“Is this where you tell me that now you’ve slept on it, you’ve realized just what you’re getting into, and you’d rather just have a normal job in a field office?” Agent Sauer asked.
He sounded as if it was something that he’d seen before. It was far too close to some of the things Paige had thought, but she pushed that aside. None of it mattered compared to her need to catch the Exsanguination Killer.
“No, I still want to be a part of the BAU,” Paige said, getting the words out quickly so that she couldn’t change her mind about any of it.
“That’s good to hear, Paige,” Agent Sauer said. “Of course, since you’ve already shown how well you work together, I’ll be partnering you with Agent Marriott.”
Paige resisted the urge to ask to work with someone else, because if she did that, she would have to explain the reason for it. Doing that would either make her look foolish and be written off immediately by Agent Sauer, or he would just tell her to work with Christopher anyway, and then the situation would be even more awkward. It was better not to say anything.
“That’s good, sir,” Paige said. “I’m eager to get started. I heard about the murder in Virginia. Is the BAU on that?”
She had to angle this around to the thing she most wanted to work on as quickly as possible.
“We are,” Sauer said. “The preliminary reports are still coming through, so we don’t want to jump to any conclusions yet, but we’re working on the assumption that it is the Exsanguination Killer again, and not some kind of copycat.”
Paige knew that her new boss was just being careful, not wanting to say anything for certain that wasn’t supported by the evidence, but Paige knew it was the man who had killed her father. The similarities were too great. She could feel it.
“Was there anything this time that might move us closer to catching him?” Paige asked. She wanted every scrap of information that she could get on this. The killer who had changed her life was still out there, and Paige was determined to use this opportunity to get closer to him.
“We have CSI teams on the ground,” Sauer said. “But obviously, this killer is good at leaving no traces of himself.”
Paige knew that part. One reason for it was that the killer liked to kill outdoors, where rain, wind, and animal activity all combined to wipe away evidence. Another part seemed to be that the killer was careful, making sure that no one saw him, and that he left nothing behind that might lead back to him.
“Sir, if you want my help on this case, I’ve made a study of the killer as a part of my research,” Paige said. She tried to make it sound as though it had all been for her Ph.D., and not because of an obsession that had begun with her father’s death. She doubted that it would fool Sauer. He would have read her background checks, and would know exactly what relationship she had to this particular serial killer.
“I understand your interest in the case, Paige,” Sauer said. “I know about your personal connection to it, but right now, that isn’t the only case the FBI has to deal with. It isn’t even the only serial killer. I have another situation that has come up that I believe you and Agent Marriott will be perfect for. Come over to our unit HQ in Quantico, and I’ll fill you in.”
He hung up without giving give Paige a chance to argue her case for inclusion on the Exsanguination Killer investigation. Paige doubted that it would have made much of a difference if he had. He’d clearly already made up his mind on it.
Which meant that Paige was going to have to spend her time looking into something else, something unrelated, while wondering if the FBI was getting any closer to the man who had murdered her father, and spending her time partnering with a man she really couldn’t afford to get any closer to.
It was a combination that promised nothing but frustration, but Paige knew that she had to make the best of it. She’d made her choice now. She’d agreed to join the BAU, and a part of that was following orders, investigating where she was sent to investigate. She couldn’t just turn around and say no because it wasn’t the case she really wanted to look into. If this case was what Sauer wanted her to do, then it was what Paige was going to have to do. By working there, she was in the best place to hear what happened on the Exsanguination Killer case, and she would find a way to get more out of Sauer.
Paige raced to throw on her one smart suit. She needed to get to Quantico in a hurry.