Switch Blade Romance

Get a clue

Anita Gates sat at the window of Rachel's second-floor apartment like a woman who'd forgotten how to move. The glass was cold against her forehead, fogging a little with each slow breath. She hadn't slept more than a snatch here and there since they let her out of the hospital. Three days ago, maybe four—time had gone soft and slippery, like wet clay. The stab wounds in her belly still pulled when she breathed too deep, a dull reminder that some things don't heal clean.
Lacey had just come back from Andrew's place. Or what used to be Andrew's place. The door had been unlocked, the rooms too quiet, the air inside smelling faintly of old coffee and something metallic that might have been blood or might have been imagination. No one knew if Andrew was still breathing. Not really. The man they'd known as Aiden—or Charles, or whatever name the devil was using that week—had a way of tying up loose ends with a butcher's efficiency. The odds Andrew was still out there somewhere, maybe hurt, maybe worse, were shrinking by the hour, like daylight in November.
"Anita? You okay over there?"
Rachel's voice floated in from the kitchen, where the others were gathered like mourners around a cold stove: Lacey, Dr. Anthony, and that sheriff from Texas whose name kept sliding out of Anita's head. John something. Or James. The concussion had left her thoughts feeling like they'd been run through a blender. A couple of deep knife punctures didn't help. Funny how the body could take that kind of punishment and still keep the lights on, she thought, with the kind of black humor that comes when you've stared too long at the underside of things.
Anita nodded without turning. "Yeah. Just thinking."
Rachel crossed the room, laid a hand on her shoulder. The touch was gentle, almost careful, like she was afraid Anita might shatter. "Have you made arrangements for Chris?"
"No. His folks are flying down from Missouri Wednesday. They're taking the body back with them." Anita's voice was flat, matter-of-fact, the way you talk about plane tickets or grocery lists when the real hurt is too big to fit in words. "I might go too. Just for the funeral. Then back here. In case... you know. In case they find Andrew. Or Max gets out of the hospital. Does he even know what's been going on?"
Rachel nodded. "His dad filled him in. I think."
"Oh. Okay." Anita swallowed. "How much do we know now? Really know?"
The sheriff—John, she decided to call him John—leaned forward from his perch at the kitchen counter. His face was lined with the kind of tired that comes from too many nights chasing ghosts. "We know the killer's Charles Grady. Aiden Pierce was just a skin he wore for a while. The real Aiden's parents came down from Chicago with old photos. Lab boys ran age-progression. The face on that school ID the fake Aiden used? Doesn't match. Not even close."
"So where's the real Aiden?" Anita asked, though she already knew the answer would taste like ashes.
John shrugged, a small defeated motion. "Dead, most likely. Long time ago."
Dr. Anthony cleared his throat. "And Grady's the one behind it all. Not just this year's crop of bodies. Back to 2013 here in Annabelle. Remember Hunter Kimble? The kid Grady beat half to death at that party the night Andrew introduced him as Aiden?"
Anita's stomach twisted. "Yeah."
"Hunter came in today," the doctor said. "Told us Grady used another alias back then. When he killed Kimble's friends."
"Oh my God," Lacey whispered. "Deanna Foster... and the others?"
Anthony nodded. "Serial predators like Grady, they run on rails. Fixate on a boy—Matthew Sarger, the real Aiden Pierce, Richard Grogan, Andrew, God knows how many more. Stalks them. Learns their routines, their friends, their soft spots. Changes his face, his voice, his whole damn self like a chameleon until he fits right into the middle of their lives. He must've been shadowing Andrew for months after Richard."
Anita felt something cold uncoil in her chest. "How's he been doing this for years? How the hell didn't you catch him?"
Sheriff Henry—John—rubbed the back of his neck. "We've been hunting him since Arkansas. After Manetachie Falls. Kid's smart. Burns his fingerprints off regular. No DNA. Slips through cracks like smoke. Stays so far under the radar he's not even a suspect until the bodies are cold. Got sloppy here. Left too many witnesses breathing."
Anita straightened, the motion pulling at her stitches. "He killed three of my best friends. My boyfriend. Almost me. And maybe Andrew's already gone. And you're sitting there saying he left too many people alive?" Her voice cracked like dry wood. "That's a hell of a thing to say. Especially when you could've stopped him years ago."
"Anita, I didn't mean—"
"Fuck this." She stood up too fast. The room tilted. She made it two steps toward the door before her legs gave out and she dropped back onto the couch like a puppet with cut strings.
Lacey and Rachel were there in an instant, hands gentle, worried. "I'm fine," Anita muttered, pushing them away. "I'm fine, I just..." The tears came then, hard and ugly, the kind that wrench up from the bottom of your guts. Deep, whooping sobs that hurt more than the knife wounds ever had.
Lacey helped her up. "Come on. Let's get you to the bedroom. Couch isn't good enough for this."
They got her into Rachel's room. The door clicked shut behind them, muffling the world.
In the kitchen, Dr. Anthony sighed, the sound heavy as wet earth. "What now?"
John shook his head. "Not much more to chase. We checked that cousin's house Grady claimed. Place belonged to a registered sex offender named Alex Manly. Missing since last April. No relation we can find. Grady's kin are all accounted for. Stepfather, Earl Radmoore? Vanished nine years back. File's thin—petty theft, drugs, assault. Ex-wife, Beverly LaDale, somewhere in Chicago. Can't raise her. Aunt Martha knows squat."
Rachel stared at the floor. "So we're nowhere."
"Not nowhere," John said quietly. "Just... waiting. But we'll catch a break. We always do. Eventually."
Rachel nodded, though her eyes were far away. "For Andrew's sake. For all our sakes."
Outside the window, the Texas winter dusk was coming down slow and thick, the kind of dark that presses against the glass like it wants in. Somewhere out there, a man who changed faces the way other men changed shirts was still walking. And somewhere, maybe, Andrew was waiting in the dark.
Or maybe he wasn't waiting at all anymore.
The night held its breath, and listened.