Her Kind of Justice

“The Ferryman.”

Four women in ten months.

All victims were under thirty years old.

Found barefoot and stretched across church pews; hands folded together neatly over their chests like they’d expected someone else to pray over them.

Uniform slit throats – one swipe, no mess. Executed.

Bodies washed clean. Neat. Methodical.

No prints. No DNA. No witnesses. No motive.

Except.

The killer always left something behind.

A silver coin underneath each woman’s tongue.

Methodical.

Precise.

Organized.

After four bodies, the 8th Precinct Homicide had a whole task force dedicated to finding him. By body five, the FBI got involved. He was male, probably between thirty-five and forty-five. Intelligent, likely religious, ritualistic with compulsions, and well-versed in forensic avoidance. All reports said as much. Likely single. Likely white. Likely disciplined in stringent moral beliefs growing up.

The consensus on their board: he wanted to be caught.

But only by someone worthy.

Detective Rowan Locke.

Rowan had been transferred to the precinct fresh out of Seattle, where she closed a juvenile kidnapping case that had been cold for half the year. Young and early thirties. Smart as hell with ice in her blue eyes. Buttoned up. Elegant. Professional.

The kind of woman men were quiet around.

She’d been brought on as a liaison to the Ferryman task force but quickly gravitated towards lead pattern analysis. Pouring over the murders like sheet music, she found symmetry in the madness. Hired a forensic linguist. Kept strange hours, growing further away from her team with each dead end.

She was the one who found out that each coin placed beneath the victim’s tongue was minted the year they turned eighteen. That each church wasn’t randomly placed—every one within walking distance of a women’s shelter.

Rowan never showed investigators photos of the victims. Never greeted families personally.

And she refused to set foot in the room during autopsies.

Investigators didn’t think this was weird.

They chalked it up to pity.

Empathy.

Predators always know when someone’s scared of them, though.

The fifth victim cracked everything wide open.

Danica Pierce. Twenty-nine-year-old former heroin addict living clean and sober for the last three years. She worked as a social worker. Pose down to a tee. Same precise throat slit, coin still minted when she’d turned eighteen.

Except that Danica had another addition to her “perfume”.

A note.

Photographed lying neatly in the crook of her boot.

“She helped the lost. She carried them across.

She earned her fare.”

The media went wild.

Coverage was constant. Experts picked apart the obvious religious tendencies on every news channel and podcast. Reporters debated whether the killer thought of himself as a god. A serial killer on reverse service – granting these women peace because they suffered enough in their lifetimes.

The nickname stuck.

“The Ferryman”.

“He’s not hating them,” Rowan spoke, face smooth and steady in front of the task force whiteboard. The task force had inexplicably doubled in staff. “I don’t think he hates them. Look closer. Each victim was fighting to survive. Drugs, childhood trauma, and abusive households. He’s not taking their lives as punishment. He’s giving them purpose.”

Captain Marris scowled across the table. “He slit their throats, Locke.”

“I said he’s giving them another life. There’s no evidence of a struggle. And when he kills them? Gentle.” She paused, hands planted over her heart. “Look at what we’re dealing with, Willis. Hesitant cops are what will stop this guy.”

Agent Willis shook his head. White froth still at the corners of his mouth. “You think he’s putting them down like pets?”

“Animals don’t get salvation.”

Silence.

Rowan spun back to face the board. Eyes flashed cold. “Give me a minute.”

Cases started to come in hotter than summer in Savannah.

Weeks turned to months. Tips flooded in unused pay phones across the district. Knocking frames on local pawn shops. Dead ends.

It was paranoia at first. Nothing concrete.

Then came number six.

Twenty-eight-year-old Eliza Juno. Former runaway with a petty theft and prostitution record.

Dead within twenty-four hours of number five.

Church scene replicated down to the single word typed note crumpled in her shoe.

Except there was another coin this time. Placed carefully in her lifeless hand.

Willis watched her swallow when she first laid eyes on the photograph at the precinct.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she lied, tossing his hand off. “Did you get any sleep?”

Willis pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nightmares.”

She smirked. Didn’t say anything.

She knew.

The thing was.

Eliza’s second coin was minted the year Rowan Locke was sworn into the force.

Two weeks later, Rowan Locke was flagged by internal affairs.

Didn’t make the local news. Quietly brushed under the rug by Quantico's higher-ups.

An anomaly on their end. Little note Agent Willis kept hidden in his desk drawer.

Four out of six victims had direct contact with Rowan Locke.

Two worked at shelters Rowan volunteered at in college.

One was on Willis’ sex offender list in Seattle. Closed within six months.

One was a dismissed witness in a drug trial Rowan worked on five years ago.

Willis didn’t want to believe it. Nor did Captain Marris.

But they pulled her in.

Interview.

Polygraph.

Background check.

Same results.

Clean.

Had she been set up?

Willis didn’t care how. That’s all that mattered.

Rowan returned a week later to silence.

Dismissed by most.

Intense.

She buried herself in work, sucking up overtime like it was going out of fashion.

Went completely insane solving for Ferryman.

Casualties started piling up.

Officer down.

Missing evidence.

Messy murders attributed to her unit.

Rowan Locke was responsible.

Officers jumped in alleys to be baited home by unknown assailants. Parking garages harassed until they crashed their cars miles from home. Families threatened.

For four months, it continued.

Rowan couldn’t look any of her colleagues in the eyes anymore.

Hell, she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror.

Until number seven.

Except this time, she wasn’t dropped off in Church.

She was dumped blocks from the precinct perimeter. Waiting. In the backseat of an abandoned patrol car across the street. Decomposed after an estimated thirty minutes.

Neck slit. Coin under tongue. A single note was tossed onto the passenger seat.

She was beautiful even in death.

“She watches. She waits.

You let her in.”

Mimicked laughter under every CCTV angle they pulled.

No one came forward.

Parking garage cams recorded nothing but absence.

Dig deeper.

Follow it all the way back.

“Look closer,” Rowan muttered as she scrolled through grainy footage from two blocks down.

Someone helped them.

Helped her.

A silhouette too tall to be Rowan’s slender frame.

Head turned towards Rowan’s favourite storefront café on McHenry during her morning routine that day.

Blonde.

Confident.

Face void of features.

Waiting.

Willis stopped breathing.

Agent Sawyer entered his field of vision. Moved to the side. Disappeared.

Rowan’s door.

They knew from doorstep conversations.

Team two ninety-two wasn’t going to find shit kicking down that door.

They were silent about it.

Tactical manoeuvre unseen by residents flanking roadsides. Squad cars darkened by tint and distance.

Crime scene before they even arrived.

Rowan’s cabin sat twenty-three miles outside the district, two lakes over, in precisely the position it had been haunting crawl spaces for months. Pine trees dwarfed the porch to the point you’d think it was spray-painted there.

God, they hoped it wasn’t her.

Forensic sweep.

Mag lights beamed across dingy rooms splattered with black-light hints of Florence.

Empty.

Nothing.

Tidy as hell until they reached the basement.

Rooms lined with red brick and white tapestries. Walls painted blood red. Command centre assembled underneath floorboards.

They found the row of silver coins first. Mailed into the walls about three feet apart.

Seven slots with etched names underneath.

Rowan Locke included.

Fuck.

The granite slab altar sat against the west wall.

Rows of blonde hair tied to a pretty ribbon at its base.

Each with a note.

Taped neatly to glossy heads.

Accusers.

Neighbors.

Investigators.

Neighbors.

“They deserved it.”

“You were never good enough.”

“No one tried harder than me.”

The precinct detonated.

Willis barely kept it together until Marris resigned.

They blamed internal affairs incompetence.

Cover stories. Paid out handsomely. Journalists are given vague directions.

Six months later, Rowan Locke was officially off the grid.

Until Willis received a package.

Snuck through his door late one morning.

Addressed directly from the Ferryman himself.

No return.

Inside: One antique silver coin. Mailed the year Agent Sawyer was hired into Quantico.

And a note.

“I’ve heard your colleagues calling you crazy. Saying you killed six women you thought would understand.

Oh, honey, you’re so naïve.

I’ve been trying to reach you for months now.”

Typed. Folded. Clean.

“And Agent Sawyer,” she continued.

He waited.

“What I’m about to say isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re afraid, burn this letter unread.

I know you. You know me.

This game isn’t about who’s chasing who.

The story ends.”

Willis gulped.

“The story ends when the muse is ready to let go.

You see, Agent Sawyer, we all die eventually.

Investigators. Killers. Pawns.

I knew you’d understand that.

But stories… stories aren’t so simple.

You keep telling yourself that.”

She paused.

“You’re sitting there tearing this apart, planning your next move.”

He couldn’t look at her.

Dry mouth.

“A story can only last so long until its characters reach their final chapters. Until their development is complete and their purpose no longer needs to be stated.

The story doesn’t end with justice served.

Agent Sawyer.

The story ends when the reader stops forgiving the author.”

Pause.

“What are you trying to say?”

She smirked again.

“I hope you liked your coffee this morning.”

Sawyer felt it then.

Pressed warmth spreading across his cheek.

Wet.

And red.