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He was also looking for someone in a specific age range. They knew this because the first woman he’d abducted had been about six years younger than the average age of those recently kidnapped. In other words, he understood that whoever he was looking for had aged just as he had. That meant he could have been in his early twenties or even in his teens when the trigger occurred that led him to begin abducting women. This confirmed their earlier belief that he was younger because he was able to pose as a jogger when he’d approached Tracy Mendenhall.
They were just about finished when Alex said, “What time is your appointment with the ophthalmologist?”
“Canceled it. I knew we needed to finish this, and I wanted to be here.”
“Okay. When do you get the results of the MRI?”
“You know how slowly the world of medicine works.”
“Will you tell me when you hear something?”
Logan smiled at her. “I’ll tell you what I know as soon as I can, okay?”
Alex was about to press him when Logan’s phone rang. He picked it up and identified himself, then waited a moment before saying, “We’re on our way.”
“Jeff wants to see us,” he told her.
“For crying out loud,” she mumbled. “We might as well work in his office.”
“Probably wants our finished profile. There’s a lot of pressure on this case. The governor getting involved doesn’t help.”
“I know everyone’s worried, but they really need to just let us do our jobs.”
“I know. I’m sorry I was missing in action last night. If I’d been available, we could have completed this earlier.”
“Don’t blame yourself. No one else is. Jeff and I wanted you to stay home and rest.”
He smiled. “I know. Thanks.”
They got up and headed to Jeff’s office.
As they sat down in front of their boss’s desk, Alex noted his expression was grim.
“We may have heard from the UNSUB,” Jeff said.
“Seriously?” Logan said. “He’s silent for all these years and suddenly decides to contact someone?”
“He hasn’t been mentioned in the news before,” Alex said. “Maybe it fueled his ego, so he decided to step into the spotlight.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” Jeff said. “But I’m not sure you can call this communication.” He pushed a piece of paper toward them.
Alex stared at it. Gibberish to some people, but not to her.
“We’ve sent the original to the lab. They’ll check it for fingerprints and DNA. Hopefully CRRU can figure it out. Obviously, this is some kind of code. He’s trying to show us he’s smarter than we are.”
The Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit supported law enforcement and the intelligence community by analyzing cryptic communications. Foreign and domestic terrorists, organized crime, gangs, prison inmates, violent criminals, and human traffickers many times used their own codes to shield their operations and financial records. Alex knew CRRU had been instrumental in uncovering hidden operations and bringing many criminals to justice.
“Why don’t you work on this?” Logan said, looking at her.
Jeff frowned. “You have training in cryptology, Alex?”
She laughed. “No, but I’m pretty good at word games. I actually decoded a message sent to the police from a serial rapist when I was in Kansas City.”
Jeff’s eyebrows shot up. “I remember that case, but I had no idea you were the one who deciphered those letters.”
Alex shrugged. “It’s usually not that complicated. You figure out the symbols used the most often and assume they’re either e, a, i, or o, then you look for the nouns that start with r, t, n, s, or l. It can take a while, but when you decipher one or two words, the rest is usually easy.”
“Maybe for you,” Jeff mumbled. He handed her the paper. “Here. See what you can do. The sooner we know what it says, the better.”
“Okay. Just remember it took fifty years to crack the Zodiac Killer’s code, so don’t expect too much.”
Jeff grunted. “Thanks for the warning, but none of us will be in the FBI in fifty years. Hopefully, we can figure it out before we all retire.”
