If Laurel were here, she’d send me a knowing glance, filled with the tense silence of our very last session before I was accepted into the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
I pick up my slim leather briefcase and anchor the strap to my shoulder. Feet shuffling through the loose sand, I track down the dune toward the enclosed crime scene. Caution tape sections off the low-lying depression between sandy ridges.
After I flash my lanyard to the uniformed officer standing guard, I duck under the shiny strip of yellow tape. Two Feds in basic black suits are talking to the chief medical examiner, his occupation made apparent by the tactical khakis and collared shirt emblazoned with the county ME seal.
Having escaped Dr. Lancer, Agent Valdes offers me a slight chin nod in greeting. He was assigned this case out of the BAU last year when the victim count reached double digits.
For reference, there are several departments housed under the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, or NCAVC. One being the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), and another ViCAP.
As a ViCAP crime analyst, I’m assigned cases of a serial nature in order to document in-depth analysis and compile intelligence into Crime Analysis Reports. Geography, offender profiles, suspect lists, victims—all relevant data is provided to investigators, and also keeps the largest, most comprehensive violent offender database up to date: ViCAP-WEB.
I tuck my lanyard beneath my blazer and remove my tablet before I lower my briefcase to the ground, knowing I’ll be haunted by this sand for weeks, discovering it in every crevice of the leather.
The victim has been preserved as best as possible despite the wind, which has layered a thin sheet of sand over the body, pushing up around the frame like the wall of a sandcastle. His shins show signs of pinches and bite marks from fiddler crabs and other crustaceans.
From a distance, it appears as though he merely fell to his death down the steep dune. Up close, it’s the gruesome sight that denotes a violent murder, and links the crime to the Reaper killings—the moniker the FBI has failed to keep out of the media—now spanning nine states over the past five years.
The exposed victim has been stripped of clothes. His hands and legs have been impaled with steel, skewer-like rods, pinning his appendages to the earth like an insect to a board. Yet it’s what’s missing that gives my guy his moniker.
The head has been severed, taken from the scene.
Reaped.
It’s more than the perpetrator’s MO, it’s his signature.
A frisson of exhilaration prickles my skin as I observe the precise, clinical slices along the victim’s vertebrae.
“Griffin Klane Anders,” Valdes says as he approaches from the side. “Prints just identified him. Serial predator. Wanted on numerous abductions and murder charges. Honestly, some of the most disturbing shit I’ve ever seen. The Bureau’s been actively hunting him since he dropped off the radar three years ago, unable to bring him in.” He shrugs, releasing a dry grunt. “Until now.”
I look up into his tense face, features cast sharp by the pale moonlight, his graying hair windblown. “Any connection to previous victims?”
He shakes his head, pulling out his phone to scroll updates. “Nothing pinged during a cursory sweep. Keats is running a deeper analysis now. But it’s not likely.”
I nod once. Other than the history of dark deeds, there’s been no obvious connection among the victims. Just the fact that they’re all wanted for vile crimes and untraceable.
Valdes stares at the staged body, brows furrowed. “I mean…” He hesitates, voice dropping low. “Hell, this perp is taking out the trash. Maybe we shouldn’t even catch this guy.”
A ripple of apprehension coasts down my spine, and I force a tight smile. “Yeah, maybe.”
Here’s what I know: If the perp is intentionally targeting these wanted offenders, then he’s using something beyond mere skill; a method of profiling and hunting that surpasses even our most sophisticated agency systems.
Valdes mutters a curse and kicks a fiddler crab away from the body. “Shit, we need a tarp.”
My throat constricts, and I swallow past the sudden tightness. Before I step onto every crime scene, I arm myself with a defensive wall. But like the sand creeping into every crevice of my briefcase, trauma always finds a crack.
I bring my hands together, thumb resting over the pulse of my wrist. “Can you keep me updated on the progress?”
“Sure thing.” The agent tucks his phone away before he returns to the medical examiner.
While the agents document the scene, I focus on the body, even though the victim isn’t really why I’m here.
As a psychopathologist specializing in abnormal psychology and maladaptive behaviors, I’ve conducted over forty interviews with violent offenders. I’m here to make sure this one is captured alive, and that I’m the first to interview him.
From the moment I realized the connection, he became mine.
I’m here for him.
Aiming my tablet at the body, I snap a few pictures for my report. The skin is blanched, tissue devoid of blood. What remains has congealed on the sand at the point of decapitation.
