Chapter 15
The press conference was in the main briefing room, which meant the hallway outside it had been a circus since noon.
Haven had counted eleven reporters, four cameras, and one guy with a podcast mic who seemed to believe that confidence was the same thing as credentials.
It was not. She'd told him so. He'd written something in his notes that was probably not flattering, and she didn’t give a shit.
She was watching from the monitor in the break room down the hall because she wasn't on the task force roster for public-facing exposure. But she was better behind glass. She could think without managing her expression. Marcus had experience with press conferences. She’d Googled him.
She smiled. Sue her. When a tall, sexy cop comes into your apartment and makes a dynamic impression on you …
you do what any woman would do. You Googled his ass and looked for socials.
He didn’t have any socials, but she’d read numerous articles about the crimes he’d solved and the task forces he’d led.
Lieutenant Carver stood at the podium with Marcus on her left and Reyes at the back of the room with his arms crossed and the look of a cop who was over the dog and pony shows.
Carver opened. She was good at this. Direct, measured, enough information to satisfy but not enough to matter.
The task force existed. The cases were connected.
The investigation was active and ongoing.
They were asking the public for assistance and would provide a tip line.
She didn’t say how many victims. She didn’t say how many states.
She gave the press the shape of the thing without the dimensions.
Then she handed it to Marcus.
Haven ate a graham cracker from the sleeve she'd stolen off Paulson's desk and watched him step to the mic.
He was good at this, too, but in a different way than Carver.
Where Carver was institutional, Marcus was direct in a way that came across as trustworthy.
He looked at the cameras like they were people and not machines.
He had the ease of someone who’d done this enough times to stop acting and just … be.
He talked about the investigation. The geographic corridor.
The task force composition. He said they were committed to bringing this individual to justice, which was true, and that they were following active leads, which was also true, and then a reporter in the third row asked the question Haven had been waiting for since she'd turned the monitor on.
“Is there a specific type of victim this individual targets? Is there a pattern?”
Marcus looked at the reporter. Half a beat.
“At this time,” he said, “we have not identified a consistent victimology. The victims vary in age, occupation, and background. What connects them is the method of assault.” He paused, and the pause was professional and clean and did not suggest anything except a man being careful.
“We believe the subject selects random targets of opportunity in isolated locations rather than selecting specific individuals.”
Haven stopped chewing her cracker and watched as Marcus delivered the line. Perfectly.
She looked at the monitor. At Marcus. At the specific flatness of his expression.
As they’d discussed, he'd just told every news camera in that room and every affiliate that picked up the feed that this suspect was random. That he grabbed whoever was available. That there was no marker, no selection process, no criteria. Just an opportunity.
She looked at his face on the screen. It gave her absolutely nothing. He delivered the line perfectly.
She thought about the killer’s surveillance.
The camera rotations he'd mapped. The deliberate turn of her wrist. The way he'd looked at her hand like a man checking something off a list. She thought about what it would feel like, to a man who controlled everything down to no transfer of DNA, to hear a federal investigator tell the world he was random.
Like a grocery store grab-and-go or a crime of convenience.
She finished the cracker and took another one. If she hadn’t spent so much time with Marcus recently, she never would’ve been able to tell that the words that came out of his mouth were lies.
* * *
The task force room was quiet when Marcus got back to it. Not the loud quiet of people holding their tongues. The quiet of people who’d been watching a monitor for the last forty minutes and were now processing what they'd seen play out exactly as discussed.
Reyes was leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.
He, too, had committed to the move and was sitting with the weight of it now that it was done.
Webb had his eyes on the monitor where the press conference feed was still running, a reporter doing a stand-up in front of the building.
Paulson was standing at the window with the stillness of an FBI agent who’d signed off on something that made him uncomfortable and was deciding whether he was still uncomfortable with that decision.
Haven was at the board. Not writing. Just looking at it.
Marcus set his jacket over the back of a chair.
“It's done,” he said.
“It's done,” Reyes confirmed. He uncrossed his arms. “How'd it feel from up there?”
“Like lying,” Marcus said. “Which is what it was.”
“Clean delivery,” Webb said without looking up. “I watched your face when you said targets of opportunity. Nothing. Kept the camera face the whole way through.”
“That's the job,” Marcus said.
Paulson turned from the window. “The press is already running with it. Four outlets picked up the random angle.” He paused. “If Wheeler's profile holds, our subject is monitoring coverage in real time.”
“He's monitoring it,” Haven said from the board. She still hadn't turned around. “He's been monitoring it since the Guardian connection broke in the Ellison coverage. He knows exactly what's being said and what isn't.” She turned around. “He just heard Marcus call him random.”
He wouldn’t like that. The profile stated it would make him angry, but not the typical type of angry.
“How long before he responds?” Reyes asked.
“We don't know that he will,” Paulson said. “Wheeler's assessment was that he'd want to correct the record. That's not a guarantee of action.”
“It's not a guarantee,” Marcus agreed. “It's a probability, and the probability is high enough that we treat it as a working assumption.” He looked at the room.
“Which means we stay sharp. Eyes open. He's going to see that press conference, and he's going to act. Maybe not right away, but he will make his move.” He paused.
“Men like this don't react. They aren’t emotional. They respond with calculated precision. And the response will be deliberate and on his timeline, not ours.”
Haven walked away from the board. “The selection process is the whole thing for this guy.
It's not a means to an end. It's the point. He mapped my route. He timed the camera rotations. He knew exactly which stretch of trail went dark and exactly how long he had before the sweep changed when he left the area.” She looked around the room.
“He didn't pick me because I was there. He picked me because I was correct, and correct is a specific thing he takes his time deciding.” She paused.
“You just told him he's random. You told him he's the same as every other predator who grabs someone in a parking lot because she was alone.” Another pause. “That's not survivable for his ego.”
“Which is exactly why we did it,” Reyes said. He turned to Marcus. “Wheeler's right. He'll push back somehow.”
“He'll want us to know the selection process exists,” Marcus said. “Even if he never says so directly.”
Paulson nodded slowly. The FBI face had softened a couple of degrees from where it had been. “The provocation was sound. I still want to be in the room when he makes his move.”
“You will be,” Marcus said.
Carver looked at the room. “We're increasing the watch on the trail system access points starting tonight.
I want every imaging center and medical equipment service provider in the metro area on Webb's list by the end of the day.” She looked at Marcus one more time.
The look of a woman who had signed off on a calculated risk and was still carrying the immense weight of it. “Let's hope Wheeler's right.”
“Wheeler's right,” Haven said quietly. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”