CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
An announcer’s voice came over the speakers: “Please welcome James Holloway…”
Then he walked onstage.
And Kate’s breath caught mid-inhale.
The man was burly—broad through the chest and shoulders, with that unmistakable heaviness in the limbs that still moved with surprising precision.
His posture was forward-tilted, almost prowling.
He rolled his weight from heel to toe the same way the killer in the CCTV footage had, that same oddly fluid gait for a man so bulkily built.
Marcus paused the video at the moment Holloway reached the podium.
“Tell me I’m not crazy,” Marcus said quietly.
Kate stared.
“No,” she said. “You’re not.”
And it wasn’t just the size. Or the gait. Or the eerie echo of the security footage from Jennifer Hayes’s building.
It was the presence.
The way Holloway inhabited his own body, the coiled control of his movements, the resolute forward lean—as if he were always bracing to advance, to confront, to correct.
A shiver climbed Kate’s spine.
“He moves the same way,” she murmured.
Marcus nodded. “I almost dropped my coffee when I saw it.”
Kate replayed the few seconds silently. The resemblance wasn’t vague or approximate. It was uncanny.
She exhaled slowly. “So Webb gives us a name by accident. Maybe. And that name leads us to a man who has a documented fixation on elder neglect.”
“And an arrest record that reads like a handbook for escalating obsession,” Marcus added.
Kate folded her arms. “Where is he now?”
“Based in Worchester,” Marcus said. “Counselling center attached to a non-profit. Travels all over New England to give talks.”
Kate’s mind sprinted ahead. “If he’s our guy… he’s mobile. He could’ve easily driven into Boston for both attacks.”
“Yep.”
“And he targets people he believes dishonored their parents.”
“Yep.”
Kate stared at the frozen image of Holloway on the screen. His eyes were intense, lit with the conviction of someone who’d shed all doubt long ago.
“Pull everything,” she said.
Marcus didn’t need clarification. “Travel records, social media, known associates, conference schedules?”
“All of it,” Kate said. “And see if he’s filed any new complaints in the past six months. Anyone he’s been focused on recently.”
Marcus nodded and moved to sit.
But Kate didn’t move. She kept staring at the paused image—those squared shoulders, that determined jawline, the grim, terrible purpose vibrating under his speech.
She felt the hairs on her arms lift.
She didn’t know for certain yet.
But she knew something else:
This man believed in his mission.
And belief—that real, unshakeable belief—was often deadly.
*
It was late afternoon by the time they reached the counselling center in Worcester. And it looked nothing like the lair of a zealot. It was a converted Victorian townhouse with ivy creeping up the brickwork and a chalkboard on the porch that read, in cheerful turquoise letters:
TODAY: GRIEF GROUP AT 12. CAREGIVER CIRCLE AT 3. ALL WELCOME.
Inside, the waiting room smelled faintly of eucalyptus and old upholstery.
A basket of knitted blankets sat beside the door; a water cooler burbled quietly like a contented animal.
Nothing about it suggested violence. Nothing suggested a man who might slit a stranger’s throat and arrange her in a grotesque imitation of reverence.
Which only made Kate more alert, not less.
The receptionist—a college-aged volunteer with pink hair and a nose ring—directed them down the hallway.
“Mr. Holloway’s just finishing with a client,” she said. “He’ll be right out.”
Kate and Marcus waited by a bulletin board plastered with flyers: End-of-Life Planning, Navigating Adult Family Estrangement, Burnout in Caregivers.
“Cheery stuff,” Marcus muttered.
Kate didn’t respond. Her attention had shifted to the sound emerging from behind the office door: a deep voice, warm and steady, speaking with the cadence of someone accustomed to holding the emotional weight of others.
The door opened.
James Holloway filled the doorway—literally.
He was even larger in person than he’d appeared on video.
Broad shoulders, heavyset frame, forearms like he’d spent his twenties lifting furniture for fun.
His face was gentle, though: tired, kindly eyes above a close-cropped beard, grey beginning to thread through the brown.
He ushered out an elderly man with a walker, touching his shoulder with infinite care.
“Call me if you need anything, Frank. Anything at all.”
Frank left, slow and grateful.
Then Holloway turned toward Kate and Marcus.
The warmth vanished.
“FBI,” he said, his tone dropping into wariness. “I got your message. Right. You’re here about those neglectors who got murdered.”
“They were still people, in our view, Mr. Holloway,” Marcus said, offering his hand. “We appreciate you seeing us.”
Holloway kept his hand in his pocket. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”
A slightly quarrelsome beginning, Kate noted. Defensive. Irritated. Natural, given the circumstances.
“May we talk in your office?” she asked.
He grunted something like agreement and stepped aside.
The office was cluttered in a way that suggested a man too focused on other people’s pain to remember his own paperwork.
Bookshelves sagged under the weight of social work textbooks, legal guides, theology volumes, and—Kate noticed—half a dozen well-thumbed poetry collections.
A jar of peppermints sat on the desk. A pair of reading glasses perched lopsided on top of a stack of case notes.
Holloway lowered himself into his chair. It complained under the weight.
“All right,” he said. “Ask.”
Kate didn’t start with the CCTV. She didn’t start with the gait.
“Mr. Holloway,” she said gently, “Your name crops up a lot in the context of elder welfare disputes, specifically in the Boston area, where…”
He cut her short. “Where it seems you’ve got someone offing prominent neglectors.”
“A detail that hasn’t been reported,” Kate replied, abandoning the careful tone.
“But a detail I know because of the kind of work I do," Holloway retorted sharply. "I know who Garrett and Hayes were, what they did. I advocate for people who suffer at the hands of people like them. "
Marcus studied him. “How far does your definition of advocacy go, Mr. Holloway?”
Holloway bristled. It was subtle, but Kate saw it: shoulders tightening, chin lifting, hurt blooming behind irritation.
“Let me be clear,” he said, voice suddenly stern. “I care about the elderly. I care about justice for people who can’t advocate for themselves. But I don’t hurt people. I don’t threaten people…”
“Then why have you received repeated official warnings about stalking and threatening behavior?” Marcus interrupted.
“Because some people don’t like me pointing out their failings,” Holloway replied.
“I never harassed anyone. And I don’t condone violence in any form.
If someone out there is doing… that—” he gestured vaguely at the idea of murder, “—in the name of honoring their parents, or the commandments, or whatever twisted script they’re reading from, believe me, I want them caught as much as you do. ”
“Why do you mention commandments?” Kate asked sharply.
“Because I’ve caught stuff online: people saying those last two murders are part of something bigger, going on since last year.
Multiple East Coast locations. Some screwball working his way through the Decalogue.
Are you guys investigating that, or are you just focussed on what’s happening in Boston? ”
“Why do you need to know?” Kate asked.
“Natural curiosity,” Holloway replied.
Kate watched him carefully. His eyes didn’t flick to the left. His breathing didn’t shift.
If he was lying, he was the most gifted liar she’d met all year.
She softened her tone. “We’ve seen footage of the suspect. He’s a large man. Similar build to yours. That’s why we’re talking to you.”
“That and the nature of my work,” Holloway corrected her.
“Correct.”
Holloway rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Okay.
Look. I'm sorry if I sound… abrasive. I've had a long week.
One of my clients is dying. Another can't get her daughter to answer the phone.
" His voice broke, slightly, before he steadied it.
"This work is hard. But it's important. And if someone is twisting 'honor' into a weapon, then that is the opposite, the exact opposite of why I get out of bed in the morning.”
Marcus leaned forward slightly. “Where were you on Monday and Tuesday nights? Between eight and midnight?”
Holloway exhaled. “Home. Alone.”
“No one can confirm that?”
“Correct. I live with two Scottish Fold cats called Axel and Slash, who don’t say much as long as I feed them.
My neighbours don’t spy on me, although I guess their doorbell cameras might.
And I wasn’t at a conference or a bar or committing homicide.
” His jaw tightened. “If you’re asking whether I have an alibi, the answer is no.
But that’s because I was dozing in front of Netflix, not because I was murdering executives. ”
Kate met his gaze. “We have to check. You understand that.”
“I do,” he said. “But it doesn’t make it any less troubling to be asked.”
A silence settled. Heavy, but not hostile.
Then something shifted.
Holloway’s expression softened, the irritation draining away, replaced by something rueful. Almost embarrassed.
He leaned back. “You’re good at this,” he said to Kate.
“Both of you. Thorough. Respectful. I appreciate that.” He hesitated.
“I know I come off… gruff. People assume things because of my size. A colleague once said I walked like a linebacker with a grudge.” A self-deprecating huff.
“But I counsel families. I sit with dying men. I spend my days convincing tense adults to call their mothers. I really don’t beat people to death with Bibles. ”
Kate felt something loosen inside her. An internal knot untying.
Her intuition—the quiet part of her that saw straight through people—whispered with unexpected clarity:
He means what he says.
He’s not our killer.