The Last Killer

When he rushed down the steps of the porch in bare feet, the building behind him could no longer be called a house. It was burning and steaming, like a huge firework blooming mournfully in the dark night.

He ran forward without looking back, his bangs were wet with sweat, and he was still wearing old short-sleeved shorts that were used as pajamas. He looked like a puppy struggling to climb up from a pond.He didn't know the direction or destination, he just ran wildly until he bumped into a man who was about to get into the car, was bounced off and fell to the concrete floor.

"Little devil, don't you have eyes? You're looking for death by running so fast!" the man cursed rudely.

"Forget it, it's just a child." Another man next to him said.Compared with his burly companion, this flaxen-haired man with resolute features has a much calmer tone, and even stepped forward to help him up, and then he saw the old and new bruises and bruises on his bare and thin arms. scars. "Injured? Do I need to take you to the hospital?" Out of humanitarianism, the man asked casually.

He retracted his arm, trying to hide it behind his back, and stared at the other party vigilantly with his black eyes, "No." As if worried about being chased, he looked back a little nervously, then turned his head and said, "Can you give me the money?" a pair of shoes?"

The man moved his eyes to his dirty bare feet, some fresh scratches were oozing blood: "I don't have extra shoes, but I can give you some money to buy them yourself."

After hesitating for a moment, he took the banknote and found that there was no pocket on his body, so he had to rub it in his palm. "Thank you." He whispered, as if he was ashamed of being favored by others but had to bow his head to reality, "I will pay you back."

The man smiled very slightly: "Okay, if we can meet again."

He nodded and ran away.The burly man who was bumped into before muttered unhappily: "Weird brat. Is it Pengci?"

"Don't worry about it, Phalanx." The light-haired man said, "You didn't see the marks on his body from being whipped with a stick and a belt, and some cigarette burns. He looks only fourteen or fifteen years old, poor little thing."

The big black man called "Phalanx" shrugged: "What does that saying say, 'There must be something to hate about poor people', when I was 12 years old, I stabbed a screwdriver into my perverted dad's stomach, coward Deserves to be trampled on."

They got into the car, and after driving only a few hundred meters, they saw the burning house on the side of the road, which was almost in ruins. A middle-aged man and woman seemed to be the owners of the house, standing at the gate of the courtyard and yelling. Yelling, cursing excitedly.

"...I told you a long time ago not to adopt him! He is a fucking white-eyed wolf who is not familiar with it!" The male master growled at his disheveled wife.

Not to be outdone, the woman pushed her husband: "It's useless to say such things now! Why don't you lock him up?"

In the off-road vehicle that slowed down, the flaxen-haired man gave his companion a playful look: "It seems that the little guy I just sponsored is very courageous, isn't it?"

The siren of the fire engine came from afar, and Fangzheng looked at the quarreling couple in the firelight, snorted and said, "Well, I admit that my impression of him has changed, but he is still a thin-armed, thin-legged man. Poor wretch, I was twice his size at 15."

"You still don't realize that for a man, muscles are very important, but not the most important." His companion said, "I like the look in the child's eyes, how should I put it... like a wild wolf cub."

"Come on, captain, you said the same thing when you took 'Quick' in last year." Phalanx gritted his teeth disapprovingly, "We're not an animal rescue center."

Leo came out of a two-story apartment building on the side of the road.According to the address given by the phalanx, he rushed back to Los Angeles overnight and found the house.

There lived a family of five and two dogs. The male owner was an accountant, and the female owner was a housewife. They were clean and had no criminal record. They moved in seven years ago.They only knew that the house had just been built when they moved in, and they didn't know anything about the previous situation.

Leo visited several nearby households one after another, and finally learned from an old woman that the house was destroyed by a fire about eleven or twelve years ago. The couple who lived there sold the land and moved away to develop The dealer rebuilt the house and sold it to a new client.

"I still remember their surname... Logan, that's right. Mr. Logan is a policeman, and he is more strict, but he is not difficult to get along with. The couple had no children, so they adopted a girl from an orphanage. Later, the little girl died of illness They were sad for a while, and adopted another boy." The old woman recalled ramblingly, "It was a pretty Asian boy, shy of others, not talkative, and Mr. Logan said he was a bit autistic."

Leo took out a composite photo from his pocket and showed her the seven or eight-year-old Asian boy on it: "Please identify it carefully, is this the child?"

The old woman squinted her eyes for a long time: "It's kind of like it, but it's a bit older. It looks like thirteen or fourteen years old, and its complexion is not so good."

Thirteen or fourteen years old...Leo thought for a moment, then asked, "What happened to that fire?"

"Who knows, Mr. Logan said it was a circuit problem. But I clearly remember the couple cursing in the yard that night, saying that the adopted boy burned down their house. I haven't seen that man since. Boy, Mr. Logan said he ran away from home, and they searched for it for a while, but it was nothing."

"Excuse me one last time. Do you know which orphanage they adopted that child from?"

The old woman shook her head not knowing.

Leo had no choice but to thank her. After getting in the car, he used the satellite map to call up all the nearby orphanages. There were three in total. He decided to start with the nearest one.

Fangzhen said that they met 15-year-old Shaqing here. If the Asian boy adopted by the Logan family was young Shaqing, why did he set fire to the house of his adoptive parents and how was he placed in an orphanage before? of?Leo thought silently while driving.

The stern police adoptive father, the concealed cause of the fire, the adopted son who disappeared inexplicably after the fire...In the seemingly trivial and complicated amount of information, there are hidden key words and sentences, like the most important pieces of a puzzle, sift through them, Finding out the connection between them and finally piecing together the truth is one of the jobs of being a Bureau of Investigation agent.

No, go to his job, just an excuse!His tireless running around has nothing to do with work at all, it is completely selfish - he is just not satisfied with approaching the completion, and wants to go further.He is so eager to visit his past and understand his heart, he wants to know how those false and cunning masks cover the other party's real face layer by layer, forcibly twisting a soft and innocent child into a A bloody, murderous serial killer.

And after that?He asked himself more than once, what if he knew?What exactly do you want to get?For this reason, he has been confused, conflicted, angry, and painful, but now he is no longer suffering.Yes, he couldn't get involved in the past, but in the future, he hoped to be involved - it took him almost two months to figure this out, the rape in the visiting room of the detention center was not the deciding factor, but it was. It is an explosion of all kinds of emotions accumulated to the critical point.

Until now, he still has a love-hate relationship with killing: the part as "Leo" is irresistibly attracted and indulged in lust; while the part as "agent" never ignores his duty, and is always deep in love. on guard.

Maybe Phalanx is right, I am a fucking psycho.Leo smiled self-deprecatingly, and a slightly gloomy handsome face was reflected in the rearview mirror—gloomy, but he did not hesitate. Once he made up his mind, he would never look back.

The second time I met the flaxen-haired man, he was in a dark bar, stabbing a drunkard in the eye with a half-shattered beer bottle neck.The latter pressed him on the sofa in the dark box while he was drunk, got hit while pulling his underwear, covered his eyes and screamed.

The two fellow gangsters next to him immediately rushed towards him fiercely.He nimbly got out from the opponent's armpit, ran towards the back door of the bar, and crashed into the arms of the square array again at the door of the men's bathroom.

This time the big black man didn't open his mouth to scold him, he knocked the chasing gangster unconscious on the wet floor with two punches.

Fang Zhen grabbed him by the neck, like a kitten, and walked back to his box.

The captain and Quick Ke were playing dice on the sofa, Ji Guang fiddled with a cup of depth charges and forced Xue Yuan to drink it.Seeing that the phalanx brought in a handsome young man dressed as a waiter, the group of people suddenly looked surprised.

But the captain recognized him right away, and said with a smile, "Are you here to pay back the money?"

In full view, he rubbed his toes awkwardly, took out a handful of change from his pocket, and put it on the coffee table. "I only have these, and the rest will be returned to you after the salary is paid."

Ji Guang slung his arms around his shoulders casually, the earrings, nose rings and lip rings were shining brightly under the fluorescent light, which made him a little dizzy, "Hey, the little guy is pretty, come and have a few drinks with me, I'll pay the rest of the money for you .”

"Sorry, I don't drink with you."

"Do you want to sleep with me?"

He changed his expression amidst a roar of laughter, and punched the opponent's face with his fist.The opponent grabbed his wrist casually, like a catcher easily wrapping around a slow-flying baseball.But this was just a slap in the face, he bent his knees and slammed into the opponent's crotch, Ji Guang blocked the attack with the other hand, and said with a smile: "Sly—" Before he could finish speaking, his head and face were splashed with a glass of wine is on.

It turned out that while he was attacking with his right hand, his left hand was already secretly holding the wine glass on the coffee table.

There was a burst of disdainful boos from the crowd.

Ji Guang wiped the drink off his face with his sleeve, looking normal, but his eyes were cold.The captain got up and walked over and said, "If you take it lightly, don't blame others." Ji Guang turned away angrily and walked away, and the captain asked him again: "Little arsonist, what are you going to do next, should you surrender yourself to the police station, or report to the police? You were abused by your adoptive father?"

He pursed his lips, and replied in a mature and indifferent tone far beyond his actual age: "Is it useful? My adoptive father is a policeman. As for surrendering, I don't feel that I did something wrong. Why did I surrender? There was no policeman before lighting the fire." They put sleeping pills in their drinks, I'm already very restrained."

The captain smiled, and couldn't help rubbing his hair: "Good guy, he was born to be a fighter. A calm, firm, and unmoved heart is more rare than any strength and skill, because the latter You can practice, but the former is talent. How about it? Are you interested in joining my team? I can give you the strength and skills you lack. As long as five years, no, three years, I can make you an invincible sword Sharp sword."

He tilted his head and thought for a while—there was a hint of childishness in this movement, but it quickly disappeared in the dark eyes—and he asked cautiously: "These strengths and skills can help me track down those who hide in the dark." Evil, kill anyone I hate?"

Everyone laughed again. "Of course, we're professionals," Chip broke in.

"Murder expert." Xue Yuan added coldly.

"Extraordinary shots, unique skills, going to heaven and earth, omnipotent..." Ji Guang started R&B triumphantly.

"—We are 'Arctic Fox'." Said the captain.

When visiting the second orphanage, Leo successfully found someone who knew the inside story. He was an administrator in his early 50s, with clear thinking and articulate words. "This is the child, Roy Lin, whose Chinese name is Lin Qingzhu. He was sent to our hospital in 1997 when he was nine years old. I have a deep impression on him." He took the composite photo and compared it with the old files Over, for sure.

"Nine years old? Has he been adopted?" Leo asked.

"When he first came here, his mental state was not very good. I heard that because all his family members were killed, he was treated in the psychiatric department of the Children's Hospital for more than a year. He was sent to us when he was a little stable. He is a beautiful and smart child. , but because of mental problems, many adoptive families are discouraged. You see, here is a specific record: a family adopted him when he was ten years old, but he was sent back in less than three months because he always went crazy in the middle of the night. Shouting, smashing everything in the room on the window sill... In the next few years, he went to several adoptive families, but they didn't stay long. The last time was in 2002, when he was 14 years old, he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Laugen. I stayed the longest, nearly a year. Later, I heard that there was a fire in Logan’s house, and the child ran away from home, and has never been seen since. We tried to find it, but in the end we still found nothing.”

Leo touched the yellowed archive paper, and his fingertips twitched slightly nervously. There were only a few concise words recorded on it, but a feeling of oppression, gloomyness, and even pain and despair came from between the lines——being caught again and again. Giving expectations, being hurt and abandoned again and again, this is a cruel thing for a young child!Those adoptive families who claim to be charitable, can no one give him a little more patience and love than normal children?And that strange fire, if it was really him who started the fire as the Laugens said that night, then what did he go through in this family that made him so angry that he wanted to burn the whole world to the ground?

"Do you make regular home visits?"

"Yes, we all follow the rules."

"Including the year he was at Logan's?" the dark-haired detective asked sternly.

The other party hesitated for a moment, and said, "Mr. Logan is a policeman from the Municipal Bureau, so he shouldn't know the law and break the law. We didn't go there so often, and it's rare for the child to stay in the same family for so long..."

Leo asked sharply: "That is to say, if the Laugens really abused and adopted children, you wouldn't find out in time, or even turn a blind eye and secretly rejoice that you got rid of a hot potato? "

The other party was taken aback, and replied stammeringly: "No, there is no such thing. If there is such a thing, we must take the child back. No matter what, the child is innocent!"

"I hope so." Leo said in a cold tone, "I will continue to investigate whether the child was abused, and how the girl adopted by the Logan family died. I hope you will continue to cooperate. "

"Of course, we will try our best to cooperate with the investigation!" The other party hastily promised.

The black-haired detective didn’t just talk. He drove to the community where the Logan’s family was located, and went door-to-door to ask insiders. The possibility of adopting children is more than [-]%.Later, he rushed to the Los Angeles City Police Department to investigate Steve Logan, but the other party had retired three years ago and had left the country with his wife.

Unable to obtain the confession of the person involved in the short term, Leo had to first turn his attention to what the administrator of the orphanage said was the murder of Luoyi Lin's family members before he was sent in.

The file room of the police station was once soaked in water due to a pipe burst, and some of the old files that only had paper versions were completely destroyed, including criminal case files from 20 years ago.Leo had to visit the police officers who were on duty one by one—some of them were transferred from the city, and some of them retired.It took him a lot of trouble to find a police officer involved.

The retired policeman has gray hair, inconvenient legs and feet, and is sitting in a wheelchair. However, when he recalls the vicious case that has not been solved so far, he still has a look of deep pain and grief. "The murderer was premeditated and extremely cruel." He gritted his teeth and said, as if the 20-year-old event was approaching again, with a disgusting bloody smell, "First approach the victim's family in a planned way to gain the other's trust, In private, he sent threatening items and killed pets to intimidate the other party, but on the surface he pretended to support and protect him, until he suddenly got into trouble that day, first hitting the male host Lin's head with a baseball bat to kill him, and then Killed and dismembered the hostess Li, raped her, and finally raped their eight-year-old son. If a car in a nearby street was not stolen and the car alarm sounded unexpectedly, the murderer was frightened and left in a hurry , that child could not have survived."

"Seeing that scene at the time, I vowed to bring the murderer to justice! However, we failed to catch him... This is the incompetence of our police!" The old man was so excited that even the slack muscles of his cheeks trembled "From the point of view of the modus operandi, I suspect that the murderer is not the first time to commit a crime. He is bold, sophisticated, and regular. He must have done similar things before - he is a serial murderer! I will write the suspicion into the report, But it didn't attract the attention of the higher-ups... At that time, the mayor was re-elected, and they didn't want to complicate the matter, and they didn't want the city to panic because of the rumors of "a serial killer"... This case has been hanging there, and there is no one who suffers. I came to ask about the progress, and was finally swept into the pile of old files... But I have never forgotten the case, and I have never forgotten the survivors. After so many years, the child's eyes at that time have always been like a thorn in my heart. When I think about it, I feel so guilty, more than once I regret that I didn't stick to my position..."

The old policeman's confession did not reach the black-haired detective's ears.

At this moment, Leo's brain was suddenly occupied by the revealed details of the case.He suddenly found that these details had a kind of deja vu familiarity, he must have seen them somewhere!Where?Where……

He got up suddenly, rushed out of the house, and ran to the street at full speed.Bookstore, bookstore!Is there a bookstore near here?He grabbed passers-by and asked them frantically until someone pointed to the corner at the end of the street.Panting, he rushed into the bookstore, found the hardcover and reprinted "Whispers Before the Bed" by Roy Lee in the bestseller section, dropped a banknote in a hurry, and ran out of the bookstore.

Under the tree at the corner of the street, he eagerly tore off the plastic wrapping film, and flipped to one of the pages: "...she was crying, screaming, soaked in the venom of pain and fear, and pain and fear are forever... endless.

Her side face was deformed due to the pressure between her palms and the countertop, only a pair of terrified and dazed eyes were hidden in the gaps in the messy hair, and the focus was lost due to the constant shaking.

Fragments of light and shadow danced wildly in front of my eyes, and the dark lawn spread out from the window, extending to the monster-like bushes in the distance, and finally melted into the deeper darkness together.

The mother's head stared at her on the lawn, with cobweb-like long black hair and round, straight eyes, like a newly unearthed mushroom.

She stares at her.She stared at all the grinning, evil desires and atrocities, all the begging, crying and pain.just stare.

Don't look at me like that!Don't look... She begged her, scolded her, called her, but there was no answer.

Mother's scarlet lips were distorted and parted.

She heard her wailing.No matter how many years have passed, she can always hear her wailing, echoing in this courtyard and over this house all day and all night..."

Leo finally understood everything.

In this suspenseful story, the victimized family has an innocent and lovely young daughter; in the real case, the victimized family has an equally innocent and lovely young son.

This child has survived all the cruelty and viciousness a human being can do, with no justice served, no one held accountable for evil deeds, no one or anything to comfort the dead souls.This child lived alone, was accepted and abandoned time and again hypocritically, until he was completely desperate, until he struggled out of despair for a road longing for strength, until he resolutely moved forward on this bloody and twisted road. back.

In the end, he became a serial killer, code-named "Finishing".

He is also divided just like himself, one part is an extreme and stubborn avenger who kills without batting an eye; the other part lives harmlessly in the text.

He hid the nightmare of his life in the book he wrote, subconsciously expecting someone to discover it, capture it and destroy it.But he was disappointed.

His pain can be seen all over the world, but no one pays attention to it, no one takes it seriously.His side in the light is famous, but his soul in the dark is lonelier than anyone else.

That's the past of wrapping--are you satisfied, Leo?He asked himself blankly, the book fell from his fingers.

Sha Qing woke up from a nightmare and jumped up like an attacked beast.

Sweat drenched his back, and he was panting with uncertainty... Why did he dream about the past that he had deliberately forgotten?He is familiar with the tricks of psychology, whether it is hypnosis or suggestion, as long as it can seal dark memories in the deepest part of his mind.

But now, it's crawling through his brain like a hideous, unyielding monster, and he can hear the vicious tearing and chewing sounds, trying to destroy what he's been accumulating so hard to make himself look normal. human stuff.

He pressed his forehead tightly with his palm, as if he could knock the monster back into the seal.

After a long time, he let out a long breath.

He bent down and took out three metal keys from under the pillow, which he stole from the drawer of the nurse on duty before turning off the lights. They could be used to open the door of his own cell, an iron door in the corridor of the ward, and pull the key. The door to the cell where Farr Stoke is.

At 04:30 in the morning, when people are most sleepy, he decided to act now.