“Explain that last one, Nova.”
“The person turned from exuding serial killer vibes to best friend ones.” I snicker because I hope and pray that’s what happens to my brother if pres chooses to give the drug a try. “According to what was told to Marsten, one of the trial patients asked every person he crossed on the street if they wanted to be his bestie. Scared a few kids’ parents because he seemed to revert back to his early childhood behaviors, but other than that, there wasn’t anything bad.”
“Huh,” pres grunts. “I’ll give him a call. I want to do more research and ask questions before I attempt using it on Icer. Get some sleep, because once you wake up, you need to put feet on the ground.”
“I’ll keep you up to date, pres. Talk to you tomorrow.”
I shut my office down and fall face first into my bed. Exhaustion quickly pulls me under.
CHAPTER
THREE
NOVA
“Unidentified remains of a female have been found,” my source from the FBI reports. “We’re pulling DNA from her now and comparing it to the victims’ families. Once I get that back from the lab, I’ll let you know.”
“Where were the remains found?” I ask, trying to get as many details out of him as possible. He’s been pretty informative, but therearethings he’s been tight-lipped about. As he should be since it’s an ongoing investigation, I just wish he wasn’t that way with me seeing as we’re both working the case and on the same side.
“If I tell you, you can’t show up at the scene, at least not until my men clear it,” he states.
“I wouldn’t. I like to be on my own when I go over a crime scene,” I tell him.
“Even if there’s no longer any evidence there?” he asks, sounding skeptical.
“It’s not about the evidence, it’s about trying to get inside of his mind and figure out why he used that particular place for his dumping ground,” I inform him.
“You think we’ll find more victims in the proximity, don’t you, Nova?”
“I do,” I conclude. “They may not be in the same exact plot, but they’ll be somewhere close by. Are you planning to bring in cadaver dogs?”
“Most likely, it’ll be a lot easier to do that than to aimlessly amble around and risk overlooking it completely. So, I’ll expand our search perimeter. Your hunches so far have been spot on,” he mumbles.
“Now that I’ve made promises, which I intend to keep, and shared my thoughts with you, Special Agent Patterson, care to tell me where y’all found her?”
“Terrell Forest,” he answers.
And like a lightbulb going off in my head, it suddenly makes sense because they’re tearing out trees and making room to add apartments.
“They accidentally disturbed her gravesite when they started ripping out the trees and excavating the land, didn’t they?” It wasn’t a tip that led to this discovery, it was purely coincidental. Or damn good luck.
“That’d be correct,” he responds. “I’m heading that way now. I’ll drop you a pin of the exact location so you’re not wandering around trying to find it. Not that it’d be hard to see for yourself since we’ve done some digging and expect we’ll be doing more of that once I get there.”
“I’ll head that way once you’ve cleared the area. Until then, I’m going to go through the cameras from the street surveillance and compare the cars leaving to the ones from prior abductions,” I state.
“You better have permission for that, Nova, because if not, we can’t use anything you find in court to use against him,” Patterson reminds me.
“I have permission,” I say, negating his concern. Or at least, trying to. “The captain sent me the link and login information to their security system. In his words, he’s as interested in bringing this fucker down as we are. He just doesn’t have the resources and manpower to assign the case to an investigator.”
Which I call bullshit on.
He has the men and means, they’re just all lazy assholes who want someone else to do the hard work for them and then let them have the glory of the find. I never take credit for solving crimes and taking down an offender because with what I do, I need to stay as far away from the limelight as I can.
“Or he just doesn’t care. He’s been so flippant with me that I want to rip that hat off his head and smack him in the face with it,” Patterson mutters.
“Let me know when you do that so I can be there to watch,” I snort. “I’ve had the same thoughts when it comes to him. There’s something not right about that motherfucker. I just can’t get a read on his pulse to know what that is.”
“That’s because he’s a goddamn predator that doesn’t have one,” Patterson retorts.
