“Don’t apologize, it’s alright,” Vaughn reassured Dawn in a calm tone. The waitress came over and he watched Figure over her shoulder for a moment. It was always lurking nearby, keeping an eye on him to make sure everything was going to plan. “I’ll have a whiskey, neat,” he ordered from the waitress, giving her a polite smile before she walked away.
“I never got your name,” he commented, one of his brows arching expectantly. Of course, he already knew her name. He already knew so many things about her. Social media provided a lot of information about people, more than many realized. He would let her repeat things to him, though. Better than coming right out of the gate with ‘hey there, I stalked you on social media enough to know your mothers maiden name, can I kill your husband?’
"Dawn. Dawn Middleton. and yours?" She asked, much calmer now that she wasn't in the streets. Her legal name was actually Isla Dawn Sparks, but she used her maiden name and middle name. She hated Daniel, she'd never use his last name. And her first name brought back difficult memories.
The waitress nodded, writing down both of their drink orders. "I'll get those out to you in just a second." She said, cheerily, before walking towards the bartender.
“Vaughn Finley,” He answered, leaning back in his seat. He always found himself a tad nervous to give out his actual name, even with clients. What if they slipped up and gave his name to the police? If they had his name, it wouldn’t be difficult to find him. He was in the system for previous minor charges, those consisting of a shoplifting and assault case back from when he was a minor.
“What are you doing out so late?” Vaughn decided to ask. While he already knew the correct answer to that, he was curious to know what Dawn would say. That, and that he worried for her. She blindly trusted him enough to come with him for a drink. What if she ran into the wrong person some time and got herself hurt? It was good that he had found her before someone else had.
"Uhm… I can't go out during the day because the sun is too bright, and it hurts my eyes. So I was going to go grocery shopping." Her face didn't betray her, neither did her voice. If he hadn't already known, he'd probably believe her. "What about you? I don't often see people out on the streets when I go shopping. I'll pass people in other shops, but almost never on the street." She said, looking at him curiously.
She was also monitoring the waitress, a bit worried she'd recognise her from occasional outings that Danial made her go on. If the waitress suspected she was cheating, she might tell Danial. Danial easily made friends, especially with waitresses.
Vaughn nodded his head, listening to the lies. Dawn was a fairly good liar. It probably helped her in her living situation with her husband. He guessed the man was asleep in bed, unaware of where she was. “I work a late shift at a nearby gym,” he answered, “I usually get off my shift around this time, and I live close enough to be able to walk home.”
He was an exceptionally good liar as well. Countless years of lying and sneaking around during his teenage years, up until the present, helped in his favor. He found himself able to lie and cheat his way out of most things, and that came in handy as a killer.
"Oh, alright." The drinks were delivered, and the waitress smiled at them. "Is there anything else I can get you two?" She asked, smiling sweetly. "Hey… don't I know you?" She asked, turning to Dawn. "Have you come here before maybe?" She asked.
Slightly panicked, Dawn nooded. "I come here once in a while with friends.." She muttered, taking a sip of her drink. "I don't think we need anything else.." She looked to Vaughn. "Do you?"
Vaughn could feel the panic coming from Dawn. He looked at the waitress, a very faint frown on his lips. Was the lady familiar with Dawn’s husband? He needed to talk to Dawn about what he planned to do sooner rather than later. Her being here seemingly with another man could cause trouble for her before he was able to get to her husband.
“I don’t need anything else, no,” he replied shortly, taking a sip from his glass. The alcohol calmed his nerves, his shoulders growing less tense as the burning liquid ran down his throat.
Dawn relaxed when the waitress nodded, walking away. She drank more of her drink, enjoying the sweet flavors of the mocktail. She seemed awkward, unsure of what else to talk about. She fiddled with her thumbs, glancing around, but more in an awkward way than a worried way. She just seemed to not know what to look at.
Vaughn’s eyes shifted to look down at Dawn’s hands. His eyes locked onto the ring on her finger momentarily. “Married?” he asked, thinking it would be a good segway into explaining who he was. His fingers tapped against the glass of his drink. He looked back at Dawn’s face, waiting to read her reaction to his simple question. He assumed she would be nervous, show some sort of anxiety. Maybe lie and say it was just a ring she had that happened to fit best on that finger, and that she had no husband.
"Uhm- no… a promise ring.." She said, hiding it under her other arm. She just seemed kinda sad.. It didn't at all seem like a lie.. maybe it really had been a promise ring, before it was used in the marriage. but not from Danial. Definitely not him. If it was just a promise ring and marriage ring, she probably wouldn't keep it on unless Danial was around. Why would she, if all it gave her was misery.
Vaughn’s fingers twitched lightly. Dawn lied, but why wouldn’t she? He didn’t blame her for it wanting to say she was married to that piece of trash. “Ah, I see,” he said, taking a sip before continuing, “What’s your partner like? Just curious, is all.”
He didn’t think that he was asking any weird questions. Then again, he didn’t have the best social skills. Outside of the people he helped, the people he killed, and Figure, he didn’t talk to anyone. It got lonely from time to time, but anyone else being in his life was impossible. That’s what he thought and experienced, at least. Anyone in his life would know about the things that he did, and no one would understand.
"The one who gave me the promise ring… is gone." She muttered, fidgeting with the ring. "My… " she sighed. "He's awful. but I can't leave him, or my family" -She winced as she said that- "Would go back into horrible living conditions." She said, opening up. "They didn't know he was bad. he seemed sweet. They never see me anymore."
The corners of Vaughn’s lips tilted up into a faint, pleased smile. There she goes, finally telling him the truth. He listened, clasping his hands together. After glancing around, making sure there were no prying eyes or ears nearby, he spoke. “What if I told you I could make it all go away?”
The killings had been all over the news. A murderer targeting men with previous abuse convictions and accusations. They called him a vigilante, someone who was cleaning up the system. The police still insisted on needed to find him, despite him practically doing their jobs for them. He was doing what they should have done in the first place to keep vulnerable people from being hurt.
Dawn's eyes widened. "You could help my family out if I leave him?" She asked. It seemed like she'd have run away long ago if it wasn't Danial's family keeping her own family in suitable living conditions. She sounded hopeful, like she might actually get out of the awful situation she was in. "And you would? you would help me?" She asked as well.
“Ah, I can’t do much for your family, no…” Vaughn began to explain, sounding a tad awkward. He barely had enough money to get himself by, much less another family. He would if he could, but it was impossible at that time. He hoped that the family situation wouldn’t stop Dawn from taking him up on his offer to help her. “But what I can do is help you get away from your husband. You won’t have to worry about him once I’m finished with what I have planned. That’s a promise.”
"But then my family would still be is a bad situation…" Dawn muttered, worried mostly for her family, and not for herself. But then she brightened again. "Maybe… if he's gone, and i act greaved, maybe they'll take pity on me? I don't know for sure….."
Vaughn shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever works. My main priority is getting you away from your husband,” he explained. He took another look around the room before lowering his voice as he spoke. “Have you heard about the killer on the news? Targeting men with domestic records?” He hoped Dawn would put the pieces together quickly and save him an awkward explanation and reveal.
She smiled. "I figured that out when you mentioned getting me away from him." She said, shrugging. "I'm not an idiot. I do wonder how you found me though, Danial isn't on any police records, except for one that i filed, that was immediately thrown away.. Danial's family pays off the police." She said in explanation. "It sounds like this may work. What do I do?"
Vaughn shook his head a tad when Dawn mentioned that the case had been thrown out. "It was thrown out, but it's still in the archives of existing. I had to go back and jump through quite a few hoops to find it, but it's still there. Good thing about the internet, that sort of thing doesn't permanently go away. You just have to know where to find it," he explained. He often searched for cases that were thrown out. Those went overlooked the most, due to being thrown out. They were not open to the public and no one but the people involved and a judge tended to be aware of its existence.
"What you can do for me is write down his full schedule. What times he wors, when he usually leaves the house- things like that. Along with a general layout of your home, and any entrances in that may get left unlocked if you are not able to let me into the home," he said, taking out a piece of paper and pen from his pocket, sliding it across the table to her.
Dawn frowned when he told her that it was in the archives of the internet. "I watched them throw the paper in the wastebin before they read more than one paragraph. I didn't think they digitalized it." She said, surprised. "I guess he hasn't paid them all off.." She muttered.
She took the paper and pen, writing down a few things she could remember, sectioning the paper off into days of the week, then into days of the month. The third wednesday of each month, he went to the gym. Every other wednesday, he ran. Other days, he worked out inside. He went to work pretty regularly, having work on the weekends as well. They went shopping every thursday, Dawn only going twice a month. She wrote down the sports teams he watched, the friends he'd go out with, his boss, the organizations he might have paid off, the windows that opened easily, the doors she never locked. Anything she could remember.
Vaughn shrugged his shoulders as he listened to Dawn. "Everything is digitalized these days. They may have tried to scrub it away, but nothing is really gone when it comes to the internet. Just more difficult to find," he replied, sipping his whiskey. He finished his drink at that time but did not call over the server for another.
He watched as Dawn wrote countless things on the paper. He was pleased about the fact that he would have a lot of information to go off of. Jumping into these sorts of things blind was a messy thing to try to do. That was why he found the victims and spoke with them in the first place, it made things easier for both parties. He made a mental plan as he glanced over what Dawn wrote down. Coming over while the man was at work would be the best idea. There, he could wait out for the husband to arrive home, where he would be able to ambush him and make the kill. He wondered what Figure would have him use to kill the man and prayed it would be something easy that time around.
"Could you possibly use poison? or make it look like an accident? I'll be the first suspect if it looks like a murder." Dawn asked, politely. "And his family wouldn't trust me, would make my family suffer."
Vaughn shook his head in reply. "I… don't have much of a say in how I commit the murder. It's not really up to me," he said. He could try and reason with Figure but had no idea how far he would get with that. He had tried to reason with it in the past when it had given him means of killing in the form of drowning and arson. Both of those things took a long time and were messy, but Figure had no sympathy for the situation at hand.
"Oh, okay.. I'll figure something out." She slid him the list, glancing at the time. "Ah, I've got to get back…." She said, worriedly. "When you come, knock before entering, so I'll know it's you?" She asked, waving the waitress over for the bill. She paid in cash, making sure she had everything she came with. "I'll see you later!" She got up to go.
Vaughn nodded his head at the instructions he was given. "I will, thank you," he said, pausing before speaking again, "Be careful, ok? Stay safe." He waited for the waitress to leave before he got up. Dawn had left by that point, and he picked up the piece of paper that was on the table. He would have a long night of studying and memorizing everything that was written down there.
