Taylor Hawkins paced her apartment, waiting for Stone to arrive. After looking over the case files, she was now entirely certain that the 3 agents killed in “muggings” were linked to this case. But each case was stone cold and the main thing that the files had told her was that no one had spent any great amount of time investigating them, even when they were fresh. They had occurred at a time when most of the investigative power of the agency was turned towards apprehending Parabellum. Since they had been convinced, at the time, that these murders were unrelated, much less effort had been put into them. When no leads had immediately surfaced, the cases were shelved and there they had remained. Just 3 random murders that would never be solved. Not so unusual. But Hawkins knew better; she had checked the records, in the NIA’s 50-year history only one other agent had ever died in a mugging or a robbery of any kind. For it to happen to 3 agents, each during an incident, pushed the bounds of coincidence to the limit. The possibility of a connection excited her. If they were related, that meant that she could expand her investigation to include those cases too, and the more evidence she had to analyze, the better her chances of finding something she could use. That was why Stone was supposed to stop by before he went into the agency today, she needed to ask him to sample a few things in the evidence locker for her. But he was late, and she was growing impatient. When she was eager to run with something, she didn’t take kindly to being kept waiting and it was making her irritable. Maybe she should have specified that he should only take a night off, not the whole week. Finally, she heard a knock on the door.
“Where the hell have you been?” she hissed the instant the door closed.
“Look, I’m sorry. I got stuck in traffic, alright?” Stone mumbled, averting his eyes.
“Your girlfriend live in high traffic area?” Hawkins glared.
“What?” Stone raised his eyebrows.
“If you’re planning to lie to me, at least do me the courtesy of making it convincing,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re wearing the same thing you had on yesterday. Your clothes are wrinkled. There is lipstick on your collar, which is not mine, I might add, and you smell like perfume.”
Stone fidgeted uncomfortably, looking at the floor.
“Sorry. I had a date. I just overslept a bit.”
Hawkins sighed, it really wasn’t any of her business, and she probably should have let it passed, but she was already in a bad mood, so she pushed.
“Was it Mia?” she asked. “Because I thought you were going to keep your distance from her for now. Since she is involved in this case.”
“It wasn’t Mia,” he snapped. “She isn’t even in the country. Look, not that it is any of your business, but it wasn’t an agent. I met her the other day, then ran into her again when she was meeting her brother for lunch at the office. We hit it off. That’s all.”
Hawkins narrowed her eyes.
“What is her name?”
“How is that any of your business?” Stone snapped. “I am allowed to have a personal life.”
Hawkins could tell that he was getting tired of the 3rd degree, and she couldn’t really blame him. She never claimed to be good with people, and maybe she had put her nose too much in his business. After all, what she was thinking was highly unlikely, probably not even worth worrying about. But a woman with a brother at the NIA? She had to ask, to be sure, or there could be trouble.
“It could be important,” she softened her tone. “Please?”
Stone hesitated, but at last he sighed,
“Her name’s Amanda Clark.”
Hawkins rubbed her hands over her face, what were the odds? If she believed in fate, she would have been sure that it was laughing at her right now.
“Of course it is,” she muttered.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you can’t be involved with her, Stone.”
“Why on earth would you care? What, are you jealous?”
“God, you are an idiot,” Hawkins was trying to keep her voice down; the neighbours could not hear this. “Don’t you know who she is?”
“Oh, you mean because she is a reporter. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to tell her anything. I’m not stupid,” Stone replied defensively.
“So, you don’t know, then,” Hawkins sighed. “Well, I suppose I should be happy, at least you aren’t that big of a moron.”
“Are you going to stop insulting me and tell me what your problem is?” Stone was getting testy.
“You know that brother she was there to meet?” Hawkins raised an eyebrow. “He’s Ethan Cross, Stone. Amanda Clark is Ethan Cross’ sister.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Son of a bitch,” Stone cursed emphatically. “But, she isn’t a Cross?”
“She was married, briefly. Divorced a few years ago. I guess you two didn’t talk much, huh?”
“How do you know all of this?” Stone asked.
“Ethan talks a lot about her,” Hawkins shrugged. “They’re close. She visits him at the agency regularly, too. But that isn’t what matters right now. What matters, is that you have to stay away from her. And it isn’t just about Ethan. If Parabellum is being true to form, he’s probably watching her, which means he’s watching you, when you’re with her. It’s too risky, Stone.”
He was silent for a long moment, then he relented,
“You’re right. I won’t see her again. At least until this is over.”
“I’m sorry. I know it isn’t my place to interfere…”
“Don’t be, it’s not a big deal. I’ve only known her a few days, it’s not like I was planning to propose,” Stone laughed it off, but Hawkins could tell it bothered him.
“So, what did you find?’ he quickly changed the subject.
Hawkins was more than happy to move on, herself.
“There is no doubt about it, the cases are linked,” Hawkins replied. “It’s too big of a coincidence to be anything else. Not only that, but our DNA evidence tied one of those 3 men directly to the case. His DNA was on that stamp, indicating that it was Craig Ferrier who had mailed the threatening letter to Walker in the second case. But it was definitely Parabellum who actually wrote the letter, the handwriting analysis done on the letter itself confirmed it. It was the same writing as the notes from all 4 known cases, including the two that happened when Ferrier was long dead, involving people who were just children when he died. So, the only explanation is that Ferrier was somehow involved with Parabellum himself.”
“That makes some sense, actually,” Stone mused.
“How so?”
“When I read the old profile that the behavioural analysts did on Parabellum, I noticed that they suggested something very interesting. They posited that he might be working with a partner.”
“Really?” she hadn’t heard anything about that.
“Yeah. Most people disregarded that suggestion because there was no tangible evidence of a second individual being involved. Hell, there was barely tangible evidence of a first person. But they felt that he might be working with someone because some of the crimes he committed involved controlling multiple well-armed and trained men or women, without ever getting injured himself or losing his advantage. They felt he might have needed help to complete some of the incidents that were attributed to him. It was never more than a notion though, no hard evidence to back it. And purely behavioural evidence is often disregarded by investigators.”
“Well, we have concrete evidence now.”
“It seems that way, doesn’t it?”
“Strange pattern through. If the evidence we have can be taken at face value, it means that he had a different partner for every murder but none for the first?”
“Well, the first murder was probably his least professional; he likely had the closest connection to his victim and his MO wasn’t fully established yet. Maybe that was when he learned that he needed a partner to run the game the way he wanted, or maybe he just happened to find a man who made a good partner and took a liking to the extra layer of control that that gave him. Added it to his game. Either way, there is no doubt that he is the dominant partner. They are disposable to him, just tools. He uses them and then, when he’s done, he discards them. And he makes sure to trim the loose ends while he’s at it.”
“But that is one thing that bothers me. How do you suppose he finds them in the first place?” Hawkins asked. “You can’t just walk up to a person and say ‘Hi, I’m a serial killer, want to help me murder some people?’”
“True. I have a theory on that though. I think he used the mandatory agency psych evaluations.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I looked over the reports from the 3 agent’s files. They were all barely fit for duty, they had borderline evaluations. And their profiles were all startlingly similar. Problems with authority, sociopathic tendencies, ambiguous moral code, control issues, you name it. They were also all written up multiple times for various infractions: excessive use of force, abuse of power, dereliction of duty, insubordination, unprofessional conduct; charges that revealed their disdain for other people, for their job and their superiors. If you were going to pick a serial killer’s apprentice, you couldn’t do much better than those 3. They are so similar that it seems to me that he must have used the reports to find them. Keep in mind that serial killers are often very good profilers themselves. He could easily have narrowed his picks to the sociopaths who become cops just so that they can be important, have control and carry a gun, sadly not that uncommon, and he could have cultivated a candidate from there. It isn’t like he kills that often; he had years to pick a protégé, to make sure he got it right and to ease them slowly into his world. He could take his time, be careful.”
“That is true,” she chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Can we use that same method to find his current partner?”
“Good thought, but not likely.” Stone sighed. “For one thing, do you know how many agents would have many of these traits to some degree? Let’s just say that not a lot of healthy, well-adjusted people want to get into this line of work in the first place. I’d say present company excluded, but I think we both know that that wouldn’t be true, would it?” he chuckled. “Also, those psych reports are sealed for privacy reasons, there is no way that I can get access to them without tipping somebody off. I only have these because they were included in the case files for the murders, not locked away in personnel.”
“Too bad. It would really help if we knew who he was working with,” she sighed. “But it does raise an interesting question, if Parabellum is using these reports, how would he get access to them?”
“Hmm,” Stone thought for a moment. “Usually, the people with access are the heads of the different sectors and those above them; they use them to select people to transfer into their departments. Then, there is the Security and the Personnel departments, for obvious reasons.”
“Guess that doesn’t narrow it down much either, does it?”
“Not really. So, what do we do now?” Stone asked.
“New cases, new evidence,” Hawkins replied firmly. “I have a few things I need you to get for me from the evidence locker.”
“Nothing from these cases can be directly linked to Parabellum, you know. The partner theory is still tenuous.”
“I know, but once we get a real suspect, we can go official again. We can match the handwriting, search their home, we can find the real evidence. Once we know who it is, we can get what we need to bring it full circle,” she sounded confident. “And even if that falls through, as long as we can get him for at least one murder, even if it isn’t a Parabellum murder, he’s done, for good. And that is what matters, right?”
“Point taken. So, what do you need me to get?”
“Here, I made a list. I’ll expect you tonight, Stone. Don’t be late.”
“I’ll be here,” he turned and left the apartment.