Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Like usual with Bohannan, this made sense.
One thing Rus had learned, you never really knew anybody.
Sometimes, not even yourself.
“If that’s the case,” Bohannan kept at it, “how does he have the opportunity to scope out victims and locations that far apart with the time he takes to murder them? Is he doing it on vacation? With his very specific MO, that’s a stretch.”
Rus couldn’t argue the point either.
“Two,” Bohannan continued, “my bead on a cop, especially a malignant narcissist, especially if he kept getting away with it, would be that he’d do it more often. He’d get cocky. He’d start taking risks. You get someone in an authority position with a growing god complex, a real one, not just an asshole who thinks his shit doesn’t stink, a cop, judge, doctor, it doesn’t take long for them to start doing crazy shit because they think they’re invincible. You make that person a serial killer, you’d be finding dead women all over the place.”
Rus couldn’t argue that either.
“With what you had, I would not leap to cop,” Bohannan finished.
“Well, now the working theory is, we have a cop, or someone who did a like job, and to answer your question as to how he gets around, he’s retired. Brad said he was older than me. He had gray in his hair. He has a gut, but he’s built. All the profilers said he’d be vain. He’d take care of himself. If he does, he could look younger than he is.”
Bohannan nodded his agreement.
But he said, “He’s following you. He knows how to do it so you don’t spot a tail. He knows how to blend. Maybe that’s work, say he was undercover at some point. Mostly, it’s his illness. You can’t scope out victims if you don’t learn how to blend. He’s connecting dots because who you’re talking to and what you’re doing is feeding him leads. Don’t get it in your head he’s superhuman. He’s doing what he’d be furious if you did. He’s stepping into your space.”
“Is this going to be an issue?” McGill asked a great question.
“I worry,” Bohannan admitted, and Rus’s gut clenched. “I think he’d be all about professional courtesy. Especially if he’s a brother, as much as that word is hard for me to say, it’s true in this context. Molnar was double trouble. She was a gift to Rus, having horned in on their relationship, and Rus was forced to investigate her. Someone our guy doesn’t think is worth Rus’s time. Complicating this, he killed her. He may have gotten her story before he did, but him doing that took away Rus’s ability to learn why she did what she did. Cops know that’s important. We wanna know the whys and hows. I think he’s going to have concerns Rus is not going to think she’s a gift, but not in the same ways we, as normal, functioning adults, would have those concerns.”
Fantastic.
This was not good news.
“He’s also pissed she impersonated his work,” Bohannan kept at it. “If you asked me which of those was bigger for him, considering the state of her, the rage he left behind, I’d say the latter. I think he’s on a tear, and he’s looking for Ezra, but he’s conflicted. He’s doing Rus’s job. And that doesn’t fit in their relationship.”
“Okay, now, is that going to be a problem?” Rus asked. “Remember, he could have random bombs set up anywhere.”
Bohannan leveled his gaze on Rus.
“It’s tough to make this statement in case I’m wrong, and that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t made it yet.”
That was an interesting opening.
And not very promising.
Bohannan got into it.
“But I don’t think the bombs are a thing with this guy. It doesn’t fit. I’ve been going over it since I got the file, trying to make it fit. It just doesn’t. He can’t be everything. A master of disguises. A master of the con to lure these girls to a hotel room. An expert in crystals. Finding the perfect victim and taking her to the perfect place and getting away with the perfect murder in seven different states, leaving no trace, which means pretty intense scouting trips. All of this without being seen or noticed by anybody. Then add being an expert in remote-detonated bomb making too?”
Bohannan shook his head.
And kept going.
“It’s easy to buy a hammer. It’s a lot harder to buy shit to make bombs without the FBI knowing you’re doing it. So he’d have to be a master at that as well. Now we also know he can spend an entire week in a town where LEOs are a heavy presence, investigating a murder and looking directly for this guy at the same time, and he’s been seen by only one person, because he wanted to be seen.”
Rus wasn’t feeling awesome about this, because if that wasn’t CK, then they had a bomb go off that they didn’t fully investigate.