Picture Perfect

Chapter 41

    "I don't get it." Cassidy chimed in.
    "Me neither." Chyler added.
    I looked up and saw the recognition on Kayla's face, though she hadn't been at the crime scene or to work, "Joey sent you photos from the scene sis?"
    "Yeah, I saw them when I checked my email earlier."
    I looked at Chyler and Cassidy lifting up the picture of the people we were talking about, "These are the latest victims."
    Hayley was already digging into the files and said, "They got a positive ID. The Collins family, the family that owned the house."
    "So who are the other two pictures of?" Cassidy asked.
    "I think the more important question is what is in the other envelope?" Chyler said looking at the unopened envelope.
    With shaky hands I picked up the envelope. For the record this pissed me off because I viewed this as a sign of weakness. I've prided myself on being a strong person so appearing weak drives me crazy but I couldn't help it, I was nervous. I took a deep breath, opened the envelope, pulled out its contents and stared at them.
    "What is it Ash?" Hayley asked.
    I laid out three more pictures, each with two smiling adults and one smiling child.
    "Who the hell are they?" Cassidy questioned immediately after I laid down the pictures.
    I couldn't come up with an answer right away, I just continued to stare at the pictures. I looked from face to face searching for some sort of  answer to their identity, their significance. I assumed they were all single child families but that was where the similarities ended. Three different races, three different configuration; the only thing linking the families was the fact that they were in this envelope together.
    Everyone's eyes were on me but I didn't really notice or care, an idea was forming in my head. "They are potential victims."
    "What?" All four said at once.
    I think they were surprised I even spoke. But I thought I was onto something so I explained. "We know most serial killers are meticulous in their planning. I think this is how our killer chooses their victims. They pick three families, probably watch them for some amount of time then decide which one to kill."
    Hayley shook her head and said, "That's fucked up, but you may be on to something. I mean why else would they send three pictures?"
    "I think the killer is challenging me." I said to no one in particular, "But how do we find these people? And quickly because we have no clue how much time we have since our killers schedule has become a bit erratic."
    "I may be able to help." Cassidy spoke up.
    "How?" I asked trying not to sound annoyed.
    "We've got photo recognition software at the paper. I can send these images to a friend and he'll run them no questions asked."
Hayley responded first, "You know we can do that at the police station too, right?"
I wasn't sure if Hayley was directing the question to me or Cassidy. Honestly I didn't know much about the quality of the MPD software versus what the paper had so I remained silent.
"No doubt but if I scan the front and back of these pictures he may be able to track down where the photos themselves were taken. We work with a lot of portrait studios in the area so he'll probably recognize something useful." Cassidy explained without a hint of attitude.
Everyone looked at me for a response. "When could your friend start working on this?"
Cassidy replied immediately, "As soon as I send hi the pictures."
"You're sure he's still at work?" I questioned.
Cassidy wouldn't meet my eyes as she responded, "Probably not. But can you just trust me that he'll get us answers quickly with no questions asked and no red tape?"
I thought for a moment. If this worked we could potentially save lives so why not trust her. I planned on sending the pictures to our lab with an officer tonight anyways so either way we'd probably get answers. "Alright. Aaron has a scanner in the office over there, will that work?"

Aaron sat back watching his new girlfriend and Bash play in his parents living room. It made him extremely happy that they got along. He just hoped when he eventually introduced her to Ashlee things would go smoothly.
"Has Ashlee met her yet?" Aaron's mom asked as she handed him a cup of coffee.
Aaron shook his head and said, "She has so much on her plate right now with this case. I don't think it's the right time."
His mom took a moment to watch her grandson giggling at something Aaron's girlfriend did. "It will be good for Sebastian to have a stable female influence in his life. He needs a good mother."
Aaron took a few deep breaths before answering, "He has an amazing mother already, I'm not looking to replace Ashlee in his life."
"I can't imagine her job allows her much time to be an adequate mother."
"Mom, I'm not gonna fight with you about this right now. Ashlee is an amazing mother who Bash idolizes so I suggest you refrain from bad mouthing her around me and Bash. Unless of course you would rather us not come around here anymore." Aaron finished, the look in his eyes telling his mother he was dead serious.
Aaron's father came into the living room and noticed two very different moods. Though he would have loved to join the happy side fo the room he knew he needed to defuse the tension between mother and son. "So Aaron where did you meet this lovely woman? I think you mentioned it a couple weeks ago but I forgot."
Aaron instantly smiled at his father, "At Aldo of all places. It was about a month ago but we originally met years ago at a kickboxing gym that summer I spent with uncle Craig out in California."
"Amazing," his father said. "It must be fate that your paths crossed again all these years later."
"I know, what are the chances?"

A couple hours later we had gone through the new files, old information and the new information our FBI friends had given us. Unfortunately I felt no closer to any of the answers we needed.
"So do you honestly think these murders here and those John mentioned could be the same person?" Chyler asked.
"It's a possibility we have to consider." Hayley answered sadly.
Cassidy shook her head, "I don't buy that it could be a woman, that's just crazy right?"
"Not as crazy as you think." I said then pulled up some notes I made on my computer. "I've been looking into female serial killers and women tend to have long killing sprees than their male counterparts. They are more meticulous and are usually unlikely suspects."
"I get that but don't women tend to poison people?" Cassidy responded.
"Not necessarily," Kayla chimed in. "Ever seen the TV show Snapped? There are some dangerous crazy ass women out there."
Chyler laughed and said, "Very true. I love that show though it scares the crap out of me sometimes."
Hayley chimed in next, "Right! Finding a woman worth dating is hard enough then you see how crazy women can be, makes it seem like a losing battle."
"It's a good you don't date then, right?" Kayla joked.
    "Hey, one night stands can turn crazy too." Hayley replied back in the same joking manner.
    "Not all women are crazy. We have at least four mostly sane women here. I'm not quite sure about Cassidy though." Kayla joked again.
    We all laughed, even Cassidy. It felt good to joke around. With all the ugliness in this case we all needed a few lighthearted moments. Despite the joking, in this moment I felt a strange confidence. We were going to break this case. I had no clue how but the five of us were going to get ahead of this killer.
    Cassidy's phone buzzed on the table and we all held our breath. "We've got names for all three families though he's still working on where the pictures came from."
    "I'll get units out to their neighborhoods tonight. Maybe we'll get lucky and catch this fucker watching them." I replied.
    I felt hopeful. We didn't have all the information but we were getting there. This killer had tripped up, decided to be ballsy and it's gonna come back to bite them in the ass.