Chapter 2: Shadows of the Past

The news hit the wires before sunrise. TV vans parked outside the station, reporters jostling for a shot of the latest atrocity. The crime scene photos leaked online. Too fast. Ghoulish art, the town's new nightmare. The forensics guys whispered about the killer's precision, the way each cut was deliberate, almost ritualistic. It was the Rainy Night signature, no doubt.

I was cleared quickly, and the chief called me into his office. He waited. I nodded. We sat in silence for a while before he finally spoke: "Don't you think this case..."

The chief's office still smelled of old coffee and lemon-scented cleaner. He looked at me over steepled fingers, his eyes tired but sharp. That unfinished sentence hung there, heavy as the rain outside. I didn't need him to finish. We both knew what was coming.

Back: the Rainy Night Killer.

The words felt like a curse spoken aloud. My chest tightened. All the old fears and failures clawed their way up. I wanted to run. But nowhere to go.

They reinstated me for this one. Out of everyone, I was the only one who truly understood what had happened back then.

My badge felt strange in my hand—heavier, colder, like it belonged to someone else. The department was different now, but the shadows in the halls were the same. People watched me. Eyes on me, everywhere. Some with sympathy, others with suspicion. I told myself this was my shot at redemption, but deep down, I wasn't sure I deserved it.

The first murder was nine years ago. The girl's family reported her missing after three days. We found her in an abandoned apartment building, cut into sixteen pieces, preserved in formalin, and arranged in picture frames—like a gallery piece—sick as hell. Head, neck, torso, genitals, all displayed separately.

That crime scene has never left me. The flicker of the police flashlights, the formalin bite in the air, the silence that pressed in on us. The arrangement was almost methodical, like the killer was daring us to solve the puzzle. Daring us.

The cuts went right to left, pointing to a left-handed killer. We found almost nothing—just that the killer was probably her boyfriend. But her boyfriend was a ghost. The family didn't know his real name, and no one had ever seen them together.

We canvassed the neighborhood, knocking on doors until the brass on our badges felt worn. People remembered a guy—tall, quiet, sometimes seen in the shadows. But nothing concrete. The boyfriend was a rumor, a smudge in memory. It was like chasing smoke.

A few witnesses said the boyfriend was about my height. Another thing: the killer had top shelf counter-forensics. No prints or hair on the formalin barrels, frames, knives—nothing. Outside, we found a partial footprint we thought was a breakthrough, but it turned out to belong to the second victim.

That footprint led us down a rabbit hole. We thought we had something—a size, a tread pattern. But the lab matched it to a sneaker found on the second victim. Dead end. Every time we thought we were close, the trail twisted away. Gone.

He was also the lone male victim of the Rainy Night Killer. The guy was the first victim's lover, and his body had been hacked up in what looked like a rage. The wounds varied—some bold, some careful, some almost playful, some furious, some compulsive. It looked like the killer had at least five different personalities. Dangerous as hell.

The ME's report was a horror show—pages of wounds, each with its own strange logic. The killer's mood seemed to shift with every cut. I’ve seen worse. Not like this. I remember standing over the table, the fluorescent lights buzzing, wondering if we were dealing with a monster or a fractured soul.

This made us even more certain both murders were revenge, and the killer was the girl's boyfriend. I focused on people in special professions—therapists, counselors, people who sit with broken minds. People who deal with patients all the time are more likely to have issues themselves. Given the killer’s skills, I even looked at my own colleagues to see if anyone had a messy past.

We pulled records from the hospital, the counseling center, even the university psych department. I remember the suspicion in my own squad room, the way people started to keep their distance. It was like the killer had thrown a bomb into our trust. Everyone edged back.

Then the third case happened, and all my theories fell apart. Everything.

I remember that night—the call came in just after midnight. Another missing girl, another family torn apart. The scene was almost identical to the first: museum-grade grotesque display, the same chemical stench. But the wounds were different, less rage, more precision. My gut told me something was off.

Another missing girl. When we found her, she'd been cut up and displayed just like the first victim. The composition matched, so it was the same person. But the second case had been much more brutal, and apart from the relationships, had little in common.

We tried to map the connections—who knew whom, what secrets lay buried. The board in the squad room filled with faces and maps bled red thread, but the lines never quite connected. The killer was always a step ahead.