Chapter Twelve
Briefings, Blunders, and Brand-New Suspects
Nick
Everyone stares at the fresh murder board I’ve prepared for the last two murders while chewing on their pizza slices.
“Why does it only have the last two murders?” Bree asks between chewing.
“Ugh, close your mouth when you’re chewing. Ew,” Sloan chides.
Bree gives her a finger. “I’ve literally seen you eat Skittles off of mud. Shut up.”
“For the hundredth time, I was wolfed up. It doesn’t count.”
I scrunch my nose. “I’m hygienic even when I’m wolfed up. That’s not really an excuse.”
Matt laughs. “Says the man who—”
“Think before you finish the sentence. You don’t want to shake that precarious domino,” I warn him.
He snaps his trap shut.
Sloan points her pizza at me. “Well, I’m not related to you, and I’ve seen you roll around in the mud. If you’re hygienic wolfed up, then I’m the President of the country.”
“Don’t point your pizza at me.”
“Still better than the current President,” Cami says
Everyone, including Sloan, nods.
“Anyway, I want to look at the case from a fresh perspective. We know this is the work of a serial killer, and we know they target people we’re already investigating. Since in the last two cases we were close enough to actually catch them, I think it’d be a good idea to look deeper into them.” Also, because these two were committed by a different killer than all the other ones.
“Hmm, I agree.” Cami takes out her notebook and shuffles through its pages. “The last two victims also had way higher doses of the drugs than others.”
Marcus nods. “In all the previous autopsies, I noticed the victims had attempted to shift before their demise. Not in the last two.”
Matt raises an eyebrow. “Looks like the killer is getting braver. Going for victims that are actively under investigation by the Bureau.”
That tugs at something in the back of my mind. “Do you think they know the Bureau was investigating them?” I blurt out.
“Don’t you? Has to be too big a coincidence if they randomly chose the only two criminals who were as good as arrested.” Matt, the genius, carefully takes a bite of the pizza drooping in his hand.
“Bree, can you find the list of all the criminals the Bureau has been actively investigating for the last month in the city?”
She picks up her phone and walks out of the room to hopefully call Meena.
“Can it also mean the killer is getting less dramatic?” Sloan offers.
Oh, Elliot is going to love this one. “Why do you say that?”
“I mean, it was a bit theatrical to give the victims just enough drugs to watch them die slowly while they’re conscious enough to know what’s happening but too paralyzed to do anything about it.”
“I have a theory for that,” Cami says before I can defend Elliot. “They were probably just putting enough in the drinksto make sure the weres don’t sniff it out.”
“But not anymore?” Sloan asks.
“Another way the killer is getting braver?” I offer. I tuck that information aside to think over later.
