Darker Still Read Online Free PDF Page A

problem was that most of the people who might have seen something or known something would not have been able to recognize what they saw. That was why after a killer was caught there were always all of these people coming out of the woodwork to say how much they knew and what they had heard or seen. It always made John scratch his head as to why they didn’t come forward with that tip before. People lived in their own little bubbles and they just let shit lie.
    As he got behind the wheel of his car his phone rang. He picked it up; it was the Medical Examiner, Jamie White. He had some useful information if John wanted to hear it.
    “Does a bear shit in the woods?” John asked. It was an oldie but a goody.
    “Well, we didn’t find any physical evidence. There is no second party blood, no hair, semen, or even sweat. I would say the killer killed her somewhere else and brought her there to leave on display.”
    “Wow, that requires a bit of planning and technique,” John said.
    “Exactly what I was thinking. I don’t think this is his first rodeo.”
    “I was afraid of that, too. What else did you find?”
    “The girl was not sexually assaulted. She was stabbed with a large hunting knife that is used typically for skinning the hide off of deer.”
    “Well, that doesn’t narrow it down much. This area is full of hunters and people who love the outdoors.”
    “The head was severed using what would appear to be a small axe, you can tell by the size of the indentures on the skin where it tore and the size of the jagged lacerations.”
    John swallowed hard. Some of this stuff was still enough to gross him out after all of these years. It was disturbing how easily the ME was able to just talk about it like it was routine.
    “Is there anything else?” John asked.
    “I’m afraid not. There really isn’t any other evidence.”
    “Thanks, Jamie. I appreciate it,” John replied.
    With that John went to knock on the doors of Melissa Waters and Diane Suite. They were both just as shocked by Steven’s cheating ways as Heather had been but they did not react quite as angrily as she did. They were more hurt than angry and John felt a bit bad for them.
    Both girls were amazingly beautiful and John had to start wondering why Steven was able to get all of these women so easily. He had great taste; John would say that for him. He wondered how the man was able to get women who were routinely out of his league. He was a decent looking man but not the best looking guy in the world at all.
    John had to shake his head at these young, impressionable women.
    Neither one of them knew Theresa and they were both totally clueless about Steven and his roaming eyes. John had figured as much, but at least he could say that he had been doing something productive with his day. As he climbed back into his Ford Explorer he had to marvel at the fact that it was only a little after noon. He had a good mind to go back to the station, quickly fill out his report about the information he had not gleaned from any of these women and then go home to a big bottle of bourbon followed by a good nap.
    But he knew that he needed to tough it out. So he swung through a drive thru and picked up a few burgers on his way back to the station. When he got there he found something else on his desk. It was a message addressed to him in a plain envelope with just his name written on it in flair ink.
    He looked at it curiously for a moment and then opened it up and started reading.
    The message only took thirty seconds to read, but it was enough to terrify him beyond anything that he had ever thought was possible. He had been through hell that most could not imagine on a daily basis for years and he had come through the other side as clean as a whistle, but this piece of paper in his hand was about to break him in half.
    The message brought up all the horrors of his childhood and left him utterly paralyzed for several minutes. His whole body broke out with a bone