They suspected a young boy at first, or a very uneducated adult because of the grammar and spelling. As the crimes increased in intensity and number, they were able to narrow down the criminal profile. It was textbook how the crimes progressed.

Now he’s a serial killer. And a shadow who’s followed me for years.

The beer slips from my hand, luckily landing with a clank and then bottoming out on the tabletop. With a glance over my right shoulder, then the left, I pull my shit together.

My brother would have been that old then. My brother would fit a description of a young white male in his early twenties.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” I say then clear my throat, sitting at the very end of a bar in Delilah’s hometown. “I was just starting, only a month in. And I thought …” I pause to take in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of pale ales and IPAs from the draft the bartender pours. The mug is tilted and the foam spills over to the sound of another classic rock song coming on.

“At first I thought I … I didn’t know what to think. It was a hunch and I thought maybe I just wanted him to be alive, you know?” The men in the back make a ruckus when someone hits the dartboard. We’re surrounded by clatter and barflies, but I’ve never felt more alone.

Until Delilah leans forward, her hands wrapped around an untouched glass of white wine. She peeks up at me and then scoots closer, her right side brushing up against mine.

“You wanted him to be alive.”

“It was more than that … the way he said things … they were different for me than they were for the other notes and they hit on memories.

“It was like he wanted me to know, but he never outright said it.

“I thought it was all in my head … that the suspect was a surrogate or worse, was playing me.”

“I was there,” Delilah whispers, his gaze turning to the sweet liquid in the wineglass. She runs her finger around the rim of it. “You never told me.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” I say and my excuse sounds just like what it is. An excuse. Her small hand is gentle as she rests it on my thigh and rubs back and forth in a soothing motion. Her lips part but she doesn’t say anything. Neither of us does for a moment until she takes a sip of wine and then leans closer to me.

“You were hurting, you were scared and didn’t know who you could trust or if what you were doing was the right thing.” She adds to my excuses, my reasoning for going along with it back then.

“Maybe it worked like that at first. But then … he’d … he’d set people up to go down and give me leads on them.”