CH 24

A few days later.

I lay dazed in my bed, my eyes unblinking as I stared up at the ceiling of my small rented house. Everything that had happened that day seemed like a dream in retrospect.

At the last minute, the FBI finally arrived. I was treated like a victim by them and given the same treatment as Jessica and the others. A large, thick blanket was draped over my shoulders. A female officer helped me out of the scene and made me sit in the back of the ambulance.

It wasn't until I was sitting in the ambulance, after a long twenty minutes. I realised that the one who had helped me out and sat next to me for a full twenty minutes to comfort me was not some female officer, but El Greenoway. The famous sex crime expert in the bau that I had done a research chat about in advance because I was on guard.

So, it was BAU that found me.

I don't know with what kind of emotion I made the connection.

Under their questioning, I calmly and without a pause described how I had been held hostage by David. I even remember mentioning, at the end, Jessica's abuse of tommy.

They didn't actually question me right away, and they had even persuaded me to go home and rest for the day if I didn't want to remember now.

But I refused, and I stubbornly told them the whole story overnight. I felt that only when I had fully told them did I completely let go and get a good night's sleep.

The feeling of being so muddled, of being so nervous that I was dim in front of my eyes, finally came out of me. Finally, after all these years, I had someone to talk to properly.

The shadows of being killed, the memories of Brian, everything since I was reborn five years ago had choked me. I hadn't realised until now that I had spent so much time in a psychological asphyxiation.

Then I drove through the downtown area at night in the four-footer of a police car. Derek Morgan dropped me off at home.

Now I think about how messed up I looked at the crime scene when I was seen by a group of people. Dressed in an unflattering ol' outfit and covered in dust before getting up from the floor. There was even a sniffle and a cry.

I rolled over and sank my face into the pillow, my head in a tizzy. The clothes sitting neatly folded on the bedside table were the same clothes that Spencer Ryder, the primary school bully of the BAU team, had lent me as his own. Because the clothes I had taken off at the crime scene, and the ol' outfit I was wearing, were to remain at the police station as evidence.

I never saw David once more. Although I know from trivial remarks from passing police officers that he asked to see me more than once. But the police are obliged to separate the victim from the prisoner, and that is to prevent further harm to the victim.

That he was going to stay in prison until he died was something that was already certain.

For in addition to the case three years ago, the place where he dumped his body in Miami was found. A total of eighty-six women were killed before and after. There were female support girls, college girls, and even girls who hadn't yet come of age.

Finally, after the curtain came down on David's affairs. The day came when Stanford University opened for classes.

I was out the door early in the morning. The one college opening I had already experienced was shaken by the fact that I was setting foot in one of the most distinguished universities in the world for the first time.

It was the first time Brian's mind hadn't come out screaming for trouble, so maybe that's what he wanted? To stand out from the 30,000-plus applications for admission might just as well have satisfied Brian's unforgiving arrogance.

I was wearing the same outfit I had worn when I first walked out of the asylum two years ago, and my two-year-old but durable Martin boots, which I had worn for two years, were on their way back to Stanford.

Although Stanford had waived my tuition fees and awarded me a Pell Grant based on my financial problems, flat rent and living expenses were still an issue. I did not plan to work extra part-time jobs while at university.

In order to save my salary and save up for these expenses, I haven't bought anything else in the past two years, apart from the clothes I need for each season. I could pack all my clothes in a small travel backpack, and only two or three pairs of shoes.

But I didn't care, because if you are confident and capable enough, no one here will look down on you for being poor.

On the first day of school, there was an orientation session for the older students, and various clubs had stalls where you could get free stuff like mugs, t-shirts and notebooks if you were lucky.

I followed a small group of seniors around the campus and was stopped by a few girls a few times to take photos. They followed me all the way, giggling and pointing at me from behind, which made the boys around me look at me strangely, wondering what I did for a living.

It was actually quite nice to be watched. At least it showed the impact of the All-American Supermodel Contest, which brings a certain amount of popularity to the contestants even if it hasn't been aired yet. These girls recognised me just from the hard photos on the official website.

I gave them my Twitter and Twitter account and didn't hesitate to tweet with them before I left satisfied. I've never been a weakness in my ability to get fans, and having a few die-hard fans to help you out in the early stages of development, retweeting on their Facebook tweets and soup no more accounts, is a very beneficial situation for newcomers.

There were no classes on the first day of school, so I picked up my student id card and school internet account and left the school with a bag full of free stuff.

But my destination wasn't the tiny flat; I transferred to downtown San Francisco.

After the incident with David, although my mind was filled with confusing thoughts for a while, I was also still acutely aware of the importance of a fake ID.

Whether it was because of the unease I felt at BAU being able to find me in such a short amount of time. Or the irritation of David's easily unmistakable alias. Through my former landlord, I was able to contact, within a week, one of the more famous experts in the industry who used to create fake IDs. The expert, now retired, had opened a watch shop in San Francisco.

I don't know why the original landlord, though, had such contacts. But on the day of David's arrest, the landlord's reassuring phone call made me decide without hesitation that I would take this opportunity.

I had always thought that the old lady, who was known as Mrs Nam by the street punks, might not have a simple background. But I was still surprised to come into contact with such a strange and eccentric person.

The landlady, who had been with me for two years, knew me well, knew enough to easily pick up on the unease I showed to the police, to the fbi. The uneasiness of being weak before I was a thief, the uneasiness of fearing that if I approached Dexter with my real identity, I would be evicted by Sergeant Harry.

Mrs. South saw it all when I was at my wits' end for various reasons. She didn't ask anything, like the thoughtfulness that she had deliberately not mentioned two years ago when I couldn't afford to pay my rent because I was in dire straits. She always delivered what I wanted wordlessly when I was in overwhelming need of something.

This is a vintage watch shop in a quiet side street in San Francisco.

The wooden door with glass inlay and the wind chimes tinkling by the door smelled like blood in a vintage watch shop that should have smelled like wood and sandalwood.

I frowned and walked inside, my footsteps falling lightly without making a sound. If this were a normal time, the owner would have heard the wind chime and come out to entertain his customers.

I opened the small door by the counter and entered the counter, and there was the body of the owner. There was a bullet hole in his head and the blood had dried, but it was still clear that he had been shot at close range.

I wondered what kind of dangerous mission the owner had taken on, that he had flipped in the gutter after he had already retired. I looked around the small workroom, took a pack of tissues out of my backpack and folded two into my hand and started rummaging for the fake IDs I had him make.

It seemed that the shopkeeper had already prepared the stuff in advance because he had agreed in advance to pick up the goods today. I found the fake ID with my photo on it in a small stack of envelopes on the workbench.

The name on the fake passport was Carl Black, and even the date of birth was different from Brian's except for the photo, but the difference was not at all noticeable from the real passport, nor could it be detected by the identification machine at customs. The fake documents produced by this shop were even backed up in the police database and only needed to be changed to the photo of the person using the fake document.

I put the documents away and prepared to leave. I didn't want to have to deal with the police in a nosy way.

However, as soon as I got out of the small door behind the counter and was about to leave the shop, the door of the watch shop was thrown open again. I tilted my face to the side and glanced at what appeared to be a man in a gentleman's hat and bespoke suit, and a short, fat, eye-catching mechanic-looking man.

I passed behind them at a brisk pace and just as I pushed open the wooden door of the watch shop to leave, the man in the gentleman's hat suddenly shouted, "Get him, Peter!"

Before I could react I heard the faint sound of a pistol being cocked and then a low man's voice came from behind me, "Freeze! FBI, hands in the air!"

Fuck my life.