Twisted (Burbank and Parker 1)

“Damn.” Tony shook his head in amazement. “No one could ever accuse you of providing unimpressive leads.” Even as he spoke, his wheels were turning. “The first thing I have to do is get the NYPD on the phone, secure their cooperation.”

“Are you kidding? They’ll celebrate. After the weekend they just had, they’ll be popping open the six-packs before you say good-bye.”

“Not before they issue a Crime Stoppers flyer, written in both Mandarin and English, announcing that a Fukienese woman was killed on Eldridge Street.” Tony was scribbling down notes. “The flyer will clearly state that the police are searching for…” A questioning glance at Derek.

“A white male, light eyes, medium-to-tall in height, solid build, probably between his midthirties and forties,” Derek supplied. “Armed and violent. Tell them to post the flyer all over Chinatown, outside restaurants and shops, on telephone poles, on people’s asses if they have to.”

Tony chuckled. “Once that’s done, I’ll deal with the community leaders, get all the bigwigs off our backs. Word will spread like wildfire. In the meantime, you and the squad talk to your informants. Get them to spread the news in the right places and to the right sources. You and I will handle the official route. We’ll work with OPA to issue a formal press release. There won’t be a human being in the tristate area that isn’t aware of the physical description and psychological makeup of the Unsub we’re looking for.”

“Including Xiao Long. This should be more than enough to give him the proof he wants that the Black Tigers aren’t responsible for his girls’ deaths. Nor, for that matter, are any other rival gangs. He’ll back down. Gang tensions will subside. And Chinatown can resume business as usual.”

“So what are you waiting for?” Tony asked, grinning as he reached for the phone. “Go clue in the rest of the squad. You’ve got a lot to accomplish before you head back to Atlantic City to finish solving the Truman case.”

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

New York City

4:55 P.M.

Larry rose from the patch of grass he’d been examining—a small but trampled section of the area cordoned off and designated as Cynthia Alexander’s crime scene.

“The CSI team did a thorough job,” he told Sloane. “The Unsub clearly grabbed Cynthia Alexander as she left the building. There was a struggle; you can see that from the flattened and pulled-up sections of grass. If this had been winter, CSI probably could have pulled a shoe or boot print from the snow. But there’s nothing here to work with. Just the blood and the hair band they’re already analyzing.”

“No surprise there. The NYPD’s team is the best there is.” Sloane raked a weary hand through her hair. She and Larry had been retracing routes all weekend, examining crime scenes, reviewing victimology. They’d even reinterviewed Tina Carroll, whom Larry had asked some intuitive questions about the Unsub’s demeanor, his level of anger, and his level of aggression.

He and Tina then went over every physical or body-type feature she could remember, and every word her attacker had said, both in Chinese and in English. Larry had listened intently as she took him through the entire encounter, just as she had for the police. But Larry didn’t stop there. He took it a step further, pressing for more detailed answers from Tina.

Had her attacker said or implied anything that would indicate what kind of area he was taking her to—urban, rural, or suburban? When he was standing directly behind her with the knife to her throat, had she picked up on any smells that would provide a clue about that—the odor of hay or manure, the smoky, diesel-fuel smells of the city, the freshly cut grass of the suburbs? Had he used the plural anytime he spoke, indicating that she’d be joining others? Had she caught even a glimpse or a flash of his vehicle, which must have been stashed in the woods? Had there been any time during the days immediately preceding the attack that she’d sensed she was being watched or followed, not only on campus but anywhere else she’d gone?

That last question brought a reaction.

Tina had been repeatedly shaking her head in the negative. Abruptly, she stopped. “I told the police that I felt as if I were being watched every morning when I went out running. But I didn’t think beyond the place where the attack occurred. Now that you phrase it that way, it wasn’t just at Lake Ceva that I had that feeling, or even just at school. It was also at the martial-arts academy. When I walked to my car, when I stepped outside for some fresh air, I had this strange feeling that someone was watching me. Even on the drive back to school, I’d glance in my rearview mirror a bunch of times because I felt like someone was following me. I never saw anyone suspicious, so I figured I was being paranoid. But now that you bring it up, maybe he wasn’t just watching me at school. Maybe he was stalking me, trying to figure out the best place to grab me.”

“Maybe,” Larry had quietly agreed.

That had confirmed what Sloane and Larry already suspected. The Unsub’s victims weren’t random. They were deliberately selected. And the only common threads thus far were the victims’ gender, the settings in which they were attacked, and their connection to Sloane.

She and Larry had been going at this for days. And she had a sinking feeling that they were still stuck at square one.

“We’ve gone over the victimologies ad nauseam,” she stated flatly as she and Larry headed back to their respective cars. “We’ve retraced every step the Unsub might have taken, reviewed every aspect of the kidnappings, revisited all the crime scenes, and reinterviewed every potential witness. Have w

e learned anything?”

“We’ve learned that this Unsub deviates from the typical serial sexual killer in several ways. His victims aren’t random. He’s not interested in gloating over his superior skill and intelligence, because he hasn’t so much as contacted us. Nor has he flaunted his crimes by leading us to his victims’ bodies. It’s possible he’s watching us and getting a charge out of seeing us flounder, but that’s not enough to fuel his need for power and mastery. He’s filled with the kind of leashed violence that has to have an outlet, or he’ll implode.”

“He could be torturing his victims before he kills them.”

“True. But if that’s the case, why not go for easy targets? Why pick such specific and risky ones? No, Sloane, this Unsub has an agenda. It’s up to us to figure it out. Until we understand his specific motivation, we’re not getting anywhere.”

“How do we do that? Where do we start?”

“With you.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s become increasingly obvious that you’re central to this guy’s actions. So instead of profiling him, let’s profile you. Let’s head over to my hotel, order some food so we don’t faint, and examine the fine print of your life. Who might have an ax to grind with you? Who might have a thing for you, but hasn’t acted on it? Who have you interacted with over the past year who’s new and different from before? Who’s been in your life for ages, but in some peripheral way that makes him invisible to you—your mailman, gardener, pizza delivery guy? That kind of thing.”

“In other words, make a spreadsheet of my life.”