“No, I… this isn’t about that,” Paige said. “I recognized the name of his victim. Eloise Harper. That’s the name of the woman Adam was trying to kill when he was caught. She was the one person who survived him. Who beat him.”
“I know the name from the files,” Agent Marriott said. “But you’re saying that this is about him finishing what he started?”
Paige should have guessed that an FBI agent would also have made the connection. Even so, it didn’t sound as if he understood all of it.
“More than that.” Paige tried to find the right words, tried to think of a way to put it that might make some kind of sense. “Adam hates to lose at anything. He likes to prove his superiority. This was him finding a way to win.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line as Agent Marriott thought about that. “Does he have any other unfinished business? Anywhere he might go next?”
“I don’t know if he does.” Paige looked across at her computer, with her copious notes on her sessions with him. If the answer was anywhere, it was in there. “But I could find out.”
“And could you guess where he might go next, based on that?”
Paige should have expected that question. It was what everyone needed to know most, right then. They needed to work out where Adam was going to be, so that they might actually have a chance of catching him.
“Maybe,” she said. She wanted to say that it was a nuanced business, and that even though psychology made claims of being a science, often its predictive power was anything but absolute. Somehow, though, she guessed that wasn’t what Agent Marriott needed to hear right then.
On his side of the conversation, Agent Marriott didn’t hesitate. “Then I need you here with me, Paige. Physically here, beside me, where you can see everything that’s going on and tell me how it all fits into what you know about Riker. Your notes aren’t enough. I need someone who can interpret it all in real time, on the ground. I know you’re reluctant, but I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe, and I really do think you’re the best hope we have of finding him.”
Paige hesitated. She’d wanted to keep out of the way of all of this last night, but her nightmares had already told her how impossible that was. Even if she did everything that she could to stay safe, that couldn’t protect her against Adam. There was no defense she could put in place that he couldn’t walk through easily. He’d told her in detail how he’d done it with his other victims.
Besides, she knew more than anyone about him. She had a chance to really help here, using her research to try to track him down before he could do any more damage.
Wasn’t that what she’d wanted all along? To use her research to catch serial killers?
“All right,” Paige said. “Just tell me where I need to go.”