Dreams and Reality

A new killer is using medieval torture methods to slay his victims. She can give them a glimpse into his twisted world, but not without a cost. If she opens herself, she risks falling into the depths of her own darkness. Can she afford to help, knowing that the cost could be her own humanity? 

When Aislinn Cain and the SCTU shows up, Aislinn realizes that this isn’t a new serial killer. He’s terrorized her hometown before. Her father worked the case the first time with only an exotic bite mark as a clue. Now, Aislinn will start the manhunt of her life as she becomes determined to catch the monster that eluded her father. As she sinks further into the hunt, she'll uncover a horrifying past that proves skeletons should stay locked in closets. 

Max Goff needed to relax.  His life had become overwhelming.  He should have gotten a massage and spent a day with friends.  Instead, he stole a car and began a killing spree that would terrorize an entire city.  Until the newly formed US Marshals’ Serial Crimes Tracking Unit would come hunting for him and he would learn what fear really was.

Local police try to keep the discovery quiet; they seldom deal with murder and aren’t prepared when one of the bodies turns out to be a local high school boy.  The multiple murders drive home the sinister reality that they are no longer innocent of the crimes that plague large cities. 

Based on the skill involved, the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit realizes that this is not the killer’s first time.  As the SCTU digs deep to discover the killer, they uncover more victims.  Anger and fear begin to cause panic in what was once a quiet community.  Aislinn Cain and the members of her team need to find the killer before the town implodes with terror and the citizens begin doling out their own brand of justice.

Then a chance encounter; a hand gesture, the laugh, Aislinn Cain knows it’s him.  Her old foe has returned to torment her.  The rest of the SCTU is worried her brain tumor has returned, because it’s impossible.

As Aislinn falls further down the rabbit hole, chasing phantoms, the team tries to pull it together to find their poisoner.  However, Aislinn isn’t the only one chasing phantoms, as belladonna brings back nightmares for another member of the SCTU and will leave them questioning their decision to work with serial killers.  Then someone attacks the VCU, further hindering the investigation. 

Amid the mass deaths, the SCTU must decide between tacking down the person poisoning bar patrons in South Dakota or getting revenge for their fallen serial killer hunters.  Finding this killer will bring more questions than answers, it will open old wounds, and force everyone to rethink what they know about serial killers.

The Serial Crimes Tracking Unit, better known as SCTU, is used to dealing with dead bodies, so they are unsure their hunting skills will be useful. While the perpetrator might fit a profile, the living are of little help. After all, they don’t even remember being attacked. Dealing with the living, especially those who have been victimized has never been a strong point of Aislinn Cain’s. As Aislinn and her team go to work at solving this case, they find themselves in a race against the clock. It is only a matter of time before their serial mutilator escalates into a serial killer. 

To bring an end to this madness and find out who is behind it all, sacrifices will have to be made. The costs will be high as Aislinn and the team go up against some of the baddest serial killers that exist. 

They succeeded, but at high costs to law enforcements and civilians.  It left Kansas City and the government reeling.  Backlash was immediate and harsh.  The Violent Crimes Unit of the FBI was disbanded, leaving Malachi Blake and Caleb Green without jobs.  Aislinn Cain was suspended for three months.  However, the worst part was that most of the killers involved escaped.

When piles of bones begin turning up in public parks around Kansas City, nobody wants to deal with such a blatant statement that a serial killer is stalking their backyards.  He’s organized and arranges to the bones to shock anyone that might find them.  He wants everyone to read the stories that the bones tell about his victims.

With all the turmoil, Aislinn Cain’s suspension is lifted so that she can lead her own unit to track this home town serial killer.  Most of her team are in training.  They are the beginnings of a second SCT unit.  They must move quickly though because this killer has been at it for years and has suddenly accelerated his killing pace.

Just as Aislinn thinks things can’t get any worse, a mystery man shows up.  He brings violence and death with him.  Her unwanted stalker is willing to kill for her, but she doesn’t know who he is or why.  Until she gets a single clue and realizes the past of one SCTU member could force them to stop investigating the bone cleaner and start a frantic search for a far darker serial killer.  

As the answers start to reveal themselves, Aislinn comes to the realization that Raphael Henders is unlike any serial killer she has ever faced before.  Not only is he brilliant, cunning, sadistic, and brutal, he is part of the organized ring of serial killers that the SCTU has been trying to eliminate.  More importantly, he is just one step removed from the leader of the organization and he has answers that Aislinn needs to put her past behind her. 

To survive and get what she needs, Aislinn will have to play Raphael’s game.  Death is not an option, pitting Aislinn’s own desire to survive against her need to figure out who exactly was behind the murder of Aislinn’s father and sister all those years ago.

Aislinn Cain and SCTU Team Alpha heads to Tallahassee, Florida to do battle with a serial killer unlike any they have ever faced before.  The victims endure psychological as well as physical torture at the hands of this merciless murderer.  The crimes are staged as hate crimes. However, Ace and Lucas agree that each death appears to be a form of punishment, creating doubts that hate is the true motive.   

Identifying and capturing this killer is the easiest part for Ace.  Deciding if justice is being served is more difficult, as this killer doesn’t fit into the black and white morality, she has constructed for herself.    

When a serial killer begins rampaging through Kansas City, Missouri, the press dubs him The Lady Burner, because after he kills his victims, he sets their bodies on fire and burns down their houses.

The SCTU knows that the fires are just a forensic counter measure. He’s covering his tracks; he rapes and strangles these women while filming it. He offers the videos up for sale on the dark web, forcing Aislinn Cain and the SCTU to track a killer through the sleazy digital marketplaces where someone can buy anything if they have enough money.

However, once inside the marketplaces, Aislinn realizes it’s not just a case of tracking down the person selling the videos. There’s an infrastructure in place that insulates the video maker, the seller, the distributor, and the buyers. Ensuring everything on the dark web, even the makers of snuff films, are anonymous

As Nadine’s files are trucked to the SCTU headquarters to be sifted through, it quickly becomes apparent that Nadine has more enemies than even Aislinn Cain. Aislinn struggles to get into the mind of abusive domestic partners. Most are insecure narcissists not psychopaths or sociopaths unlike the serial killers they normally chase. 

Also, as is the case whenever Nadine Daniels is involved in something it is more complex and complicated than it appears on the surface. Daniels’ Security has been in business more than fifteen years and they have had a lot of cases both on the books and off. Not to mention it is impossible for Nadine’s private life and business life to not overlap and Aislinn finds her private life and law enforcement life overlapping as a result. Aislinn worries all these distractions will result in the killer getting away or worse, completing their objective – Kill Nadine Daniels.  

Rarely do these missing women get noticed. But when over a dozen of these women disappear in a short time to never reappear, even law enforcement notices. The FBI arrives first on the scene, but no bodies leaves the agents impotent. They pass the case along to the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit.

Aislinn Cain instantly realizes there are two major difficulties for her and her team: The victims are prostitutes, and most people don’t care if someone is murdering prostitutes, and without bodies it is impossible to make a case that they have become prey for a serial killer. However, after looking through the case files assembled on the missing women, she knows in her bones that Nashville, Tennessee, has a serial killer stalking the streets at night.

This case will test Aislinn Cain as she struggles against people who consider themselves morally superior to the victims and work with academics to invent new search techniques to discover their victims’ remains. This will be the first time she’s using the new investigative skills she’s learned, along with trusting her intuition and knowledge of the killers that hunt in the dark.

With the murder of the serial killer known as The Ghost Maker, the serial killer club he ran became dormant. Now, someone calling themselves Mictlan the Collector has taken control of the defunct club. He’s arranged a competition for a select group of members. The serial killer with the most points at the end will win a million dollars in cryptocurrency, and he’s chosen Kansas City as the hunting grounds. Fearing this could happen after The Ghost Maker’s death, the NSA had an operative infiltrate the nefarious club. The operative gives the SCTU advanced warning of the competition.

To stop it, Aislinn Cain and the SCTU must identify and capture Mictlan the Collector before the first day. Identifying and capturing a serial killer is never easy and Mictlan complicates the issue by requiring competitors to take a victim to gain admittance. The competitors have less than one week to complete the entrance task, which divides the resources of the SCTU between trying to identify Mictlan the Collector and identifying the serial killers participating in the competition.

For a chance at a million dollars in cryptocurrency, serial killers will travel far and wide to participate. With visiting serial killers comes new signature methods requiring the SCTU to reach out to their law enforcement contacts all over the world to at least attempt to find their place of origin and gain any files on them that might exist. The situation is dire enough that the CIA activates their own special black books operation referred to as The Home Defense Program, forcing the SCTU to coordinate with the CIA as well as local law enforcement.

Finally, as the start date of the competition gets nearer, panicked politicians want to enact martial law for the Kansas City Metro area. Convinced that martial law will result in more deaths than the competition, the SCTU is racing against the ticking clock, fighting their limited manpower, and extreme panic to save their home city from becoming a grisly battlefield.