The list of sinners

...Donovan...

After a few months of good, exhausting work, in the end, she thought Cameron was over. According to wiretaps, the phones of the victims who disappeared were used to lure others into committing the murder. The killer posed as a consultant-psychologist and talked to the victims in a studio he had improvised in a hidden area away from human activity.

The transcripts of those phone conversations lay before me. The words carved on paper seemed like wounds waiting to heal. The way the killer had chosen to speak to them penetrated so easily into the veins of the belief of each of the victims. He knew how to play with them all, sensing their weakness slipping and savoring their sins.

Desperation and the desire to change echoed in my mind as my eyes lingered on the road beyond the window I leaned on. They believed, when the other exploited their naivety and vulnerability, those seeking solace and guidance. They extended their hand, stripped the darkest layers of their souls, unknowingly surrendering their lives to a killer who falsified everything under the guise of sanctity. It's chilling how their last hope was crushed by a weapon turned against them.

But by putting an end to those transcripts, I can't help but be amazed by the killer's absolute courage: the courage to exploit the supposed sanctity of trust and manipulate the essence of human emotions.

However, these transcripts were a chilling testament to the depths of human decay. Every line, every word seems to contain a truth waiting to be unraveled meticulously, searching for cracks in the killer's facade, for slips that could expose his true identity. But right now, he doesn't seem to possess the calmness that characterized me after the visit to Norway. I am troubled, and it seems everyone has noticed.

In addition to this, two murders had occurred with my departure, leaving room for one last victim based on the reverse counting, and it seemed everyone was holding their breath. Some were barely waiting for it all to end, praying that all this anxiety now belonged to the past. During the examination by the forensic lab, in one of the victims, Jenny Green, small traces of skin and dried blood were found on her nails, apparently in a struggle with the killer.

I was reclined in the calm of the room, feeling the warm rays of June penetrating my back as I waited for the DNA analysis that would take a while.

"I brought you coffee," Cameron says as he enters.

With Cameron's entrance, I step out of the marathon of thoughts that had overwhelmed me. The aroma of hot coffee stirs the air molecules.

"Thank you," I say, reaching for the plastic cup.

"In the meantime, why don't we talk a bit?" he asks.

"About what?"

"I'm not the only one thinking about this, Donovan," he says. "Everyone has noticed something bothering you. The many absences, your restlessness... they all speak."

I take a deep breath, accompanying it with closing my eyes.

"I've been through a lot lately," I say. "You know how life can be sometimes. It seems like it knows everything, but then... you'll never understand the pain of ignorance until it happens to you."

"That's life," he says, raising his eyebrows. "You can't skip its chapters after all. It doesn't work like that. You have to read every line, meet every character. You won't love everyone, and they won't love you as you hoped. Some chapters will make you cry for weeks and months. You'll read things you never wanted to read, you'll have moments where you won't want the pages to end, but you'll learn to keep reading until the end."

I look at Cameron, from his eyes to his lips, and I notice every expression that accompanies those words, which I now understand more than ever. All together, they hit the state I was in powerfully.