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19
When they sat down again with their profile, Logan said, “You can’t wait to work on that, can you?” He knew her well enough to know she’d love to try her hand at breaking the code.
“It’s calling my name, but Jeff’s right. The profile should come first. CRRU can take care of this.” She paused a moment. “The problem is this message may change our conclusions. I mean, now we know he wants attention. Wants to prove he’s more intelligent than we are. That makes a difference.”
“I think so too. Look, you work on that while I clean up what we already have. Then if we need to adjust our profile, we will. After that, we’ll take everything to Jeff. Sound good?”
“Sounds great.”
They worked quietly for a while. After a few minutes, Alex said, “I’ve got it.”
Logan looked up at her in surprise. “Already?”
She nodded. “It wasn’t complicated. Actually, it was simple. Really simple.” She frowned. “I’m a little confused. Something about this doesn’t feel right.”
“He’s been clever enough to get away with kidnapping women and going undiscovered for a long time.”
“That’s what makes this a little baffling.”
The door to the conference room opened, and Jeff stood there. “It occurred to me that this message could affect our profile. Sorry. I should have realized it sooner. The pressure is getting to me.”
“We understand,” Logan said. “We were just saying the same thing. Alex worked on it while I fine-tuned what we’ve done so far. It really didn’t take any time away from our work.”
Alex pushed a piece of paper toward him. “Here’s the code.” She’d written it down so Jeff could clearly see the translation.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Q 6 ? L 9 # Z 4 * X 2 @ C 8 ! F 1 & G 3 $ N 5 % T 7
After the alphabet, she’d added the message I am coming for you. No one can stop me.
“Nothing unique or interesting here,” she said. “Just the same threatening verbiage we’ve seen before from criminals fueled by their ego.”
“I can’t believe you did this so quickly,” Jeff said after scanning the page.
“It’s not complicated, which tells us something about our UNSUB.”
“You think it shows our guy isn’t as clever as we thought?” Jeff shook his head, a frown on his face. “That doesn’t match with the way he’s pulled off these abductions. Very well thought out. Clever.”
“That’s exactly what we were thinking. It’s almost as if...” Alex started.
“It’s not really from the UNSUB,” Logan finished for her.
Alex looked at him and smiled. They frequently finished each other’s thoughts. Still, it always surprised Logan when it happened.
“What are you saying?” Jeff asked. “You think we have a pair of UNSUBs?”
“It’s not unprecedented,” Alex said. “Think of Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole. Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono. Leonard Lake and Charles Ng.”
“Some of the sickest serial killers who ever lived,” Jeff said. “Let’s pray this UNSUB and his partner, if he has one, don’t take after any of those animals.”
Jeff’s phone rang. When he answered it, he listened for a while, then told whoever was on the other end to email him their findings.
“You win, Alex,” he said, putting the phone down. “That was Special Agent Lucas. They just got a message from CRRU with the same results you came up with.”
“Like I said, it’s a really simple code. I’m sure they figured it out before I did. It just took them a while to contact the team.”
“You’re being modest, but the important thing is we know what it says.”
