Girl, 11 Amy Clarke (e reader comics .TXT) 📖

he dumped Kerry in a barn or some type of outbuilding and left him for days, TCK would never know that he really died of hypothermia. I can only hope that Kerry never regained consciousness before it happened.

The first victim being a man tells us something about the profile, too, I think. It tells us that TCK’s initial instinct to kill was probably not born out of his hatred of women, but that—finding no satisfaction in murdering a young man—he switched to young women and girls after. If Kerry is the first TCK victim, and I believe he is, that means that the numbers have always mattered to him. The medical evidence proves Kerry was killed within hours of his disappearance, but he was not found until seven days later.

Even if TCK did not enjoy killing a man, he found a way to be fulfilled by it. He found a way to include his signature—by waiting until the seventh day to let his body be discovered. I keep thinking about that Bible verse Nora saw in TCK’s cabin: “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest.” There are many meanings I could infer from this, but here’s what I think. I think that producing a body on the seventh day, making sure it is found, that is what gives TCK fulfillment. That is how he finds rest.

Staging Kerry’s death to look like a suicide, though, that also tells me something. It tells me that TCK did not want credit for that murder, and the only reason a killer would spend so much time staging a body and risk discovery is if he had some sort of known relationship or connection to him. And that is what I’m going to find.

Next time, on Justice Delayed . . .

29

DJ

1989 to 1992

It wasn’t enough for DJ’s father when he excelled in school. It wasn’t enough when he was specially chosen to serve as an altar boy at their church’s midnight Mass on Christmas. It wasn’t enough when he received scholarships to summer math programs.

Nothing he did made his father look at him the way he had looked at his older sons—the pride, the love that had shone in his eyes. His father remained a husk of the man he used to be; the shape of Josiah was there for everyone to see, but inside he was hollow.

DJ left home when he was sixteen, after graduating high school early. He took all the money he’d saved mowing lawns for the last two summers and bought a bus ticket to New York City. He did not say goodbye.

New York was beyond anything he could have imagined, despite watching every movie and TV show set in the city that he could get his hands on. Nothing prepared him for the noise, for the constant light, for the lack of space or privacy. He shared a studio apartment with three other young men, contributing cash to the bowl for shared groceries for several weeks until he realized he was the only one doing so. After that, he bought his own instant noodles, which he hid under his mattress to keep them from the others’ sticky fingers, and fresh vegetables, which everyone else seemed to leave alone.

DJ worked several odd jobs, lying about his age to get cash in hand as a bartender at night and carrying parcels on a messenger bike by day. Living with his nightmare roommates and saving every extra cent paid off when his acceptance letter finally arrived eighteen months later—he was going to Harvard, with just enough money in his account for the first year’s tuition and board. He left the apartment without notice, taking nothing but a duffel bag with his best clothes.

Harvard was another new world. After nearly two years of being surrounded by cheap beer, marijuana smoke, and strung-out slackers, the academic community was like a salve that soothed a persistent itch. There were people who had the same passion for numbers that he did. People who knew equations and formulas he’d never heard of. Philosophy professors who would not deride his references to religion, but instead engaged him on them.

After excelling in his first year, he qualified for scholarships and was able to drop to three work shifts a week. Every semester, he posted his perfect grades to Josiah. It was the only communication between them. DJ never received a response.

He was well into his second year at Harvard when he met Loretta. She was doing the same degree as he, a joint concentration in math and physics—one of the few women doing so in 1990. DJ had never had much luck with women, having grown up in a house with only males and attending an all-boys Catholic school. The few times he’d allowed himself to be dragged out to a club in New York, his roommates had scoffed at his inability to score. He never drank, never tried to pick up women—simply watched as his roommates made fools of themselves on the prowl, bolstered by the liquor running through their veins. When they brought their conquests home, he lay in bed awake, listening to them move and groan in the dark of their apartment.

But Loretta was different. As her name suggested, she had grown up old-fashioned, in a house with values and morals. She wore high-collared shirts buttoned to the top, skirts below the knee, and thick-heeled plain black shoes. Her reddish-brown hair fell around slender shoulders, thick bangs framing her blue eyes. The most intimidating thing about her was her brain, and DJ knew he was a match for it. So, he asked her to dinner one night, ready to blow his whole week’s worth of food budget to take her to the nicest restaurant within walking distance of the campus.

He met her at her dorm and held his breath when she walked out the door. A pale pink blouse floated around her thin frame, her long black skirt swishing