First to Die

ChapterSS

WE SPLIT UP THE BOOK into four sections. We each paged silently, searching for some scene or detail that would parallel the real-life crimes. Mine was about this guy's life, Phillip Campbell. His picture-perfect wife, catching her with another man. He killed them both- and his life changed forever. "Bingo!" Jill spoke up suddenly. She read out loud, bending back the sheaf of paper like a deck of cards. She described a scene with Phillip Campbell--"breath pounding inside, voices ringing in his head"--stealing through the halls of a hotel. The Grand Hyatt. A bride and groom in a suite. Campbell breaks in on them- he kills them without a second thought. '"In a single act," Jill read from the manuscript, "he had washed away the stench of betrayal and replaced it with a fresh, heretofore unimagined desire. He liked to kill."" Our eyes locked. This was beyond creepy. Jenks was crazy- but was he also crafty? Claire was next. It was another wedding. This time outside a church. The bride and groom coming down the steps, rice being thrown, shouts of congratulations, applause. The same man, Phillip Campbell, at the wheel of the limo that will take them away. We looked at one another, stunned. It was how the second murders were committed. Jill murmured, "Holy shit." Claire just shook her head. She looked sad and shocked. I guess we all were. A long-suppressed cry of satisfaction built up in my chest. We had done it. We had solved the bride and groom murders. "I wonder how it ends?" Cindy mused, fanning to the end of the book. "How else?" said Jill. "With an arrest."