9 a.m. The next morning,
Bryan still felt a slight headache and had to take some pain killers.
That nightmare was so vivid and realistic yet so twisted.
He still heard the sorrowful voices resound in his head as they chanted continuously even after he woke up.
Bryan looked at himself in the mirror; he wasn't wearing any shirt.
He ran his fingers across the scar on his right chest; that was where the knife his father had thrown at him pierced.
After his mom was taken, his relationship with his father had hit rock bottom and they never got along well after that.
Another thing that horrified him was that this nightmare incorporated the serial murder cases he was working on now with what happened in the past.
It was so sad listening to Anna's cries and her pleadings. If only he could go back in time then maybe he could have made a different decision. She had spared his life that day, she had sacrificed herself for him more than once, she was there for him, she taught him most of what he knew today, and she loved him.
Yet it was so easy for him to pull the trigger. It was so easy for him to close his ears against her pleas. It was so easy for him to be selfish and think about himself only.
He was a coward. A miserable weakling….
….
At 11 a.m., Bryan arrived at the police station. He wanted to investigate the secret boyfriend of Miss Angelina Ezekiel further.
He made up his mind not to tell Bruce until he had made the necessary preparation. He wanted to look into it first.
He first went to his house and as expected, it was deserted. He asked around and found out that he moved away around the same day Angelina was murdered.
After that, he went over and checked through his place of work. Gael had a good relationship at work and was mostly quiet.
Bryan found out that he had gotten into a fight with his colleague and had said some violent things. Shortly after, the colleague was murdered and he was suspected but was later cleared.
"So you have such a history?" Bryan was more intrigued by his findings. He had an idea on how to check this guy out thoroughly.
Next, he combed through some house registration and identification. He wanted to know if he had checked into a hotel or rented a house after the incident.
Nothing came up. It seemed like he had just fled.
Fled…
Bryan had an idea!
He checked the records of all airports and train stations. He couldn't have flown away, right?
Sadly, nothing came up too.
Was he so crafty?
Next, Bryan went through all the CCTV footage around his house since the day he had a fight with Angelina. Again, he didn't leave the house. It seemed like he vanished!
Bryan felt there was a connection between him and the serial killer, they were both stealthy.
Are they the same person? Bryan asked himself. Another idea he had was that Gael had a secret tunnel in his room which he used to escape the city. But wouldn't that tunnel be so deep?
Bryan didn't know what else to do. He wasn't an expert hacker so he couldn't do the other tasks he needed to do.
Afterwards, Bryan began to look through his records and discovered that he was directly involved with three murder cased in the past.
"You've been pretty busy, Gael." Bryan smiled wryly.
He studied each case he was involved with and wrote down the details.
Bryan searched and found his social media accounts.
He logged into his accounts using the knowledge he had in hacking.
To his surprise, the accounts were empty, like someone deleted everything. He must have deleted all his chats and activities, but why not delete the account?
This was another question that Bryan had to ponder over.
Perhaps he felt he could still use them or maybe he knew someone like me would try looking for him?
I will let the police handle his call logs and other details that I couldn't pull out. An expert will recover all those messages and chats!
After searching the internet for a while, Bryan saw an article as a related post. He clicked it and read the post.
"…after the incidence, there was a fire outbreak near the city central square and there were a lot of casualties.
The bodies that were recovered were twenty while those completely charred to ashes were over fifty. This number might not be accurate as the police gave an estimate based on the number of people who went missing at that time, amongst them were:
"…Gael Hanson, John Richmond, Hilbert…"
Bryan paused his reading when he saw the 23rd name on the list of missing people.
Gael Hanson!
Did he use the fire outbreak as an excuse to escape or maybe he caused the outbreak so that he could fake his death?
But this was also impossible since he hadn't left his house after the fight with Angelina…
Wait…
The neighbours said that he moved away but in the footages I don't see him leaving the house…
Could it be that he messed with the cameras?
Bryan smiled. It felt like his whole being was yearning for the progress of this case.
"Wherever you are Hanson, I'll find you." Bryan said solemnly, "I, Bryan Derrick, will find you out!"
Bryan wanted to bring justice to the victims. He could remember ma'am Janet crying, he could recall the faces of some of the victims when they were murdered, he remembered the brutality of it all and he was determined to seek out this killer.
This killer who was so mysterious, this killer who was like a ghost, this killer who was insanely good at masking his trails and using surgical procedure and could even make videos turn blurry. The fast and silent killer.
The killer who stalked his victims.
If it is true that Gael is this killer, he would do everything possible to get him.
Bryan stopped and considered another thing:
What about Dr Neil? What about the other clues?
"Seems like I have to be cautious and not leave any stone unturned. I will keep tabs on both suspects. Even if Gael is not the killer, he still had a lot to explain to the police." Bryan reassured himself.
He decided to tell the police the next day, it was late already and he needed to get some sleep.
Thinking about sleep made him think of the nightmare from last night.
"Everything is a nightmare…" Bryan muttered softly.
Anna had said this line before when she was alive….