Free I Will Come for You by Suzanne Phillips

a victim who goes after the scum bag.”
    “I know. But that doesn’t apply here. The KFK’s been working a long time, and retaliating against a multitude of sins.”
    “I’m going to pull all recent offenses anyway,” Carter insists.
    “That’s a good idea.”                            
    “One more thing, if we’re going to throw out the profile, then maybe we should forget about average white male, aged thirty-eight to fifty-two.”
    “Already forgotten.”

 
                 
     
    Chapter Nine
    Sunday, 5:30 pm
     
    Isaac sits at the kitchen table, under the tiffany chandelier his mother bought and insisted his father place above their dining table. She didn’t take it with her, not any of the times she left. In fact, she never took more with her than she could carry in one hand. The first time, when Isaac was seven years old, she clutched a small, pearled jewelry box that belonged to her mother. She didn’t say good-bye. She didn’t take her clothes, her makeup, not even pictures. He thought for sure she was coming back.
    So far, after each of her visits, which are never announced, she’s left with: his father’s bowie knife; Isaac’s baby shoes, cast in bronze; a silk screening of Tib Inlet, which they can see from the upstairs bedroom windows; a wooden salad bowl his parents received as a wedding gift; several selections from Isaac’s bookcase; a coaster that featured Isaac’s father in full baseball uniform from the one year he played with the pros; and a framed photograph of Isaac. She isn’t exactly emptying the house, but leaves each time with a small memento of her past life.
    Isaac finishes his homework and slides the math sheet into his binder. He stacks his books on the counter next to the back door so that all he has to do is grab them on his way out in the morning. It’s after five-thirty and he wonders where his father is. Almost always they have dinner together. His father is pretty intense about that. They have breakfast in the morning, sometimes toaster waffles or drive-thru McDonald’s, before his father drops Isaac off at school
    on his way to work.
    His father gets involved in his job and so he sets his watch alarm to ring at four pm, when he calls Isaac to make sure he got home from school OK, to ask if he’s eating a snack, if he started his homework. By five-fifteen, his father is home and they make dinner together. They eat at the table. Sometimes they talk; sometimes they sit through the whole meal without saying much more than pass the salt.
    But he didn’t call today. And dinner is usually at five on Sundays.
    Of course, Miss Iverson was murdered last night and his father, as head constable, is responsible for finding the man who did it. The King’s Ferry Killer. Isaac didn’t know that last night. He didn’t think about who killed Miss Iverson, he thought only about how she tried to protect him, even with her last breath.
    “You’re not safe here, Isaac. . .”
    And about how scary it was, to be so close to a murder the blood flowed on his hands and he could hear the guy responsible, behind him, breathing.
    Isaac thinks it’s a man. He only saw him from behind. Evil was present, and so thick, that it was hard to see through its black robes to the man who wore them like animal skin. Isaac remembers only the shape of him, how much space he took up as he searched for and found some trophy item in Miss Iverson’s closet. Isaac would probably know him if they stood together in the same room, but he can’t pick him out of a crowd; can’t identify him from a picture.
    Isaac tries to shake the feel of evil from his mind. There’s something about that kind of darkness; it was smothering. Isaac felt it all over him, prying at his mind, looking for a way in. It was sharp and mean and shaking with rage.
    He hopes he never runs into the guy again. Ever.
    Not a lot spooks Isaac anymore. When you’re a companion to the dying, everything