The Profiler by Chris Taylor

breath, he pulled himself into a sitting position and reached for the bag of white powder that sat on the lid of the toilet. He picked up the belt and tightened it around his arm with a hand that shook. It took him four attempts to make his lighter work, but finally, he held the bluish-orange flame to the blackened, old teaspoon.
    With the fingers of one hand, he drew the drug up into his last syringe, careful to drain every last drop. Crazed with need, he sank the sharp tip into his vein and pushed the dispenser home.
    Relief surged through him. Oblivion was only seconds away.
    * * *
    Ellie strode into the squad room and came to a halt in front of Clayton. He glanced up from the file spread across his desk.
    Her normally arrow-straight hair looked mussed and untidy as it curled riotously around her face. She grabbed at the wayward strands and tucked them impatiently behind her ears, a frown marring the smooth skin of her forehead.
    He busied himself shuffling papers around on his desk while he brought his traitorous pulse rate under control. She leaned toward him, peering at the file opened on his desk.
    “What have you got there?” she asked.
    “Good morning to you, too, Detective Cooper.” He leaned back in his chair and stacked his hands behind his head. The movement took him further away from her and he sighed under his breath, unsure if he felt disappointment or relief.
    She blushed and glanced down at her feet. “Yeah, well, good morning, Fed.”
    He let that go. “It’s the old file on Wayne Peterson. I’m sure you remember him? He got released about three months ago.”
    Her eyes widened. “You think that piece of scum could be responsible for our girls?”
    Shaking his head, he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Who knows? Maybe. It’s just something I’m looking into. After all, the bastard’s just done ten years for violent assault and rape—perhaps he’s upped the ante?”
    “Yeah, well they usually learn how to hone their skills inside, don’t they? Not many, the likes of Collins, come out better off.” She propped her hip on his desk. “What made you finger him? I thought you liked the professor?”
    “Yeah, I did. I still do, but I’m just canvassing all angles. I think it’s worth checking Peterson out.” With a grimace, he leaned over and picked up the file. “Where do you want me to start?” He flipped over the first couple of pages and began reading.
    “First arrest, twelve years old. Stealing women’s underwear off clotheslines.” He looked up at her. Ellie raised an eyebrow. He shrugged unapologetically. “I got hold of his juvie record.”
    “What else?”
    “Next arrest was when he was fourteen. A bit more serious that time. Caught setting fire to a neighbor’s cat. He was let off with a good behaviour bond. A string of arrests for assault—all before he turned sixteen. He finally landed in juvie just before his seventeenth birthday. He put a bloke in hospital for a month after a fight over a girl. Seems like he wasn’t happy with the way the victim looked at her.”
    Ellie’s lips thinned. “And the rest of it, as they say, is history.”
    “You got it in one.” He consulted the file again. “Got into drugs while he was in detention—just grass, by the look of it, but by the time he’d hit the big time, he was hooked on some pretty heavy stuff.”
    With a sound of disgust, he closed the file and threw it onto his desk. “At least, that’s what his barrister tried to argue at his trial for the rape of that nineteen-year-old. The one he tied up and raped so many times she nearly bled out internally.”
    Ellie’s eyes darkened with anger. “Let me guess. Now he’s out on the streets again?”
    “Yep. He was let out of Long Bay in April. Out on parole and free to come and go as he pleases. The address he gave to his parole officer is in Penrith. That’s what got my antennae up.”
    A frown creased her forehead as she picked up the file and opened it.