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"We're not going to comment on your past employment with us," Matt explained as he pulled out a pair of leather gloves from the pocket of his coat. "The media can draw their own conclusions based on ourno commentpress release."
Brook figured they were hoping the press would somehow determine that she'd been working with the Bureau for so many years to essentially aid in the ongoing investigation into Jacob. Technically, there were quite a few law enforcement agencies that had been searching for her brother ever since the sheriff in her hometown had positively linked several murders to him.
A body discovered in 2008—that of Zoe Crenshaw—had shown pathological signs of being connected with her brother's developing signature. There had been no mistaking his handiwork once later examples of his known victims had been reviewed, either. Jacob relished carving and slashing their faces into bits and pieces until they were unrecognizable. He always followed a specific pattern. Once he finished with the only thing that could satiate his vile desire, he would then stab them repeatedly in the abdomen as a final goodbye.
"I'll be giving a statement of my own." Brook had ruminated over Graham's suggestion for the past hour. She wasn't sure why she'd given Matt a heads-up on her plans, but now that she'd witnessed the difficult position he was in with this investigation, her pent-up anger began to ease. "You don't have to be concerned, though. It's more to get the media to back off and allow my team to begin their new jobs in relative peace, if such a thing exists in this line of work."
"Brook, I have no doubt that you can handle anything thrown your way."
Matt appeared as if he wanted to say something else, but then changed his mind. She hadn't realized until this moment how she viewed him more as a father figure than anything. He'd taken her under his wing, taught her how to remain invisible through the mazes of bureaucracy, and then had done his best to protect her from the one thing that she'd been running toward her entire life.
He was no longer able to watch over her on a regular basis, and she'd basically shut him out of the loop after she'd resigned from the Bureau.
"I could have handled things differently, Matt," Brook said before he could open the door to her office. Agent Houser was waiting impatiently by the elevator. She wasn't one to find issuing an apology so easy to do, but she could admit when she was wrong when it was warranted. "I should have talked to you first, and I apologize."
Her act of contrition prompted Matt to turn after opening the glass door to her office. The concern within his warm gaze was evident.
"I just want you to be safe, Brook. You know where to find me if you need anything." Matt glanced over his shoulder at Agent Houser through the other set of glass doors. His sigh of annoyance was audible. "I'll do what I can to keep Detective Gadget under wraps, but you should let him do his job, Brook. He doesn't have the best people skills, but he is good at checking the boxes."
Brook refrained from commenting, because if Agent Houser had been a fundamentally good agent, he never would have leaked her connection with Jacob to the press. That was a conversation for another day, though. One that would probably never happen, unless Jacob decided to make an example of Agent Houser.
She would give the media time to draw their conclusion about her work for the FBI, as Matt had suggested. She would then make an appearance downstairs in front of the cameras.
In the meantime, she was going to order in lunch and continue to work on the profile of their unsub. Someone was out there convincing himself that he was serving justice to the fathers of the victims when the unsub was nothing more than a homicidal serial killer searching for another victim. In all her time at the Bureau, she'd never encountered someone quite like this.
Granted, no one redefined the very essence of evil like Jacob, but there were all kinds of killers walking the street that set them apart from society.
This one?
He thrived on the thrill of setting up a patsy and convincingly blaming someone else for his crimes so that he was free and clear to go hunting for his next victim. Brook and her team were going to do everything in their power to stop him dead in his tracks.
Chapter Eight
Brooklyn Sloane
January 2022
Monday — 6:23pm
Brookhadspentthemajority of her day inside her office, only leaving for bathroom breaks and to have her iris scanned for the umpteenth time for input into the biometric security system. Bit had spent hours setting it up after he'd queried several search engines on the names that Sylvie had given him subsequent to their morning debriefing. The results of which were being further cross-referenced for relevance with several other case details. There had been no sense manually searching through the eight-hundred-thousand results without making certain the hit was worth their time to read the entire entry.
The profile that Brook had been working on was at least eighty percent complete, and she should have a rough draft to give to the team by tomorrow's meeting.
Way ahead of schedule.
As for making the decision to speak with the press, she'd wanted to put it off until the majority of the staff at the financial firm across the hall had left for the evening. The U.S. markets closed at four o'clock, and from her understanding, that was when the majority of their trades were executed on the trading desk. It also helped that the bank on the first floor had already closed their doors for the day.
"Do you have a minute?"
Brook glanced up from the tablet that she'd been using to write up the profile. Theo stood in her doorway with what appeared to be a couple of files in his hand.
"Sure," Brook replied as she set down the stylus. There was a tug in her right shoulder blade that wasn't happy with her sitting for so long without moving. "Were you able to make appointments to question the inmates?"
Theo had mentioned after their lunches had been delivered by a local deli that he'd changed his mind about who he wanted to speak to first. He'd chosen to reinterview the men who had been sentenced to prison terms before moving onto the families of the victims. She wasn't going to put limitations on how he ran his part of the investigation, and she had let them all know her stance on the subject.
"I might have found a discrepancy, but I can't be sure until the transcripts that you requested of the trials arrive," Theo explained, coming deeper into the office. He took a seat on the couch and spread out the two files on the glass coffee table. "On the whiteboard in the conference room, you designated Melanie Harlock as the first victim due to the date of her death."
Brook wasn't sure what direction Theo was taking this conversation, but she was willing to hear him out, especially if it delayed her inevitable speech in front of the cameras.
