The Love Killings by Robert Ellis

something more potent, more terrifying, more everything.
    “You know what, Doctor?” he said finally.
    Baylor narrowed his brow but remained quiet.
    “I saw what you did to the four girls in Los Angeles and New Orleans. I know what you’re capable of. Your methods have changed. That was my first thought when I saw the crime-scene photographs from the Strattons’. And it was the first thought I had when I climbed those stairs tonight. You’re in a state of decay. You need to hand over your gun. You need to come with me so I can help you. You need medical help. Psychiatric help. The killing has to end.”
    “You’re disappointing me.”
    “You need help, Doctor. Before anyone else gets hurt.”
    “May I ask you a question?” Baylor said in a particularly quiet voice.
    “Why not.”
    The doctor turned and gazed at the victims. “The killer is obviously selecting his victims from the same pool I am. But when you see something like this, when you add everything up, when you concentrate on the whole, and not the meaning of any single part, what are you left with, Matthew? What need was the killer trying to fulfill?”
    Matt remained quiet as he took in the horror one more time. A father with his two daughters. A mother with her son. Then he felt Baylor poke him in the back with his pistol.
    “It’s getting late,” the doctor said. “And I have another stop to make tonight. We’re leaving. We’re off to the kitchen, and you’re leading the way.”
    Matt gave the doctor a look and noticed that odd glint blooming in the man’s eyes again. He appeared disappointed and irritated and, all of a sudden, was in a rush to leave. Matt glanced back at the landing as he started down the staircase. His mind was reeling, and he held on to the rail all the way down to the entryway.
    There was too much information here—and he couldn’t get a grip on any one piece to even begin sorting things out.
    They started walking toward the back of the house. Baylor remained quiet as they passed all those rooms with all those lousy paintings. At least now Matt had a sense of who Holloway had been before his death. The paintings worked like a mirror and revealed who Holloway had really been.
    Matt turned and watched the doctor following him into the kitchen. Baylor crossed the room, swung open the glass door, and pointed at the property line in the distance. He was still in a hurry. Still disappointed and abrupt.
    “You can’t see it from here,” he said. “But there’s a stone wall about four feet high behind those trees. That’s where you’ll find your things when I’m gone. If you make any attempt to follow me, I’ll shoot you. Good luck, Matthew. I think you’re going to need it. Whoever murdered these people is someone special. I wouldn’t waste too much time thinking about how you’ll pay your father back right now. The last time you became distracted, you took three shots in the gut, remember?”
    Matt could feel Baylor’s eyes on him, and then he was off—crossing the backyard at a brisk and steady pace. Matt stepped outside and listened to the doctor’s footsteps break through the frozen ground in the howling wind. Once Baylor disappeared behind the trees, Matt hit the lawn in a full sprint. It took longer than he expected, the actual size of the property lost in the gloom, but when he finally reached the stone wall, he found his pistol and cell phone waiting for him. There was a rear gate here, and a condominium on the other side of the wrought iron fence. A car had just pulled out of the lot onto Sugartown Road. Matt strained to focus his eyes through the darkness, but the car was too far away to make out any detail.
    He noticed his breath in the air, thick as smoke. He couldn’t catch it. He couldn’t think. The world seemed like all of a sudden it was floating through space upside down.

CHAPTER 17
    It felt more like an interrogation than anything else. A violation of some kind. Matt was seated at a reading