She doesn’t know about Ross. But she will on Monday. Everyone will see his message and my reply, and I wonder how long it will be before they’re camping outside my front door, until they’re fighting each other for a comment, not letting one reporter record every word. Hopefully, it won’t be long.

“Who do you work for?” I ask.

Sara smiles. “The Doveton Messenger.”

That’s not enough. I need bigger papers, famous papers. I need to be on front pages that people pay for, home pages they check the moment they wake up.

“If you ever want to talk,” she says.

I stop and look at her. “If I ever want to talk, you’ll listen, right?”

She smiles and nods, and I say, “Thank you.”

That seems to make her happy, and when I start walking, she doesn’t follow me.

If she wants to help, she could start by putting the murders back on the front page. Every single newspaper could remind the world what he did, over and over, until he is caught.

Chapter 31

If Danny had his way, this would happen on Monday, but the first time I meet Ross, I don’t want anyone watching.

He lives close enough for us to meet in town.

Not all the victims shared the same zip code. Some were hundreds of miles away. That’s why the Magpie Man wasn’t called a serial killer at first, because nine months after Mom was murdered, his second victim was found in Chester, and the first thing they thought was copycat.

Then he went to Glasgow for number 3, and the message boards said it was a cult. They said it wasn’t two people, it was hundreds, slowly adding to a body count that would never stop. I was terrified when I read that, imagining a group of murderers all over the country.

When Margaret McKenzie was killed in London and they found the number 4 carved into her chest, the police appointed a special detective who was as useless as everyone else. And then Sharon Custis was killed a few miles from Doveton, and they finally blamed him for all five.

Maybe that’s why Ross contacted me—because we share more than a story.

I often think about the left behind: people like me whose lives are destroyed but who must keep living. The Magpie Man is responsible for a lot of those people, and I’m about to meet another one.

If something huge happens on the days I’m off-screen, I am supposed to film it myself with the minicams. But this is part of a bigger plan, and I can’t spoil it. I want to gather up the left behind, and Ross is my first chance.

Because I’m not totally stupid—after what happened to Mom—I tell Hanna what I’m doing, and she comes with me.