1:02 P.M.
“He waited five weeks between killing Adam and Macy Dove, and Zoe Kitter, but only days between Zoe, Megan and Timmy. He’s escalating.” Allina didn’t like knowing that. Serial killers were dangerous enough as it was, but then add in the escalation, and that danger grew exponentially.
“He is,” Jonathon agreed.
“He could start looking for his next victim any day now. He couldalreadybe looking. He could have already found someone.”
“He could.”
She cast her partner a discreet glance. He’d been out of sorts since they’d found Megan and Timmy. Allina got it, it hit too close to home for him. Timmy Hunter was only a couple of weeks younger than Brady, but they didn’t have time for Jonathon to fall apart. He had to find a way to stop picturing his son as the dead baby and focus.
“If he wanted to kill a woman and baby, why not take Zoe’s child?” Jonathon asked.
“I guess for whatever reason, Zoe’s daughter didn’t fit whatever profile he’s looking for,” she replied.
“I don’t get him. Whatishis profile?”
“Whatever makes sense to him at the time.”
“How will we find him if we can't figure out how he’s choosing them? Or where he’s finding them?” Jonathon sounded increasingly frustrated.
“We’ll find him because sooner or later he’ll mess up. He killed the Doves the same day he took them, but kept Zoe for four days, then the Hunter’s only one day. Why keep Zoe so long?”
“He wanted something else from her, something other than just killing her,” Jonathon suggested.
“No sexual component though. Tracey said there were no signs of sexual assault,” she reminded her partner.
“Maybe he intended to keep Megan and Timmy longer, but the baby was more work than anticipated,” Jonathon said.
“That’s a possibility,” she agreed. “He seems to take each crime as a separate entity. He’s not following any specific pattern, his MO is just that each murder relates with a nursery rhyme.”
“They definitely mean something to him, but I don’t know what. He doesn’t appear to be picking them for any particular reason so there’s no way to know what he’ll do next. And the victims he’s choosing don’t really have anything to do with the rhyme.”
“Except in his head. It’s like he’s just going about his life and when he comes across someone who reminds him of a nursery rhyme, he kills them.”
“If we don’t get any forensics then I don’t know how we’ll find him,” Jonathon was saying just as Kane appeared.
“What's wrong?” Allina asked, Kane looked distressed.
“I found DNA on the blanket,” the crime scene tech said solemnly.
“What blanket?” Jonathon asked.
“Timmy Hunter’s. The killer left it behind in the garage.”
“And you found DNA? From the killer?” That was great news. Why did Kane look so down about it?
“I found male DNA,” Kane confirmed. “It could be from anyone, but since Megan was a single mother and there was no boyfriend or anything in the picture, then yes I'm assuming the DNA is from the killer.”
“So that’s good, right? You can run it through the databases and hopefully we’ll get a match.” Allina couldn’t understand why Kane seemed so despondent when he had potentially just solved this case.
“I already got a match.”
“That’s great. Isn’t it?” Jonathon looked as confused as she felt.
“I don’t know if you’ll still think that when I tell you who the match is.”
She was starting to feel uneasy. “Who’s the match?”