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The rest of the page was more of the same, and Raisa made note of Kate’s idiolect—her unique use of language, including but not limited to grammar, vocabulary, and writing errors.
Raisa didn’t always read with an eye toward creating a linguistic profile, but as she scrolled, she couldn’t help but pick up a sense of the woman behind the glossy marketing campaign. Of course, any social media analysis like this—where someone else might have been running this page besides Kate—had to come with caveats. There were a host of reasons that this particular writing wasn’t actually a good representation of Kate’s idiolect. She might have to run each post by the marketing department of the big streaming service and get input and corrections before posting, for example.
But Raisa was one of the leading forensic linguists in the country, and she had been paying attention to Kate for a few weeks now. She was starting to get a feel for the woman.
Kate Tashibi had a dramatic and brash tone that stood out, and a style that exuded confidence. If Raisa had been cataloging her authorial tics, she would note that Kate’s sentences varied in length—a sign of a strong writer—and that she had a way of leading in with a complex one before dropping the mic with a short one right after.
When we think of monsters, we think of the shadows where they lurk, the darkness from where they emerge, but Conrad hunted his prey during the day. He thrived in the light.
Her voice was distinctive and thus easy to build a profile around if Raisa had been doing so within the capacity of her job. Now, though, all she wanted to find were hints of the bombshells. Even if Raisa didn’t believe they existed.
The only post that broke free of the rigid, sleek, and yet boring marketing campaign was a personal photo at the very bottom of the grid.
The first thing Kate had ever posted.
It was a close-up of two girls hugging, both grinning wildly at the camera. If they weren’t sisters, they looked similar enough to be mistaken as such.
The caption was simple:For you, H.
Raisa stared at the girls and wondered whether Kate ever took into account that these victims, whose tragedy would become a feast for a voracious public, had been someone’s sister, maybe. Or someone’s friend, or someone’s lover.
Or were they just names and numbers to her? Serving as nothing but narrative tools to get across just how truly villainous her documentary’s Bad Guy was?
Maybe Raisa should give Kate the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that first picture was a message in and of itself—that every victimwassomeone’s sister, lover, friend.
But Raisa wasn’t feeling charitable.
Not when Kate had picked this particular serial killer.
Raisa’s phone dinged, and she smiled when she saw the preview text.
If someone had told her four months ago that FBI forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny would be texting her a ridiculous cat meme on a random Saturday, Raisa would have called bullshit so fast. But now it was a standard occurrence.
Most of the time that Raisa had known Kilkenny—about three years now—they had been cordial colleagues.
As a forensic psychologist, Kilkenny had been in a similar boat to Raisa. He was shipped out to task forces instead of working in one area. It was hard to make friends, or even just allies, that way, and so whenever they’d been assigned to the same case, they’d naturally teamed up.
They’d never been on a texting basis, though.
Of course, everything had changed three months ago. She’d been shot and he’d been there to save her life, and now, if she tried to scroll to the top of their thread, she would be going for a while.
She hearted the meme Kilkenny had sent and then tossed her phone back onto the desk.
Raisa once again stared at the picture of the two little girls.
Kate had clearly done her homework. There was no reason for her to contact Raisa otherwise. Raisa had been a teenager when the Alphabet Man had been active, and she’d never done any special research on the case.
Four months ago, Kate probably hadn’t even known her name. She might pretend she was hounding Raisa for an interview about the linguistic shortcomings in the Alphabet Man case, but Raisa knew she had an ulterior motive.
Kate knew exactly what she was doing and exactly who she was hurting with this film.
And for that, Raisa would never forgive her.
Because for Kate Tashibi, Shay Kilkenny was probably just number twenty-three on a list of the Alphabet Man’s victims.
For Callum Kilkenny, she’d been his whole world.
EXCERPT FROMHOUSTON CHRONICLE