesse. The killer had studied her technique but didn’t possess her precision.
Someone was imitating her without understanding the why.
And that pissed her off more than anything.
A soft knock sounded on the lab door. Jessie turned, expecting Marquez.
It wasn’t him.
Aaron Cole stood in the doorway, holding two cups of coffee.
“Early bird,” he said with that same mild, unreadable smile.
Jessie straightened, masking her reaction. “Could say the same to you.”
“I don’t sleep much,” he replied, stepping inside like he belonged there. “Figured I’d bring peace offerings. Black, no sugar. Just a guess.”
She hesitated, then took the cup. “Thanks.”
He looked around the lab with idle curiosity, his gaze lingering a little too long on the pinned photos. “You’ve been busy.”
“I like order. Helps me think.”
“I know the feeling,” Aaron said, sipping his coffee. “Leroy Thomas. Criminal past, messy history, no obvious enemies. There are no fingerprints at the scene. No witnesses.”
Jessie nodded. “No defensive wounds, either. He either trusted the killer or didn’t see it coming.”
Aaron’s head tilted. “Interesting detail.”
She watched him closely. He wasn’t nervous. He didn’t fidget. His body language was relaxed—but not lazy. There was an intentionality to the way he stood, to the way he spoke. He didn’t talk like a profiler trying to solve a murder.
He talked like someone already inside the killer’s head.
She sipped her coffee. “So, what’s your take?”
Aaron stepped closer to the board, studying the photo of Leroy’s body. “If I had to guess, I’d say the killer believes they’re doing something righteous. This wasn’t impulsive. The word… ‘Guilty’... it’s not just a statement. It’s a sentence.”
Jessie’s heart knocked once in her chest.
“I’ve seen that before,” Aaron continued. “Killers who justify their actions by believing they’re correcting some kind of injustice. Vigilantes. Moral enforcers.”
She tilted her head. “So you think we’re dealing with a copycat?”
His gaze flicked to her, and for a moment, Jessie felt like he was watching her instead of the board.
“Copying who?” he asked softly.
Jessie smiled thinly. “No idea.”
A long silence stretched between them.
Eventually, Aaron stepped back. “Well, whoever it is, they’re going to kill again. People like this don’t stop after one.”
She didn’t answer because he was right.
And that terrified her.
Jessie found herself driving aimlessly after her shift ended. Instead of going home, she took the long way through the industrial side of town—abandoned warehouses, broken fences, empty parking lots. The places no one looked. The places people disappeared.
She parked in a gravel lot beneath a collapsed billboard and leaned back in her seat, heart pounding in the stillness. Her thoughts were spiralling.
Who knows?
That was the question burning in her skull.
She’d been so careful. So methodical. Every kill she made had a reason, a purpose, a code. And no one—not a single soul—had ever been close to suspecting her.
So how the hell had someone found her trail?
Had she been followed?
Had someone seen her?
Her stomach twisted at the idea.
And worse yet—was this new killer trying to honour her? Or taunt her?
The body of Leroy Thomas played again in her mind—how his arms had been arranged, how the word had been carved just shallow enough not to look surgical. No blood spatter patterns in the wrong direction. There are no signs of a fight.
It was deliberate. But it wasn’t hers.
She stared through the windshield at the dark, empty road ahead.
She needed answers.
And there was something about Aaron Cole that felt too… polished. It's too perfect. He asked the right questions. Said the right things. He knew what to look for.
But no matter how much her instincts buzzed around him, she reminded herself again: he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Not yet.
And until he did, she had no reason to get in his way.
Back in the city, Aaron sat in his apartment, a single desk lamp casting soft yellow light across a wall of photos. Leroy Thomas stared back from multiple angles. Some images were crime scene photos. Others… weren’t.
A folder sat open beside him, filled with newspaper clippings, missing persons reports, and victim files.
In the centre was a photo of Jessie Black, taken from a distance outside the precinct.
Aaron leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
Then, slowly, he smiled.
- Writer
