Nathan sniffed. “So your evidence that he’s not revealing information one piece at a time is that he’s revealing information one piece at a time?”
“I’m saying that it isn’t new information,” I said. “Dropping Potash’s name at the end was a shocker, but did any of you flinch when he said my middle name? Did any of you even notice? We already knew that he knew who I was—revealing my middle name doesn’t change that. So either he knew the name before and forgot to mention it, which isn’t exactly menacing, or he just figured it out and he’s showing off. If it’s the former, who cares? If it’s the latter, then we know he’s figuring this out as he goes.”
“The next letter will tell us more,” said Trujillo. “If he mentions Brooke’s alias instead of her real name, we know he has flawed information. If he mentions Ostler’s name, we know he has a connection to the police, since they’re the only ones who know her. If he mentions any of the rest of us, it’ll be more troubling, but it will still be something to go on to trace his information back to the source.”
“Unless he can read minds, like we discussed before,” said Nathan. “Then he could know everything, and any information trail we think we see would be an illusion.”
“I don’t want to find any more letters,” said Ostler firmly. “He says we should have him figured out by now—that we have enough clues to know who the next victim is. So let’s figure him out and stop him.”
“Who was the victim this time?” asked Trujillo.
“Valynne Maetani,” said Ostler, and she held up an evidence bag with the victim’s ID. “Her wallet was still in her purse. I made some calls while you were en route, and she works at a software company. Project manager, if that means anything.”
“The first victim worked in a hardware store,” said Diana, and she looked at Trujillo. “What’s the link?”
I felt a small pang of anger that everyone continued to ask him these questions instead of me, but at least it gave me the time to think about the letter in more detail. Was the killer just using my name to scare us, or was he really talking straight to me? If he’d looked me up he’d have found my connection to Crowley and Forman, and if he knew anything about the wider Withered community, he probably knew about Nobody as well. He knew that I’d killed people. And now he was asking me to kill again.
“The occupation of the victims probably has nothing to do with it,” said Trujillo, looking at the bagged ID. “Serial-killer brains don’t really work that way, though I admit there are exceptions to everything. It’s also unlikely that he’s targeting a specific demographic, since so far he’s killed both genders, and two different races—Maetani was Asian.”
My head snapped up. “Really?”
“Do you have a problem with that?” asked Nathan.
“I have a problem with Ostler holding back key information,” I said. “If he really does know us as well as he claims, then killing an Asian woman might be a reference to Kelly.” I looked at Potash. “And if killing a white guy was a reference to Potash, we might have a pattern.”
“Great,” said Nathan. “So he’s consuming us all in effigy? Does that mean the next victim’s going to be a black research professor, or will any black guy do?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” said Trujillo. “It’s far more likely that he’s just taking targets of opportunity when and where he can. It’s hard enough finding a victim he can kill without being seen—never mind complicating it with races and genders and who knows what else. The simplest explanation is that he has a specific hunting ground—one location or one type of location—and the victims all come from there.” He looked at Ostler. “Was the body found anywhere near the first one?”
“Opposite sides of the city,” said Ostler. “And she was dumped by a train crossing instead of stuffed in an alleyway Dumpster. That’s not much of a link.”
“A train crossing will have a camera,” said Potash. “There might be footage of the killer, or at least the car.”
“The police are already looking into it,” said Ostler.
I was staying silent because I didn’t know how to feel—or I guess you could say I was feeling too many things at once. I was angry that Trujillo had shot down my idea, but impressed that his own idea made so much sense, and then angry again that he would dare to be so good at something I considered my own personal domain. And then I was embarrassed for feeling so petty about it, and I was worried if I was right, and I was frustrated we hadn’t found anything solid yet, and I was mad at Nathan, and scared for Brooke, and fascinated by this new killer—and all I wanted to do was get out, and away, and be by myself, even if it was just for a minute. Even just half a minute. Maybe just forever.