Sinister behind the Mask

Chapter 7

Diana’s POV

The file that Sam gave me had a letter that the victim received from the attacker. The letter was not a hand written one but, a paper cutting. The letter contained the story of little red riding hood.

The famous bed time story that’s been told to us since our childhood. Only, this story was not the one we’ve always heard of. The paper looked like an old one with yellow edges and the font was Garamond, a font type used in books of 1500s.

I touched the paper to feel it’s unusual thickness and a cloth like texture that the papers of early centuries had.

“Is this a paper torn from a vintage?”, I asked as I turned to Sam.

“I’m not sure But, we will know about this soon. I believe it’s one of the original works stolen from a well-known library”, Said Sam.

We were in office and I took a copy of the paper as Sam took the original for more analysis. I was back to my desk when I bumped into Amanda.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I was not looking”, I said in an embarrassed tone.

“Not a problem, but, have seen my brother? I believe he is assisting you with the case”, Said Amanda.

Well, she was the witch who threw us in this psycho chase and … Wait a minute, did she just say her brother?

“Your brother?”, I sounded a bit stupid as I said that.

“Well, yeah! Sam, Sam Waterson. The detective on this case”, She said.

“Holy! Crap!!!!!”, I screamed not realizing I was loud. Really loud.

“Hey Sis!”, said Sam as he joined us.

Oh my gosh! How did I not notice, they both have the same last names, Amanda was not married and Sam was a Waterson, how did I not see that? Damn, Diana how can you be so dumb?

I was quite busy cussing myself in my head when Amanda spoke

“looks like the case is coming well, I hope you better close it before the issue raises”, She said.

“Oh, don’t worry sis! We just got a lead. There is a man missing and he is no ordinary person. He is the personal assistant of the opposition party’s leader.

Strangely enough, the blood samples that we received matched the blood group of the missing leader’s PA. It is not confirmed if the DNA matches but, we will have a lead on it by tomorrow”, Said Sam.

“Which means, this case cannot be closed just yet”, He said.

“What do you mean? The government doesn’t want the people to live in fear isn’t that why you people were hired to catch the attacker?”, Said Amanda spitefully.

“This case is not that of a sub-way attacker anymore, it has now turned into a killer case. The man attacks women who witness him killing someone and then terrorizes them in weird ways that can only be understood by the victims. We had no dead body before, but now, we do!” Sam explained.

“Now, if you will excuse us sister, we have a serial killer to catch”, He said as he caught my arm and pulled me out from there.

“Sam! How did you know that this is a serial killer?”, I asked in shock.

Well, serial killers are not good for the society or the government also, they are considered a bad omen to the detectives handling the case as well as the prosecutors because these cases normally meet no end and gain a lot of media attention and mostly end up unsolved cold cases which become a tail of horror to everyone.

“Diana! don’t you remember? This guy attacks the victims a day before their birthdays. I have checked every CCTV footage of the days before the victims got attacked. None of them, not a single one was stalked or received a suspicious letter”, He said.

“Well, so?”, I asked

“Isn’t it obvious that this guy is not interested in the victims, he is only interested in their date of births. He must have received the data from some govt official. More over, Velibor told me that Amy was attacked on 30th which was a day before the date of birth on her govt ID and not her actual date of birth.

Isn’t it obvious? This guy only scares the victims but leaves them alive. He doesn’t invest much time on studying his victims but, he does plan meticulously over covering up the murders.

This guy is creating a pattern out of the date of births and certainly there must be a reason why he terrorizes them but chooses to leave them alive”, Said Sam as he looked into my eyes.

This was it! Sam was right. He never left a single evidence behind but, chose to leave the witnesses alive.

“Maybe he thinks that he can’t be caught or he is someone who lurks in the shadows fearlessly and he is someone who knows everything about the system”, I said.

“Sam! I found something too, you remember the letter that the victim got which had the story of little red riding hood. The story is incomplete, in the letter it stops where little red riding hood reaches her grand mother’s house”, I said

“Yeah, I read it too. So, what did you find?”, He asked.

“Well, I was searching about it and the history of this story dates back to the 10th century. There have been many versions of this story it is hardly known which one this might be but, the ones I’ve searched range from happy endings to some really grim and sinister endings”, I said as I covered my mouth with my palm.

“Of all the versions, there is one particular version that befits the pattern of our killer. That version was so dark and so grim that it could give nightmare to anyone who reads it for days!”, I said.

I took out my diary along with a few books that I was carrying as I decided to read the story to Sam.