Free Watch Me by James Carol

but, yeah, I’m sure they had their demons.’
    ‘And what about you?’
    An image of my father strapped to a padded prison gurney in the execution chamber reared up in my mind. It was followed by an image of a young girl with a plastic bag over her head, a leather belt cinched tight around her neck, eyes wide and skin blue from cyanosis. I wondered how Carl Tindle was getting on in prison. Hopefully his new friends would be making him feel right at home.
    ‘We’ve all got a dark side. Face it, Taylor, you cannot ever fully know another human being. How many times have you heard that cliché?’
    ‘I’m telling you, Winter, he’s not a cop.’
    ‘And you can vouch for every one of your colleagues, from the sheriff himself all the way down to the dispatchers?’
    Taylor nodded.
    ‘Even though you’ve only been there six months?’
    Another nod, but this one wasn’t quite so vehement.
    ‘And what about the police department? Can you vouch for every single person that works there, too?’
    There was no nod, not this time. I’d been aiming for reasonable doubt, and that’s what I’d got.
    ‘Be careful with assumptions, Taylor. They have their uses, but if you abuse them they’re going to turn around and bite you on the ass. I said the unsub was a cop, I didn’t say he was from the sheriff’s department.’
    ‘Are you a hundred per cent positive this guy’s a cop?’
    I shook my head. ‘No, but I am up to ninety-nine per cent, and believe me, until this guy’s in custody that’s as good as it gets.’
    Taylor fell silent, the gears in his head turning. He was looking for a counter-argument, something to prove me wrong, anything. He was grabbing for straws in a pitch-black room.
    ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s assume for a second you’re wrong. You just said yourself that there’s a one in a hundred chance that this guy isn’t a cop. If it turns out that you are wrong, then we’re going to waste a load of time chasing a ghost, time that could have been spent doing something useful, like chasing down someone who isn’t a cop. In the meantime, the countdown hits zero and someone else ends up being burnt alive.’
    ‘We’re not wasting our time. First off, this guy is a cop. Secondly, you have the whole of the sheriff’s department and the police department out there looking for a killer who isn’t a cop. That’s a lot of manpower. If by some miracle I am wrong, then we need to have faith that they’re going to do their jobs and catch this guy. Thirdly, if it does turn out I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to put my hands up and admit it. If the cops haven’t caught him by then, we change tack and try a different approach.’
    ‘And in the meantime, someone else dies.’
    ‘And that’s the reality of this business. You make a plan based on the information you have to hand, then hope and pray you’ve got it right. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.’
    Taylor said nothing.
    ‘Worst-case scenario, I’m wrong and someone else ends up getting torched. Best-case scenario, I’m right and we catch this guy before he kills again.’
    Still nothing.
    ‘You’re smart and you can think on your feet, and that’s what we need right now. I can do this on my own‚ but I’d appreciate your help. It’s your call, though. If you decide that you can’t help me, then I’ll go it alone. However, I’d appreciate it if you kept your mouth shut about my theory that this unsub is a cop.’ I smiled. ‘But that’s all academic since you’re going to help me.’
    Taylor let out a long sigh. His broad shoulders slumped as a heavy weight settled on them.
    ‘It gets worse,’ I added. ‘You realise that until this is over we’re effectively the Dayton Sheriff’s Department? It’s just you and me, my friend.’
    ‘You’re full of good news, aren’t you?’
    ‘Hey, it’s not all bad. You’re now the new head of the Dayton Sheriff’s Department Criminal Investigation Division. You’re