In Plain Sight - Part 1

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Flashes of the Silent Night massacre ripped through his mind. Hundreds of dead bodies on campus. Thousands of people robbed, mugged, hurt or killed over the past two years throughout the country. Was it all because of me? He laid in his bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. Kendra's face, right before it got impaled with a bullet – he remembered her face. The snowflake on her fake eyelash. Christopher – he knew him, he hung out with him. Garret Hodge – his first contact at SASU. The first student to talk to him like a normal person with whom he split ways later in college. No one deserved it. The only person who deserved what they got was Joshua, but at what price? Thousands of copycats sprung up over the past two years – everyone tried to get away with it like he did. He couldn't shake the feeling that maybe if he got caught, if he got turned in, if justice was served in the eyes of the public, maybe it would stop. After all, the crime didn't stop. The murder rate was still high – he just became numb to hearing about it. After Silent Night, nothing above a regular first degree murder seemed to register. He tossed and turned in bed. Once again, he buried his guilt. It isn't really my fault. It can't be.

The next morning, Kevin peered at his phone, scrolling through a news feed when he saw it.

BREAKING NEWS: This is the biggest breakthrough in the Ian Avery case yet after almost two full years since the incident. There was a match found between Ian Avery's recorded fingerprints, and the fingerprints found on a door handle at a coffee shop in South Arbon called Chronos Coffeehouse. The South Arbon Police are on the scene and have locked down the coffee shop until an investigation process has been completed. "A small investigation team led by an intern by the name of Sarah Sterling led the breakthrough," Tyler Morrison, South Arbon Chief of Police said. Authorities are going through the surveillance footage to try to pinpoint exactly when Ian Avery walked through those doors.

Kevin shot up from his bed and watched in horror as every news station on every TV in the city lit up with Ian Avery's face once again. It was a renewed obsession over the case that swept over the entire nation. Two years after Ian Avery got away with it, suddenly new evidence popped up that he's both still alive, and strangely in the South Arbon area. His phone rang. It was Sarah.

"Kevin Kevin! You won't believe what just happened!" She screamed excitedly into her phone. "We found Ian Avery's fingerprints, in get this – Chronos Coffee! That prick was there at our little coffee place."

"Yeah I saw on the news! Wow!" Kevin feigned excitement as his breathing grew heavier and his voice began to break, "What are the odds!? How on earth did you find his fingerprints? Like – what the fuck were you doing? H-how did you find them? Seriously! What the actual fuck!" It was a legitimate question. How many other surfaces had Kevin touched over the past few months that Sarah could find fingerprints on as well? Oh God!

"Oh shit, Kevin! Okay so in the unit, I have a small team under me and I gave them all fingerprint checking techniques and tools and all that and I told them to just start brushing around any surface for prints. It was supposed to be just a training drill for the people under me. That's it. That's all it was. Door handles, phone booths, toilets, and all that. Then we'd bring the prints back to the station, see who they matched up with and holy shit, Kevin, one of those prints were Ian Avery's!" She yelled and clipped out Kevin's speaker, "See, we have his prints on file because of the gun he used." Kevin closed his eyes in disbelief.

"That's amazing, Sarah! I'm so happy for you," said with tears welling up through his closed eyes. Droplets of sweat began beading and running down his face. He hated the very thought of it with a searing passion. If only he had wiped the gun down.

"Thank you! Oh, Kevin so in the South Arbon Police, they're now putting me as the head of the Ian Avery case, and I think there might be other departments from across the state – representatives, that I may be comparing notes with. Basically what it's turning into is," he could hear the excitement growing in her voice, "I may end up being the lead of the entire investigation because I have such an edge, Kevin! I know I'm only an intern and I may be getting ahead of myself but Kevin, I have the most information. They want to hear me! They... Kevin?" She heard a pause.

Kevin hung up and threw the phone on his bed and collapsed against the wall. His body was demanding more oxygen than his mouth was able to provide. His heart rate escalated higher than he thought he could handle. He broke out into a cold sweat as he felt a lurch in his stomach. He hurried over to his bathroom and knelt before his toilet. Tears rolled down his face and he felt a pounding his eardrum.

Relax, he told himself. Try to relax. So she found fingerprints. Now, she'd only be searching and investigating things that made sense to her – and that would not include checking the fingerprints of all of her friends. She got closer than ever before, but it could be a dead end for her just like any other case. It wasn't over. Not yet – but this was the last step.

He washed his face and drank some water. His body was still shaking, and his jaw was quivering. He picked up his phone and called Sarah back, "Hey. I'm sorry, I got disconnected."

"No biggie! I just wanted to tell you. Kevin, thank you for believing in me! I feel like I wouldn't have even gotten this far if it wasn't for you," more words that felt like a curb stomp to his mind. "I'll keep you posted on everything that happens, okay?"

So much could have been prevented. If he could go back in time – forget about avoiding the incident to begin with, he could have still gotten away with it at this point if he only wiped down the gun he used after he fired. If only he hadn't been so pushy one way when advising Sarah on her changing her major. If only.

There was only one way that the situation would work itself out. Sarah would only be able to pinpoint him directly if she checked the surfaces he touched. Thinking back, there wasn't a whole lot that he laid his hands on besides community objects like Chronos Coffee door handles, possibly Flaccid Flask, his flower truck – then again they would have to be unaltered fingerprints as well. Once a surface is cleaned, fingerprints were considerably harder to detect. All he'd have to do is not touch things with the skin of his fingers. At least until it blew over.

After all, there didn't seem to exist a single crisis from which he couldn't escape.