Chapter 10 Chapter nine

"One cheeseburger, one French fries, one cup of coffee to go." "Four dollars and five, thank you." McCarthy walked out of the store holding a paper bag containing junk food. He raised his coffee cup and took a sip, frowned, then opened the wrapping paper of the burger and looked at it. Into the trash can on the side of the road. For more than a month, McCarthy visited almost all barbecue restaurants, fried chicken restaurants, and fast food restaurants in the area. He can tell which one has the best barbecue, which one has the most cheese on the pizza, and Burger King's burgers are indeed Tastier than McDonald's, which has better coffee - but nothing for the first victim, the blond waitress.Or, he had already seen the waitress, but he couldn't be sure it was her at all—he only had an ambiguous impression of the case file, and he no longer remembered which alley the crime took place. He couldn't remember the waitress' name at all, and the memory of her face in his mind was just a photo of a dead body with no trace of life.

He looked at his watch. On January 26, there was not much time left for him. ... At two o'clock in the afternoon, McCarthy walked into the office and collapsed into a chair exhaustedly - this month, he had not had an easy time. Although everything was "expected", he didn't care about it. Stock futures, and he has no habit of buying lottery tickets. He didn't earn a penny because of the "time shock"; Na would fight another girl at school and scratch her face, and he would sit in the teacher's office and "talk" to his daughter's class teacher about his daughter's problems like an endorsement... None of this made it any easier He was depressed, but at this moment, sitting in his office, McCarthy realized with frustration that he couldn't save the girl—in a few days, two days?three days?She would be raped, strangled, and filled with detergent in the back alley of some kebab shop—and the only person who knew about it, besides the murderer, would be powerless to do anything about it.

damn it! He slammed his fist hard on the walnut desk in front of him, everything on the whole table jumped up, and the loud sound left echoes in the small glass space. "What's going on, Ian?" Someone knocked on the door outside. "Can I come in?" It was Jason's voice. "Please come in." "Want to help?" Jason opened the door and poked his head out with a concerned expression on his face. "Ah...it's okay, it's just, it's just a cockroach, I almost hit it." McCarthy tried to put on a relaxed look. Jason gave him a suspicious look, and said, "Be careful, that old table can't stand being smashed."

Seeing the office door close in front of him, McCarthy took a deep breath. Just now, he almost told Jason to sit down, close the door, and tell the whole story. No, you can't do that. They'll think I'm crazy, and that just gives people who don't like me a good chance. Can't tell anyone. McCarthy clenched his fist, then let it go—he had never imagined that it would be so difficult to solve a predicted murder. At least I fixed the car's A/C defroster, he thought.