Who is the Real Killer

Dr. Phil Croft, the forensic pathologist in our department who was all ice and precision, recently took on a bright-eyed rookie intern, fresh out of college.
As a specially contracted criminal profiler, my job was to help him crack the city’s most brutal serial killer case.
The first time the intern saw Phil and me discussing the case outside the autopsy suite, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Dr. Croft," she said, her voice filled with a conspiratorial whisper, "in all the thrillers I've read, the beautiful, brilliant woman who's always one step ahead? She's always the secret villain! Have you ever considered that the person who killed your family all those years ago… might have been her?"
The pen in my hand, the one I was using to document the suspect’s psychological profile, skidded across my notebook, leaving a long, dark gash.
Unbelievable.
Here I was, a top-tier profiler brought in from FBI headquarters, my time billed by the hour. And for the first time in my career, my professionalism—and my innocence—was being judged by a third-rate paperback thriller.

1
The intern, Chloe Vance, was still talking, her eyes gleaming with a self-satisfied brilliance.
"Don't you see, Dr. Croft? It's a perfect logical loop! Why did she come back to the country right now? Why did she just happen to join this specific case? And why is every single one of her analyses so spot-on?"
She leaned in closer. "Isn't that exactly what the master villain does in the books? They play God, manipulating all of us good guys from the shadows!"
Phil set down his forceps, not even bothering to look at her.
"Chloe."
His voice was utterly devoid of warmth.
"First, this is a police department, not a book club."
"Second, every analysis Dr. Reed provides is based on forensic evidence and psychological reports you can't even begin to comprehend. Her insights are worth more than the hundred novels you've read combined."
"And third, if your idea of a 'logical loop' is forcing reality to fit your storybook fantasies, I suggest you schedule a neurological exam. Immediately."
Chloe's face turned a shade of crimson usually reserved for bad sunburns. She was stunned into silence, but the look she shot me was more resolute than ever. It was a look that screamed, See? I told you! He's under your spell! You're in this together!
I put away my pen. I felt no anger, no frustration. In fact, I almost wanted to laugh.
Half an hour later, I was standing in front of a projector at the serial killer task force briefing, my voice steady as I delivered my profile.
"Our unsub is male, between thirty-five and forty-five. He's highly educated, with a profound knowledge of classical music. He suffers from severe OCD and delusions of purity, targeting women he deems 'imperfect'. He…"
A hand shot up, cutting me off.
It was Chloe.
She stood up, looking as if she were about to reveal the secrets of the universe.
"I have something to add! I believe the killer is a Scorpio!"
The conference room fell dead silent. Everyone stared at her as if she were a newly discovered prehistoric fossil. The chief, who had been taking a sip of water, choked.
Chloe, oblivious, pressed on. "I've studied countless thrillers. The smartest, most ruthless serial killers? Eighty percent of them are Scorpios! There has to be a criminological basis for that!"
I kept my expression perfectly neutral.
"Moving on," I said. "The sheet music from Bach left at the scene contained a single incorrect note. This wasn't a mistake. It's a taunt—his unique signature."
As soon as I finished, Phil’s voice cut in.
"To add to that, the autopsy is complete. We found trace amounts of rosin dust under the victim's fingernails, consistent with a long-time string instrument player. Furthermore, the time of death aligns perfectly with the full performance time of that specific piece of music."
Our professional synergy was seamless. The information flowed between us, painting a crystal-clear picture of the killer.
Chloe was left standing alone, her face so red it looked painful. She wanted to interject, but she didn't even understand the technical terms we were using.
When the meeting ended, people filed out, casting sympathetic glances her way.
Phil stopped me.
From a dusty, long-forgotten archive cabinet, he pulled out a yellowed case file and handed it to me.
On the cover, two names were written in stark black ink.
One was my father's.
The other was Phil's sister's.
He lowered his voice, and for the first time, those cold, frosty eyes held something other than clinical detachment.
"Evelyn," he said, "that incorrect note you mentioned… it was found at the scene of this case, too."

2
Phil's words were a stone dropped into the still waters of my mind, sending ripples through years of unresolved grief. A cold case, dormant for over a decade, had just been linked to an active serial killer by a single, misplaced note.
The next day, the third victim was found.
At the crime scene, Chloe was practically vibrating with energy. She'd procured a high-powered UV lamp from God knows where and was sweeping it across the walls like a ghost hunter on a reality TV show.
"The books all say it," she muttered to herself. "The really smart villains love to use invisible ink to leave secret messages. You can only see them under a black light!"
The lead detective, Captain Miller, winced but didn't stop her.
Suddenly, Chloe shrieked with excitement. "I found it! I've got a reaction! Dr. Croft, come look!"
We all crowded around. In the corner of the room, under the beam of the UV light, a large, yellowish-green stain was indeed glowing ominously.
Phil crouched down, dabbed a sterile swab on the mark, and lifted it to his nose.
He then looked up at Chloe with an expression of profound, weary complexity.
"Chloe, this isn't a secret message."
"It's urine."
He paused. "The upstairs neighbor's toilet is leaking."
The room once again plunged into that familiar, suffocating silence.
But Chloe's "novel-based" investigation wasn't over. Moments later, she discovered a small black cat cowering under the bed.
"It's him!" she gasped, pointing a trembling finger. "The killer's messenger! In gothic thrillers, the killer always uses a black cat as a harbinger of death! It's a symbol of evil!"
I was examining the victim's hands, my gloves already on. I didn't even look up.
"Chloe," I said, my voice flat. "Based on the stage of rigor mortis and the ambient temperature, the victim died between fourteen and sixteen hours ago. Based on this cat's dehydration and empty stomach, it entered this room no more than two hours ago. It's a stray, drawn by the scent of blood."
Phil's preliminary report quickly backed me up. "No trace evidence from the killer or the victim was found on the cat's fur. Also, it's a domestic shorthair, not some purebred Persian from a gothic horror story."
Chloe's theories were, once again, brutally dismantled.
But she wasn't convinced. In her mind, Phil and I were conspiring to "hide the evidence" to protect the "real killer"—me.
Her paranoia drove her to do something reckless.
She started tailing me.
That evening, I drove alone to an old, abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. It was the place where my father and Phil's sister had been murdered. I needed to be there, to immerse myself in the atmosphere of the past, hoping to catch a flicker of a memory, a detail I had overlooked for years.
Hiding in the shadows, Chloe watched me. Her mind instantly concocted a blockbuster thriller: The Villain's Secret Rendezvous.
Trembling with excitement, she pulled out a burner phone and dialed the private number of the head of Internal Affairs.
"Hello? Is this Commander Davies? I need to make an anonymous report!"
"It's the new criminal profiler, Dr. Evelyn Reed! She's dirty!"
"I saw her with my own eyes! She's at the abandoned warehouse on the west side, meeting with an unknown accomplice! She's the mastermind behind the serial killings!"
On the other end of the line, Commander Davies's brow furrowed.

3
Davies didn't fully buy Chloe’s anonymous tip, but protocol was protocol. He sent a patrol car to do a quiet sweep of the warehouse perimeter.
They found nothing. I was in there alone for two hours before driving home.
The incident obliterated Chloe's credibility with Internal Affairs. But she didn't give up. She decided I must have "eyes everywhere" and had "erased the evidence" before they arrived.
She started spreading rumors around the department.
"Doesn't anyone else think Dr. Reed's background is a little too mysterious? Says she's from the FBI, but who can prove it?"
"And her salary? Tens of thousands of dollars an hour? Isn't that suspicious?"
"I'm telling you, she's not a profiler. She's a front. There's a huge conspiracy going on, and she's at the center of it."
She even started setting little "traps" for me, straight out of her novels. During a case discussion, she'd intentionally misstate an evidence tag number, then watch me from the corner of her eye, expecting me to correct her like a villain who knew all the details.
I simply ignored her.
Phil's patience, however, finally snapped. During one meeting, he slammed his hand on the table, the sound echoing through the room.
"Chloe! If you bring your storybook delusions into this task force and waste one more second of our time, you are out! Get out!"
Tears welled in Chloe's eyes, but as she looked at me, her expression was a toxic mix of resentment and vindication. He's completely brainwashed by this black widow, she thought.
The real conflict erupted a week later.
After cross-referencing all the evidence, Phil and I had narrowed our suspect pool to one man: a music professor named Victor Lynch. He fit my profile perfectly: age, educational background, a pathological obsession with Bach. Most importantly, he had been the mentor of one of the victims and had publicly humiliated her for an "imperfect" performance.
Just as we were about to request a warrant, Chloe burst in.
She brandished a "report" she'd compiled herself, declaring that the real killer was a harmless-looking librarian from the city's main branch.
"You're all wrong! The final boss is never this easy to find! In the books, the most dangerous person is always the one who seems the most ordinary!" she proclaimed. "I looked into this guy, Mr. Henderson. His daily routine is so boring it's practically a blank page. That's the biggest red flag of all! It's a disguise!"
When she said the name "Mr. Henderson," a tightly wound string inside me snapped.
He was the stooped, kind-faced old man who, during the darkest time of my life—after my parents died and my relatives passed me around like an unwanted package—was the only person who would secretly leave a box of hot food on my doorstep every single day.
He was my last remaining piece of warmth in a cold, unforgiving city.
For the first time, the calm, professional mask I wore cracked.
I would not allow anyone to disturb that good, gentle man based on some lunatic fantasy.
"Vetoed."
My voice was quiet, but it held an iron authority.
"All evidence points to Victor Lynch. We don't have time to waste on baseless speculation. I will not be signing off on any investigation into Mr. Henderson."
My unwavering refusal was, in Chloe's twisted mind, the ultimate proof of my guilt. I was covering my tracks.
She decided it was time to "expose" me, to prove that she was the true heroine who could see the truth.
That night, she snuck into my office.
Staying clear of the security cameras, she put on latex gloves and used tweezers to carefully retrieve the disposable coffee cup I'd thrown away. She lifted my faint lipstick print and fingerprints from the rim and transferred them to a clean sheet of paper.
Then, she used a burner computer to type up a document containing Mr. Henderson's home address, his daily schedule, even the park where he played chess.
At the bottom of the page, she added a single, taunting line:
Next target. He knows too much. —E.R.
My initials.
She placed the printout and the paper with my prints into a manila envelope. Like a ghost, she anonymously mailed the package to the serial killer we were hunting.
She was trying to use the killer as her weapon.
She wanted him to murder Mr. Henderson and frame me for it. It was the perfect plan to destroy my career, my reputation, and my life.
And I knew nothing about it.
I had just finished an eight-hour interrogation with Professor Lynch. From the micro-expressions flickering across his face and the cracks forming in his psychological defenses, I knew a confession was imminent.
Just then, my encrypted work phone vibrated.
It was a multimedia message from an unknown number.
I opened it.
The photo was of Mr. Henderson's living room. The old man was sitting peacefully in his rocking chair, reading the newspaper through his bifocals.
Behind him, outside the window, a hand in a white silk glove was silently sliding the unlocked window open.
Beneath the photo was a single line of text:
"Dr. Reed, I've received your 'instructions.' Let the games begin."

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