Page 21 of Choosing Us

This scene or staging is very important to this unsub, which begs the question, why?

It appears he is invested in the appearance of his victims. Otherwise, he wouldn’t make sure their hair was neatly brushed away from their face and their clothes were straightened. He stages them postmortem, so they look a very specific way whenever they are discovered. The lack of sexual assault is interesting because at first it presents as nonsexual, but that assumption is as dangerous as is potentially false. It’s possible he’s unable to perform or avoids it altogether for some reason, so to him, this may be sexually gratifying in nature. Even if there is no physical evidence to support that theory, some offenders experience sexual gratification from the control, ritual, and even staging.

There is very limited physical evidence in general, which is not accidental. He is highly intelligent and detail-oriented, and there have only been trace amounts of touch DNA recovered from the scenes. If he had realized he left even tiny amounts of skin cells behind, he would likely have tried to remove them. But even that trace amount has allowed us to confirm that these cases are indeed connected—a fact we are keeping completely under wraps. If the unsub is a first responder, there’s a real risk he could overhear or be fed details through law enforcement channels, and we cannot let him know that we have confirmed the connection of victims. If he were to confirm our findings, it could cause an escalation, and that is the last thing any of us want. The only thing we want is to find him and stop him before he takes another life.

“Is it possible that the victims are stand-ins for someone he lost and he is trying to recreate that connection?” Tara asks.

“Like a former girlfriend or spouse type thing?” Kelly adds.

“That would give us something to look into as potential demographics, say a veterinarian that lost a spouse in the region who fits the other markers of the unsub,” Mason chimes in.

I nod. “Those are definitely possibilities, especially if he has veterinary access to ketamine. If we find someone who fits that profile, it would be worth looking into the circumstances of their spouse’s death.”

“Considering all of these updates, what does that bring the updated CPM score to, Mason?” Walker asks as Mason plugs the numbers we discussed into his database.

“The updated score is now seventy-eight,” Mason replies. “This officially reclassifies the case from high priority to critical.” The declaration is not surprising; multiple escalation factors and increasing victim count mean the serial killer known as The Carnation Killer is now our top priority.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Pulling out the charcuterie board I picked up on the way home from the hospital last night, I close the refrigerator’s door with my hip. I’m a little low on beer, but typically, someone shows up with additional drinks of some sort. We also don’t usually have poker night on a Saturday afternoon, but this week has been anything but typical.

The few texting conversations with Harlow have been one of the only bright spots.

Getting together with my brothers for poker is always a good time, and maybe after the insanity of this week, it will be a dose of normalcy we all need.

After everything that’s happened in the last few days, we all agreed to move the game up to Saturday afternoon, so Savannah and Vivian can hang out down the road at Dad’s with their girls and we can play poker—or give Theo a place to tell us what he really thinks about the asshole who’s stalking my sister.

I’m more than happy to host poker nights, or afternoons, in my home. I love this house so damn much, especially now that it’s fully mine, and can’t imagine calling any other place home. My dad grew up in this house, and after our grandparents passed, he inherited it as the only living child, but he didn’t have a use for it and couldn’t bring himself to sell it, so it sat empty for a few years.

Until I asked if I could buy it.

“And is it your dream to live in a dusty old farmhouse?” Mama asks with a gleam in her eyes. I asked to have dinner with them tonight, just the three of us, which raised all kinds of alarms for my parents, but I didn’t want an audience for this conversation. Plus, any time I can get Mama to make her fried chicken, and I don’t have to fight one of my brothers for seconds, it’s always a win for me.

“No, but I thought if you were open to the idea, I could buy it from you then have Finn totally renovate it.” I glance between my parents, not sure how my dad will react to the news that I want to gut his childhood home.

But instead of being upset, Dad’s booming laugh fills the room. “Really? You want to renovate that and put down roots a mile down the road from us?”

“Murph, hush. I think it’s a wonderful idea. It’s not like there’s any life in it right now. It could be a new era for the property and still keep it in the family. Honestly, Ry, I think it’s a wonderful idea.” Mama reaches over and squeezes Dad’s hand with an encouraging smile. She is not subtle in how happy it would make her to have me close again—in fact, I think she’d prefer to have all of us within a mile of their house.

Jack is all over the place, but mostly splits his time between Nashville, New York, and London. Liam is … well, I don’t know that he has a technical home so much as a handful of home bases he moves between. I know more than some suspect—he is my brother—but working for the Agency means I know very little about his actual life, only that something has shifted in the last year or two. He doesn’t seem as fulfilled as he once was with whatever the hell it is that he does.

Savannah and her husband live in Nashville, but I know after she had her second baby last year, she’s on Mama’s team of finding a way for them to move to Forrest Falls, just not sure her husband Shane is ready for that move. But Nashville is closer than Washington D.C., where our baby sister is a corporate attorney and lives with her new husband, who is an internal medicine resident. I still can’t believe Vivian and Trent got married last month, but she seems happy, for the most part. At the wedding, Trent mentioned hoping to match into a cardiology fellowship, which would mean moving to Chicago next year, but that would at least bring them a few hundred miles closer.

Finn is the only one that came right back to Forrest Falls after college. He has always made it clear that this was home, and I agree. I’ve been in Nashville while finishing my MBA, but the plan was to move back to Forrest Falls eventually—if the right job was available.

“Would it help seal the deal if I tell you that this morning, I accepted the offer, and you’re looking at the new Chief Financial Officer of Forrest Falls Hospital come July first?”

My mother’s squeal bounces off their dining room walls as she jumps up from her chair, while Dad slowly stands to wait for his turn to hug me.

“Way to bury the lead, Ryan. If it means you moving home, you know I’d do just about anything to support that,” Dad admits as he squeezes my shoulder.

“I don’t need all the land, and honestly, if you want to sell all the land, I may need a little more time to figure out the financial aspects of everything.”

“You could talk to Jack,” Mama offers.

I shake my head. I could talk to my oldest brother, but I won’t.

Would he help me in a heartbeat? Yes.