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Elliot stopped rolling his pen. “In other words, you were hired by either her parents or the FBI to help find her.”
“No comment.”
“That’s all the comment I need.”
Sloane took another gulp of water, carefully weighing what she said. She was walking a fine line between relating what was publicly available and revealing privileged information.
“I’m sure you read about Tina Carroll,” she continued.
“That student at The College of New Jersey who was attacked on campus, but who kicked her assailant’s ass? You bet I did. Good the hell for her.”
“I agree. Well, thanks to that ass kicking, the offender’s DNA was found at the crime scene. It was recently matched to the DNA left at Southern New Jersey Medical Center by whoever killed the head nurse and stole drugs from her station.”
“Shit.” Elliot paled. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were talking about a serial killer. Are there other victims?”
Another nod. “Some actual, some potential.”
“Potential? You mean, you’ve identified women who could be next on his list?”
Sloane raised her hand. “Present and accounted for.”
“You?” Elliot jolted upright.
“Me.” Briefly, Sloane told him about her stalker, about the cell phone found at Tina’s crime scene, and about the fact that someone had broken into her house—someone whose DNA matched the DNA found at the other crime scenes she’d just described.
“Shit,” Elliot repeated, sinking back into his chair.
“That’s about all I can ethically tell you—for now,” Sloane concluded.
Elliot’s jaw tightened, and he slid forward, elbows propped on the desk. Sloane could almost see the apprehensive geek transform into the determined scientist.
“What’s your theory on how the cases are related?” he asked.
“For starters, all the victims we’re trying to find or protect are somehow connected to me. And all in random ways—from a close friendship to a college junior whose interests and lifestyle up to this point closely mimic mine. How do you feed a piece of data like that into VICAP? You can’t. It’s too abstract. And here’s another equally abstract reality that VICAP wouldn’t know what to do with—all the victims were kidnapped in close proximity to bodies of water on or near college campuses. Whoopee. Seventy percent of the earth is water. So, real as that information is, it’s totally useless. We don’t have a way to take these obscure facts and do something with them. Do you?”
“Actually, yes.” Elliot didn’t miss a beat. “What you’re describing is exactly what my program aims to accomplish. In layperson’s terms, it combines the ability of the brain to find patterns in seemingly unrelated data with a computer’s ability to rapidly analyze mountains of data. The result is to uncover criminal activity long before its impact becomes devastating, either in monetary losses, damaged reputations, or empowerment of organized criminal enterprises—or, worst case scenario, terrorists.”
“You said ‘aims to accomplish,’” Sloane repeated. “Is your program capable of doing that yet? Have you developed it to the point where such results are attainable?”
“I’ve run a few tests on data sets with known outcomes. The results have been encouraging. I’m still fine-tuning the program so it can dynamically adapt to each specific set of data and yield the most precise outcome. But that’s not what you’re asking. What you’re really asking is, can I adapt my program to analyze your particular set of information and find patterns in the victimology, maybe even links to the offender himself.”
“Okay, fine.” Sloane waved her hand impatiently. “That’s what I’m asking.”
“The answer is, I won’t know until I try. My opinion? I think it’s more than possible. I’ll need to define new variables, get a complete, detailed rundown of every victim, and of the offender himself—including characteristics you either know or suspect about him, and their relative weightings. I’d also need every unrelated but significant bit of data you collected, and access to the major law enforcement databases—VICAP, CODIS, and RTCC, given the NYC crimes. Between all that, plus some additional programming on my part, we should have what we need. In many ways, both analyses are similar. We know there’s a needle in the haystack. The question is, how fast can we find it? So, in a long-winded way, I’d have to say yes, I’m cautiously optimistic that we can do this.”
Sloane knew Elliot. He was hard as hell on himself. So if he thought he could pull this off, that was good enough for her. “How long would it take to get results, and what kind of access would you need?” she pressed him.
He thought for a minute. “I’d say about ten days. Most of the work would involve building interfaces between VICAP, CODIS, RTCC, and my system.” Elliot paused, a frown knitting his brows. “Hypothetically, I could start the process while you get the authorizations and the right people on board.”
“Getting you those authorizations would be my job to accomplish.” Sloane grimaced. “It isn’t going to be fun.”
“But I do have project contacts at the FBI, NYPD, and NSA, and the necessary security clearances for working cybercrime, for whatever that’s worth. They know me and my work well. I can call in a few favors—prime the pump, so to speak. I’ll give you the names of my contacts so you can work them along with the powers that be for access to the crime data I’ll need. I’ll call my contacts, too, and give them a heads-up to maximize the chances of getting the decision makers on board quickly.”
“That would be great. Hey, every little bit helps.”
“Doing this would be amazing.” A note of pride crept into Elliot’s voice. “I’d be using my program to help catch violent criminals early in their crime spree. We wouldn’t have to wait for enough time and victims to pile up so that law enforcement could establish the investigative trail they’d need to find and convict bastards like this one. I could be directly saving lives, not just eliminating the money that enables the killers.”
“Yes, you could.” Sloane studied Elliot’s expression, heard the conviction in his tone. “This isn’t hypothetical anymore, is it?” she asked bluntly.
