Page 98 of Girl Between (Dana Gray FBI Mystery Thriller #5)

Dana sat in the briefing room as Agent Creed shared the newest case development, which wasn’t anything. Or maybe it was. She was so distracted thinking about Jake and the fact that he’d left without telling her that she could barely hear anything above the noise in her head.

“Digital forensics has narrowed our suspect pool further,” Creed was saying. “Our next step is to procure search warrants for physical evidence and DNA.”

The smart board still showed over a dozen suspects.

“In the meantime, I need the rest of you to familiarize yourself with these victims,” Creed ordered.

The smart board switched to display the faces of the victims. There were so many. Dana’s mind was instantly drawn back to Miriam Barton’s newspaper clippings.

“We need to work on identifying each and every one of these victims,” Creed instructed.

“The ones we’ve already ID’d need to be profiled.

The more we learn about them, who they were, where they lived, worked, ate, fucked, the more we know about our unsubs.

Leave no stone unturned. I want every dirty secret, ever guilty pleasure, every damn skeleton in their closets. ”

“Dignity be damned, huh?” Neville muttered from the seat behind Dana.

“He’s crass, but not wrong,” replied George.

“See Agent Clark for your assignments,” Creed ordered. “Let’s get to work, people.”

“I love being ordered around by toddlers in power suits,” Richter muttered as they all made their way over to where assignments were being handed out.

“It’s your lucky day, old man,” LaSalle said from the front of the line. “You’re with me. You too, Dr. Gray.”

Dana heaved a sigh of relief and followed Richter and LaSalle to her desk. “So where do you want us to start, boss?” Richter asked.

LaSalle passed them each a case file. “You’ve got Maci Reeves,” LaSalle said to Richter. “You’ve got Jasmin Baker.”

Dana opened the file and stared down at the grainy ME photograph. “Caucasian. Female. Late twenties. COD unknown.” She looked up. “This case is from 2017.”

“Mine’s even older,” Richter grumbled. “Caucasian. Female. Late twenties. COD unknown. Case date is 2014.”

LaSalle read from her folder. “Hillary Foster. Caucasian. Female. Late twenties. COD unknown. Case date: 2017.” She snapped the folder shut. “They read like a book.”

“Fucked up book,” added Richter.

“Yeah, but our unsubs are telling us a story,” Dana replied. “They have a type. White females in their twenties. And however they’re killing them, it isn’t obvious. No blunt force trauma, no sexual assault, no mutilation.”

“They’re missing organs,” LaSalle argued. “I’d call that mutilation.”

“Yes, but they were surgically removed. These crimes aren’t violent or passionate. That means something,” said Dana.

“Unsub could be impotent,” Richter offered. “Might explain why he started with men.”

Dana frowned. “I don’t know. None of this feels right. ”

“We’ve got 68 bodies, Gray. It’s not supposed to feel right,” Richter grumbled.

“It doesn’t add up,” she clarified.

“I agree,” LaSalle said. “Too many different angles make it hard to see what’s right in front of ya.”

“Well, let’s do what the kid says,” Richter muttered. “Learn everything we can about these three.”