Between Limestone Ruins

Chapter Sixteen

Hannah ended up at one of Queen's University's libraries. She texted Walker where she was going and hopped on a bus. Despite Ethan dictating her every move while living here, she was familiar enough with the city.

She'd been reading archived studies on serial murder with no sexual motivation. It was now obvious that his victims were surrogates. Surrogates that were not a potential sexual partner. Family motivation? Financial motivation? This guy had to be a young adult to be able to kill and dump so regularly. Definitely male, there was clear evidence of disrespect towards the female victims.

She had written ten pages of notes since she arrived only a few hours ago and was now narrowing down those notes to what behaviours were most likely of their killer. What would he have no reason to do? What is most likely to trigger his killing?

Pride. He was upset the media limited him to only dumping in secluded parks. He had promised to prove he was capable of more. A chill ran up Hannah's spine, considering how soon that proof might come.

Now knowing he cared about how the media shaped his reputation, she had begun to wonder if killing in sets of threes was truly a compulsion, or just a tool used to create a name for himself. But then why not name himself in the letter like Son of Sam or The BTK Strangler.

And why stage the dumps to imply necrophilia? None of the bones suggested cannibalism either, except that the bones were most likely frozen in a deep freezer. But why?

Hannah was watching the case slip through her fingers. She wasn't sure of anything anymore. She could be missing something and any of her predictions could be right. Or she could be missing nothing, and the guy was too clever at covering his tracks. Or the guy could have no idea what he was doing, and she could be missing everything. Overwhelming frustration was trying to choke her out.

Hannah sighed and brushed the feeling she was being watched, which lingered since she arrived, off her shoulder once again and headed off in search of coffee.

It was 11pm when Hannah's phone rang on her desk, waking her up from her unplanned nap.

"Hi, Uh, Hannah. It Hannah." She struggled to find professional words before giving up. She didn't have the energy to play nice. "It's Hannah. What is it?"

"Shit, sunshine. You sound rough. Want a ride home? Or to the hotel we're calling home for now? Can't take you home-home yet."

Walker. 

"Yeah, a ride would be good. I'm still at the library. I'm going to put my stuff away and I'll meet you out front."

Walker signed off after assuring her he'd be there in 15.

Hannah rubbed her eyes as she wandered the long stacks of books and papers, searching for homes for everything she'd dragged out this afternoon. She had probably been passed out for three hours. The library seemed vacant except for Hannah, although she assumed there was a librarian and the odd student pulling an all-nighter somewhere amongst the books. 

She slid two more books into their place on a shelf and turned to hunt down the last book's home. She searched quickly, the hair on the back of her neck had been standing straight up since she woke up. 

 The feeling of being watched was now unshakable, no matter how deserted the library looked when she let the paranoia in and allowed herself to scan her surroundings.

She put her last book away, a biography on Bundy, who was nothing like Hannah's killer, but she had widened her search in a desperate attempt to find anything she had missed.