The organization was grieving. People were comforting one another. And Cami was among them. She was a part of them.

  She texted Jacenta a quick 'thank you so much.' Then, feeling shattered, she took the shower gel to her tiny shower cubicle and had a fragrant, hot shower. After her shower, utterly exhausted, she collapsed into bed. She felt as if she was done with the day, as if there was nothing left that could possibly play out now.

  But even so, a moment before she fell asleep, Cami had a sudden thought that penetrated all the way through the sleepy, battered confusion in her mind.

  She had an idea about the victims, and how to find them. It had come to her in a stroke of inspiration. Cami couldn't ignore it. Exhausted as she was, she had to find out if it would be viable. She needed to search deeper, search using their private information, and look for a group that was focused on athletic prowess. If she did that, she hoped that she might find a place, at last, where they’d all interacted. Because for sure, they were sharing information somewhere online.

  Feeling as if she was struggling with leaden eyelids, she unpeeled her face from the pillow, opened her laptop, and set out to see if it might get her somewhere.

  ***

  The next morning, at seven a.m., she called Connor. She'd been awake since five a.m., working further on the theory she’d had the night before. She felt wrung out, but at the same time, she knew this research was solid.

  He answered after two rings, his voice grainy.

  "Cami? What's up? You okay?"

  "I'm okay," she reassured him. "Connor, I've had an idea. About the case."

  "You have?" Did she hear a note of respect in his voice? She thought she might have.

  "Yes. I was trying to think outside of the box, and I came up with something."

  "What idea?" Now his voice was sharper, as if he, too, was regaining much-needed focus.

  "I thought I'd go deeper into where these victims interacted." Reaching into the bag of cookies Jacenta had sent, Cami picked out one, thick and chunky and studded with chocolate chips. She'd eaten two last night while researching, and one this morning before calling Connor. And she had to say that Jacenta was right on the money with her comfort food. Her brain had been screaming for sugar, which the cookies had provided.

  Her grief was still there, like a powerful current ready to drag her down, but for now, her resolve was keeping her afloat.

  "What did you find?"

  "I was battling," Cami admitted. "Eventually I went really deep. I did a search using their phone numbers, their private email addresses. I was looking for somewhere more technical that they might share information like workout time, distance, heart rate and so on. And I found a group that they were all members of online."

  "And what is it?"

  "It's a forum that is actually more like a leaderboard, in that it’s very focused on results and performance. It's private, and members only, but I found a way in. It’s linked to their fitness devices, and allows them to post their times, their personal bests, their accomplishments."

  "And they all used it?"

  "They did," Cami said. "It's not a very nice site. It's not friendly. It's ultra competitive. This is purely a place for people who feel they've achieved something special to brag, and because it's linked to technology, they can brag without feeling that they are lying, I guess."

  "So they all bragged on it?"

  "They all posted regularly when they achieved good times or good results. And everyone posts their heart rate, all the time. I think it has to be linked to this, surely.

  "Interesting. So you reckon he knows about this online forum? He follows this?"

  "Yes. I think he does. He might even be a member of it. And I’m wondering if he might have been someone who got on the wrong side of these people. Maybe he didn't achieve what he thought he had, and then they belittled him when he tried to brag. That happens often here."

  Cami looked again at the comments. Some of them were sincerely admiring, but only if the people listing their times had genuinely achieved something. Otherwise, the comments were downright cruel. They were nasty.

  And she hated to say it, but all four of these women who’d been targeted by the killer had indulged in that nastiness. None of them had held back when someone had posted a substandard time, or had seemed to be lacking in fitness.

  A man who'd come on here looking to achieve, hoping for praise, and who had been taunted and ridiculed instead, might have gotten very angry, Cami reasoned.

  "That sounds like a solid lead. Can you narrow it down?"

  "I'm working on it as we speak. I have programs running that are looking for people who fit the description. I don't know how many hits I'll get, but I should have something in the next few minutes."

  "Keep it running," Connor advised. "I'll be on my way to pick you up in ten minutes."

  Cami felt a wash of relief. She was still part of the team. She was still on the case. Connor needed her.

  "I'll be ready," she assured him.

  She hung up, feeling a lot better. A tiny bit of her grief was lifting, and she didn't know if it was because she had a plan, or because she felt she was getting somewhere.

  Even though she was only one cog in the wheel, feeling that wheel turn had to alleviate her sense of helplessness.

  And then, her program finished running and flashed up the results.

  Quickly, Cami grabbed her laptop and took a look at what was there, reading through the profiles that her software had singled out.

  Her eyes widened as she reached the third one on the list. She read through the info and then re-read, checking all the details such as location, address, time on the site, and comments made.

  "I hope you get here quickly, Connor," she muttered. "Because I might just be looking at our killer."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The skull mask was the one he would use next, the killer decided. Because, to him, it emphasized everything he'd been through. The enforced denial. The feeling of being pushed to his limits. He'd often thought of himself as being nothing more than bare bones, without any strength, without any living flesh. Everything stripped away.

  The killer stopped his car and parked in a secluded spot. There, on top of the hill, was his next destination. That was where he was headed, and this was a kill that had intense significance for him. He wanted to relish every moment of the experience.

  As he stared at his faraway target, he heard the pounding of feet from behind him. He spun around, frowning as a woman in her forties jogged by. She was in the mold he hated. He saw that immediately. She was fit, strong, and focused. She glanced at her fitness watch as she passed him, causing him to tense in anger.

  How he hated these women who pursued the goals that he'd been forced into.

  They'd been born as athletes, and it showed in the way they moved. It showed in the way they thought. How he hated them for being able to do what he couldn't.

  The skull mask was a reminder of how they had made him feel. Seeing their faces, seeing their bodies, hearing their voices, taunting him, and ridiculing him.

  It reminded him of the words he'd been made to suffer during those torturous sessions.

  "You'll never be an athlete. You'll never even be a man. Look at you. You are puny, weak, and pathetic. Look at this heart rate? Unacceptable! And why can't you chin the bar five times? You should be able to do it ten times!"

  The voice had never gone away. That loud, taunting, bullying voice had stuck in his mind for years, as if lodged there immovably.

  Every time he looked in the mirror he was reminded of those scathing criticisms. "Look at you. You're so skinny and bony. Your arms are like a rag doll's. That's what you are. You're nothing better than a girl. Only when I look at the girls that work out with you, they are all fitter and stronger than you. Better speed, too. You're eating their dust, that's all you're doing. Just eating their dust!"

  And he'd been insulted like that in front of the girls. His tormentor had never shied away from humiliating him in public. Not once had the girls been kind, he remembered. Those women, lifting weights, running on treadmills, seeking to smash their fitness goals, had been nothing but insulting to him. He'd never received sympathy or even help from them.

  He had never been able to understand why his tormentor was so cruel to him. He had never been able to understand why he had made him lift weights that were way out of his league in terms of his body's strength, while taunting him when his heart hammered in stress and panic. He knew he didn't have the strength in his arms or his hands. They knew he wasn't strong. And yet he had made him try and try, and each time he'd ended up collapsed on the floor, in pain and humiliation.

  "I hate you," he said.

  He'd never said it at the time. He hadn't been able to summon the courage he needed to say those words. Like, "I refuse." That, too, had not been something he'd found himself able to spit out.

  Instead, he'd buckled down and pushed himself to the limits.

  Breathless, aching, nauseous, and under the iron rule of a man for whom his achievements would never be good enough.

  "Your sister's doing better than you! She's managing a full set of reps. And she's a year younger, twelve pounds lighter, and five inches shorter. What's wrong with you?

  He'd been too breathless to gasp out his reason, that he simply couldn't. That he didn't have the strength left in his body to continue, that he was still too young, that this was too much for him.

  "I'm going to make you into a man," his tormentor had threatened. "Whatever it takes. You are weak and flabby and useless. Not a man to be proud of. I'm ashamed of you. Now try harder and show me what you're made of!"

  He'd always been too weak to resist.

  Those sessions had left deep scars in his psyche. And for years, after he'd left home, he'd rebelled.

  With a frown, as he started to walk up the hill toward his target, he remembered how unfit he was. Now, the walk was easy for him, and he barely noticed the incline of the steep hill, even though he was walking fast. Back then, he wouldn't have been able to make it. At the height of his rebellion, he'd become that man sprawled on the couch in front of the TV, stuffing snacks into his mouth, rebelling against the years of misery.

  Although he'd taken escape in that for a few years, he had not found that it healed him. In fact the scars had become even more raw and agonizing with time.

  Then, one day, as he'd been heading for the grocery store to stock up on snacks, he passed by a woman who reminded him of all the ones he'd been taunted with as comparisons. She was fit, lean, and wearing gym gear. Standing by her car, she'd given him a look of utter contempt. As he'd lumbered past, she had sniggered.

  And, in that moment, he understood what he needed to do to get true payback. He understood what was needed, but in the same breath, he realized that it would take planning and change to achieve it.

  He'd go back to the gym, but this time, he wouldn't be the one who was weak. He'd become the one who was strong. He knew that to do what he now dreamed of, he would have to become the person he had hated and resented. Strength was necessary. Endurance was essential. And, most of all, he needed the total focus of a top athlete.

  To fight them, he needed to be on equal terms.

  And so, with revenge in mind, he'd set about his plan to get in shape. He'd begun his long journey. It had taken a year of going to the gym five times a week, and another year of lifting weights to get his body in shape, as fit and strong as he needed it to be. He'd done it the hard way, and he'd had to change everything about him. Except for the way he felt inside. That would never change. He wasn't proud of his strong, lean body, and in fact he considered it just an outward symbol of the inner pain he had felt for so long. He couldn't wait to destroy it, day by day, to erode it away all over again, sprawled on the couch in defiance.

  But he couldn't do that until he had achieved his last and most important goal. This was the one he had been building up to all this time. Just as one might build up to a level of fitness, he thought, with a wry grin at that analogy.

  He couldn't wait any longer because there was surely a chance that this next victim might realize the pattern in place, and that would mean that all his efforts had been wasted.

  He needed this victim to be there, innocent and unaware, ready for him to arrive, and to receive the punishment for all those years of pain.

  The killer smiled as he strode along, checking his pockets to make sure that he had the equipment he needed. It wasn't much, and it was easily concealed. Just one small syringe and a marker pen. That was all he had to carry.

  So much easier than a full set of weights. And so much more effective, too.

  He couldn’t wait to use them.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cami was waiting outside the main gate of MIT when Connor arrived. She scrambled in the car, feeling utterly drained from yesterday, but with a steely determination about what today would bring. This chat forum held the answers, she was sure of it. It was the killer's hunting ground. It had to be.

  And on it, she'd found a man who had a strong motive for murder.

  "So, who's the suspect?" Connor asked. Glancing at him, Cami saw that he looked as if he was also short on sleep. She guessed that last night hadn't been easy for him, either. She could imagine how he would have had to notify his team, talk to Ethan's parents, manage this entire tragedy all while suffering his own grief.

  But now, he was trying to put it aside, just as she was.

  "There's a man on the site called Nolan Webster," she said. "He was a weightlifter who had Olympic dreams. He trained at the same gym as Davina Bright used, and I see that he was criticized by all four victims, as well as a lot of other people, when he tried to brag online."

  "Why's that?"

  "They said they thought his readings were false. That nobody could achieve what he'd achieved, with such a short time in training," Cami explained.

  "How did he respond to that?"

  "Aggressively. He's a very aggressive man. And as it turns out, they were right."

  "They were? How?"

  "He was kicked off the state team for using illegal steroids and fitness enhancers. At any rate, that’s what one of the commenters accused him of. I then found a related news article that said he'd physically attacked his coach."

  "Does he have a record?"

  Cami shrugged. "I think he must. He was definitely arrested after the incident with his coach. I had so many search windows open by then, and this search took so long, that I didn't have time to check."

  "I can ask the office to confirm. Do you have an address for him?"

  "Yes. He lives in a neighborhood south of the city, and it seems that he is employed by a local gym."

  "Let's head there now," Connor said. "What does he look like? You have a description?"

  "Here's his photo," Cami said. "He's thirty five years old, six-foot-two, dark-haired."

  Nolan was clean shaven, with a dark buzz cut. His tanned face looked hard and aggressive, a reflection of his personality, Cami thought.

  After glancing at the photo, Connor pulled onto the road, and they began a stop-start journey in morning traffic, heading out of the city. As they inched their way through the traffic, Connor got on the phone.

  "I'm looking for a record," he said to someone in the office. Someone who, Cami remembered with a pang, would have been Ethan if this tragedy hadn't happened.

  "Name of Nolan Webster," he said. "You can text me the details. We're on our way there anyway, so it's just for background."

  Cami watched out of the window. The day was gray and starting to rain, and the gloomy weather reflected her mood whenever she thought about Ethan, which was all the time.

  She glanced at Connor's map display, seeing that they were almost at their destination now. They had reached an outlying suburb that Cami thought looked to be on the rough side. It was comprised of small houses and tall apartment blocks, nestled by the side of the railway tracks.

  "The gym should be along this road."

  Cami saw the signage for it almost immediately. A large, faded, black and white notice board was displayed above a big square building that looked like it could be a repurposed warehouse.

  "Fight Club?" she said aloud. "Wonder who came up with that name?"

  "At least it's giving us a clue," Connor agreed cynically.

  The tagline below the name read, "Boxing, Fighting, Wrestling, Hand to Hand Combat."

  Outside were a few motorcycles and a bunch of muscle cars. Cami had a feeling that there weren't going to be many women in this gym. In fact, she thought she could sense the excess testosterone already filtering out of the windows.

  It occurred to her that since this killer had targeted only women so far, perhaps he felt more comfortable training in a place where there weren't any women. Maybe that meant that his lethal instincts were suppressed in working hours, she thought with a shudder.

  Connor was checking his phone as he climbed out.

  "Yup," he said. "Nolan has a record. A year and a half ago, for assault. He spent a month inside after breaking his coach's arm in a fit of rage. It should have been longer, but he pleaded in mitigation that steroid use had made him uncharacteristically aggressive. I see here he claimed it was legal use, though. But he could have access to other toxic substances and poisons, if he is linked into an illegal supply of performance enhancers.”

  He hurried to the gym's entrance, ducking his head against the worsening rain.

  Cami suspected that even without steroids, Nolan might be characteristically aggressive. She couldn't help feeling nervous as she walked up the three shallow concrete stairs to the gym's main door. It was battered, as if some of the fights had overspilled the interior and ended up damaging it. Its handle was loose and rusty. Connor opened it and they stepped inside.

 

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