Page 94 of By the Time You Read This

But Raisa slowly toggled over to the software she used to build idiolect analyses, and started one for Mikko Halla.

She then searched his name rather than the idiom itself in the CTAD.

The database wasn’t just for threatening messages sent to the FBI; rather, it was meant to hold any kind of written documents that played an important role inanyinvestigation.

That meant her request returned dozens of emails and texts all written by Mikko, unearthed in the federal investigation into his business practices.

Raisa glanced at the clock. It was well past midnight, but she wasn’t about to put this off until morning.

She pulled a few of the longer emails at random to better get a sense of his authorial voice.

Then she started to read.

All contractions, no metaphors, no similes. A conversational tone sprinkled with strange idioms.

Addressing an audience.

Do you hate me now?one of the emails read. It was in a different tone from the one in Essi’s book—snarky and challenging, rather than sheepish and vulnerable.

But it was written by the same person.

Raisa was almost sure of it.

By the time she made it through a dozen emails, she had a profile built that was almost exactly the same as Essi’s book.

A fingerprint.

Essi had been running her father’s business behind his name.

Raisa whistled long and slow as she slumped back into her chair.

She picked up the phone and called St. Ivany even though it was past 2:00 a.m.

St. Ivany answered on the second ring. “Is someone dead?”

“Mikko Halla,” Raisa said.

A pause. “One more time.”

“The father of Essi Halla, the woman who is profiting off of saying Isabel killed that very same crook of a businessman father,” Raisa said. “She wrote a self-help book about it.”

“About getting over your father being the victim of a serial killer?” St. Ivany asked, still sounding mostly like she was half-asleep.

“Pretty much,” Raisa agreed. “Only, she’s been upfront about it being a performance.”

“A grift,” St. Ivany said, finally waking up.

“Yeah,” Raisa said. “But now I’m wondering if that was all it was.”

“What do you mean?”

Raisa explained her work over the past two hours. And then: “I think she might have been running the organization.”

“Holy shit,” St. Ivany said. “Is that really something your boys would miss?”

“It was a back-taxes case. There was no reason to call a forensic linguist in,” Raisa said, defensive of agents who would never defend her in return. “They had the white-collar guys working on it. I’m sure they saw Mikko in the boardrooms and then on email and never once considered he was a figurehead.”

“So . . .”

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