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For all intents and purposes, Hadley Soerig was now a homicide detective.
Seeing as the majority of the answers could be found with the first victim, it would be beneficial to have a name and cause of death for Jane Doe. Was she the first victim? Or had she only been the first one buried in that particular spot?
The longer this case went on, the more questions that seemed to arise.
“Bit, what is so interesting on your phone?” Brook asked with no judgement in her tone, only exasperation. She wasn’t faulting him at all due to his ability to multi-task. The question was more to soothe her curiosity. “You have barely looked away from your phone all morning.”
“What are you getting the General for his Christmas present?”
“I’m sorry?” Brook asked in disbelief. She immediately sought out Theo’s gaze, but he was too caught up in gathering his things from the conference room table. “What?”
It was best to keep her questions short.
“Well, I have presents for you, Bit T, Little T, and Kate,” Bit explained as he stood from the table, pushing his chair away with the back of his knees. “The General is another matter altogether. He’s a tough one.”
Brook resisted the urge to place her hand over her stomach. It had taken her a long time to accept that she needed to buy presents for the team this year, but she hadn’t given a thought to buying Graham a gift. Her life had certainly been simpler when her only focus had been on Jacob and the cases given to her by the Bureau.
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something,” Brook murmured, collecting her own items to take back to her office. “I need coffee.”
Sylvie had already vacated the conference room, Theo was one step ahead of Brook, and Bit slowly brought up the rear. Kate was still on the phone, but it dawned on Brook that there was a reason that the firm had hired an assistant. Would it really be so bad to delegate a bit more, especially since they were involved in a case? Kate had proven on multiple occasions that she was smart and creative, so chances were that she would excel at picking out gifts.
As Brook entered her office, her cell phone rang. She answered it as she rounded her desk.
“Sloane.”
“You’ll be getting a call shortly from Millie Gwinn,” Alex DeSilva stated without offering the standard greeting. “The hospital has cancelled her mandatory therapy sessions and moved her back to the ICU that will commence upon her next shift.”
“Seriously?” Brook carefully set her tablet, stylus, and mug down on her desk. A brief glance at the television showed a commercial airing during a break in the national news. “Kolsby apparently doesn’t view her as a threat anymore now that all eyes are on Cranston.”
“Do you still want two teams in rotation?”
“Yes,” Brook replied after she’d thought over the possible scenarios. “I appreciate you wanting confirmation, though.”
“Firms such as ours can easily go into the red unnecessarily. I know this is a pro-bono case for you. With that said, I’d like to make sure we both benefit from our contract.”
“I knew I liked you for a reason, Alex,” Brook said with a touch of humor. “Thanks for the call.”
Brook spent the rest of the morning trying to piece together a profile, but doing so still proved difficult with Millie’s claims of blood. By the time lunch rolled around, Brook had decided to ignore Dr. Kolsby’s so-called confession and concentrate on the hard evidence being presented to them by the medical examiner’s office.
Was it possible that a surgeon could slice someone’s throat without leaving a mark on the skeletal remains? Brook would reach out to the forensics anthropologist for possible scenarios.
“Boss?” Bit had entered Brook’s office after opening her door. “Cause of death just came in for the fourth victim. Unofficially, she was stabbed in the abdomen. The blade nicked one of her ribs. There was also mention of the clothes that the bones were found in as having a great deal of blood on them.”
“That would explain the blood that Dr. Kolsby was rambling about, though not how the other victims were killed. The medical examiner will no doubt go back over the other remains to see if he missed anything,” Brook replied as she leaned back against her chair. She also held up a hand to stop Bit from diving deeper into his conspiracy theory. “The likelihood of Kolsby and Cranston working together are low, Bit. But…”
“But?”
Brook lowered her gaze from Bit to her computer. She had multiple files open as she’d attempted to piece together the profile.
“I don’t know,” Brook murmured, still not getting a sense of the bigger picture. “Something doesn’t add up. Please keep me posted on when the other remains are reexamined. It would help to be certain that they were all stabbed to death, because that would present a signature of the unsub. You should—“
At first, Brook thought that lunch was in the process of being delivered to the office. Kate had come around earlier with a menu from a local sandwich shop. Surprisingly enough, the individuals getting off the elevator weren’t delivery people.
“Do you want me to get Sylvie, Boss?”
Catherine and Brett Kolsby stood in the main foyer outside of the elevator bank waiting for Kate to buzz them inside. Catherine seemed agitated, while Brett seemed more resigned about whatever reason it was that caused them to once again pay Brook a visit.
“No, Bit,” Brook replied as she remained seated. The Kolsbys weren’t their clients, and Brook saw no need to bend to their wills. “I can handle this. You can leave my door open.”
