AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
“Styx. That’s his name. For now, at least. He probably has others,” Cami muttered. She felt adrenaline surging through her. She had no idea whether Styx was going to try to track her or was going to pursue a different target. She was in the game, but so were a few others who seemed like they would fit his specifications.
And this was how he knew who people were. He’d been blind copied on the confirmation emails that had to be sent before people were allowed to fully participate in the game. Emails that gave a return email address, a city of residence, a date of birth, and a few other details. Enough, for sure, to track a person in real life most of the time.
And now, Styx was gone. He’d left the game and was pursuing his latest victim, but she didn’t know whether he was doing that online at home, finding out her details, or whether he was already out on the streets of Boston.
Cami felt breathless at the thought that this killer was still anonymous, and there was no way of predicting who he would be targeting. Their only solution, the only way of finding him, would be to look at Rowan’s list and see if they could find Styx himself.
“Styx,” she said. She could do more online, but now, as things stood, it would be too time consuming. This was the moment for Connor’s analytical skills and strengths to come into play.
“We’ll find him,” Connor told her. “And we’ll catch him. We’ll get him.”
He got on the phone. “Ethan!” he barked. “We’ve got an urgent situation here. The suspect is identified. He’s an ex-employee of Virtual Ventures. He used to work on Bordercross. He left code in the game that forwards player details to him.”
“So, he’d be on the list we’ve just received from Rowan’s lawyers?” Ethan said.
“He will. We need you to collaborate with our BAU agents. I’m going to set up a teleconference. We have literally over a hundred names here. Now the killer is among them. So, let’s go through what we know.”
“He’s a Boston resident,” Cami said. “And from the evidence, most likely a male.”
“Boston resident. He’s local. He’s chosen his targets here,” Connor agreed.
“He may have left on bad terms.”
“Look for a dismissal, a firing or a sudden resignation,” Connor advised his team. “It’s more likely he’ll have done that.”
Cami felt her blood surge. This was like a race. A race where life and death were vying for the finish line. It was all too possible he might be out, looking to kill again.
“He’s capable of violence. But that doesn’t mean he might have a record. He’s highly intelligent, and his violent tendencies might end up being suppressed, or channeled into something that seems normal.”
“We’re looking. We’re checking the list. We’ve got the profiles and addresses being loaded now,” Ethan said.
“We’ll work from the bottom on our side,” Connor said. Quickly, he directed Cami. “Take the names. Input them into this database. You’ll get address details and a phone number. Hopefully, all current. Then cross-check with what the list says. We’re then going to rank the suspects in order of their strength and probability.”
“On it,” Cami said.
As fast as she could, Cami did her work, inputting the names and details of the list. She could hear the FBI researchers and BAU agents doing the same, wearing headphones, talking to each other over their phones, and she heard them cross-checking the names she was providing.
She felt herself racing, racing to get the information out and to get her work done.
“We’re looking at the Social Security details,” Ethan confirmed. “Most of these are current. And we’re cross-referencing the names with the ones you’ve already input from the list. The ones that are a match are the top of the list. The ones that aren’t are becoming less likely to be the suspects as we go down.”
Cami’s hands were flying over the keyboard.
She was ranking the names on their likelihood. The computer was doing the same, and the phone was ringing. Ethan and Connor were talking on the phone, and Cami heard Connor say, “We can’t be sure,” and Ethan reply, “It’s pretty much sure.” She closed out their conversation and focused on her own job.
“The profile is narrowing,” Connor said to her. “We’re getting a top ten. But that’s not enough. We need a top two. A top three. We can’t send ten teams out. We need to make sure we rush to the most likely ones first. Work on it further.”
Who was he?
Now that all the information had been assessed, the computer was flashing up the names who appeared to match the profile most closely.
“Those should be the most likely.”
Eagerly, Cami looked forward, reading the list of employees that had now been ranked according to their likelihood of being the suspect.
There were three of them.
