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He grabbed the suicide note and brought it to their table. “Do you want me to read this?” he asked.
Alex and Monty both nodded.
“‘To my dear family, I have done something that will bring great shame to my name. I cannot allow you to pay for my actions. I love you all too much. Please remember me with love. Martin.’”
Logan heard only the sounds of chewing as no one said anything.
“Sounds like he’s sorry for his part in spreading the virus,” Monty finally said after taking another large bite of his burrito. Monty didn’t usually talk with his mouth full, but when you’re trying to stop a serial killer, manners go out the window.
“I noticed he didn’t say he was sorry for what he did,” Alex said. “He’s just sorry it will bring shame to his name.”
“Yeah, his concern is for his own family.” Logan sighed. “I don’t see anything in this note that gives us new information about Walker.”
“Except it seems Walker might not have known Martin as well as he thought he did,” Alex said. “Or did he know this guy would commit suicide?”
Logan stared at her for a moment. “Good question. Was that the plan? I mean, now another way of finding Walker is gone.”
“The Circle seems concerned with tying up loose ends. Even if this was a suicide, it may have been ... encouraged by the Circle, if not by Walker.”
“So now what?” Monty asked. “Are we going to rework our assessment ... again? I’m beginning to have nightmares about this thing. Last night, I dreamt Adam Walker was stalking me, and the only way I could stop him was to answer a series of ten questions about serial killers.”
Although the comment wasn’t meant to be funny, Logan burst out laughing. Alex joined in, and finally Monty grinned. “I’m glad you find my nightmares amusing.”
Logan smiled. “I think we all have dreams like that. I had one once where I was in a classroom, taking a test to retain my spot in the BAU. As I worked hard to answer the questions, I looked down and realized I was dressed in pajamas my mom made for me when I was in kindergarten.”
Another round of laughter caused the few people working in the larger room to look their way.
Alex got up and closed the door, then sat back down. “We don’t want to disturb them. If either one of you shares another one of these bizarre dreams...”
“It’s your turn, Alex,” Monty said, smiling. “Do you have any strange dreams?”
Logan saw Alex’s lips thin, then she looked away. “No,” she said. “Nothing as amusing as yours.”
“Okay, enough,” Logan said, trying to get the attention back to the case. “So what do we do now?”
“We look for some piece of information we skipped over because it didn’t seem important at the time,” Alex said. “This guy has to have a base of operations. Geographic profiling tells us he lives somewhere in this area, despite his having once lived in Independence and attended a couple of Circle meetings in Wichita. Kansas City is where he was born and lived until he was seven, where he worked in that lab.” She got up and pointed at a map stuck on the large corkboard behind them. A circle had been drawn representing Walker’s comfort zone.
Monty sighed. “Again, the guy had an apartment near his work, but that’s been completely cleared out. No forwarding address. The Evidence Response Team found only a few fingerprints, a couple on the window blinds and one on a lightbulb he changed. That’s it.”
“No other fingerprints?” Alex asked.
“Only the apartment manager’s.”
“And because he could tell us when Walker moved out, we also know he lived there while he killed his first four victims and then moved somewhere else before killing his fifth victim at Union Station. That was only a little out of his comfort zone, no doubt because we were watching the rail yards. But I still don’t think that means he’ll stray far for this next killing.”
Alex said all this slowly, as if turning the information over in her mind. “My guess is he went home to his family, wherever they are. Now he’s searching for the last victim—unless he’s already found her.”
She stopped eating and looked at Logan, her eyes narrowed. “All the other killings were done either on or near a train. But this last victim...”
Logan immediately understood what she was thinking. “This is special. He can’t kill her where he grabs her. He has to prepare her. Display her somewhere that has meaning. Every single victim has been staged. He wanted them to point to the Train Man. But...”
“Maybe he’ll find a place still worthy of the Train Man but even more worthy of the Master?” Monty said.
They finished their meals in silence. Logan was sure they were all trying to think of someplace Walker might take his next victim.
“It has to have something to do with trains,” Alex said.
“Or The Book.” Logan took a drink of his pop and grabbed a large folder. He thumbed through the pages. “Okay, here’s the part about the virgin.
