Crime

The wind bellowed outside as the aged man sat at his desk watching the clock ticking as time slowly passed by. His eyes drawn towards the painting intrigued yet fearful of what it represents. It hung there in the center of the room to big not to notice yet to dreary to hold a guests gaze. The image haunted him; it was something that consumed him with the past at every glance of it, the reason he could not move on and live a happy life with his family.
He had been retired for 6 years now from the Orlando FBI special victims unit, at the age of 52 after becoming obsessed with his last case until it interfered with his work and effected his decisions and judgment and now spent most of his time in his study going over and over his last case, the one that still gave him nightmares and haunted his thoughts.
The case was a murderer who had been named the “Silhouette Killer” he took children between 18-19 and tortured them for weeks on end until finally drowning them, then dumping there body in easy to find for the police with a neatly painted picture of their silhouette with a deep purple envelope attached clutched between the victims arms. The envelopes always exactly the same containing the same paper and printed note from famous poets and authors. The paintings always differing depending on the victim but always keeping the same shades of dark greens and grays.
6 years ago the murders had suddenly stopped, there had been no sign of a body, no reported missing people in the Orlando area and no paintings found. The last victim a 19 year old boy, was taken while running in the early hours of the morning and appeared 3 weeks later bruised head to toe clutching the large painting of his silhouette, this time it was different it had purple splotches throughout it and the silhouette was outlined with a dotted circle although the same purple envelope attached still. The same painting that hung in Morgan’s study that captured his gaze for nights on end, letting his mind...