Page 66 of What's Left of Me

“Thanks.”

He smiled and turned to JJ. “I agree. Nick and I can get drones in the air to their addresses and the funeral home; that way we don’t need to split up and go check them out.”

“Be careful. If you think the FBI won’t see those, you’re crazy,” Mason said.

“It’s the only way. We can use whatever street cameras we can find, but there’s no guarantee they’ll work.” Nick wiped his mouth. “I’ll get started on all the locations they’d be at now, and we can get drones up tonight when it’s dark. Harder to spot them at night.”

Aziza arrived half an hour later and read what Adonis had written. Noel had been sensible enough to jot it down when Carmichael had told us.

“His first letter was short, sharp, and violent. This one is more poetic.” She hummed. “But I don’t think it was written by someone else.”

“How do you know that?” Hazel asked.

“Katherine Lewis and Jason Highland were placed at the same location, yet arranged differently. Like night and day, black and white, anger and happiness…rebirth and death. There’s a beauty to that for him; it makes sense. He’s upset because Phoenix isn’t with him, but he had just completed part of his pattern, and Jason was the release of his anger. It was art to him, and with that a letter worthy of the masterpiece.”

“That’s some fucked-up shit right there.” I seconded Angel’s response.

“It is.” She gave her attention to Noel. “I read everything you sent me on Amo Cormac. Rich, influential, has some power, and if I had to diagnose him based on everything we know, I’d say he has NPD, narcissistic personality disorder, and psychopathy.” The moment Angel opened his mouth, she held up a hand.

“Hold on, Angel. I know what you’re going to say. Yes, the diagnoses have similarities. But they aren’t completely the same. While some of the traits overlap, like the grandiosity and lack of empathy for others, psychopathy has a broader range of manipulative and antisocial behaviors. He’d fall into both of those categories.”

“So is that why he wears the mask?” I wondered.

“There are possibilities, but I’d only be assuming at this point.”

“By all means assume. I feel like the more we know, the more we can understand him, and to understand him is how we defeat him.” Shep sat in one of the desk chairs and yanked JJ onto his lap.

“He could have BDD, body dysmorphic disorder, which is an excessive preoccupation with perceived flaws in appearance.”

“Like he doesn’t have any flaws, but when he looks in the mirror he sees them?” I asked.

“Yes, which could be the reason he is so angry with beautiful people.”

“Hold on.” Angel held up a hand. “You said he was following Adonis, the cycle he had, and that Adonis was beautiful.”

Aziza was patient with us, even as brash as Angel was. “Yes, but Adonis was killed by a wild boar. His perfection rearranged.”

“Oh.” Angel frowned. “So he’d still be following the cycle of Adonis, but this persona is manifested because of the narcissism, psychopathy, and BDD?”

“It could, but narcissism and BDD do sort of cancel each other out as well.” She stared at the note again. I imagined it was hard to diagnose someone you couldn’t talk to.

“Could it be a personality disorder?” Hazel tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I had a friend in college who had this thing where she was Emily most of the time but on occasionshe’d slip and become her brother, Peter, who’d died. She was on meds and mostly was fine.”

Aziza hummed. “Possibly, but then that would mean we were dealing with Amo and Adonis and with how much activity Adonis has been having, it would make me wonder how suppressed Amo is. I just don’t know.”

“I’m sticking to your original assessment,” Four said from in the corner. He was scrolling on his phone, not even looking up. “I think he’s disfigured. It’s why you can’t find a photo of him online, either. He likely has someone who goes to events for him.”

“With all his money, he can’t get plastic surgery?” Gabe blew a raspberry. “Bullshit.”

“Unless.” Noel stood and raised a finger. “What if he had plastic surgery and it was botched? It doesn’t matter how much money you have—botched is botched.”

Aziza nodded. “True, he could be resentful of beautiful people who never needed to have plastic surgery and the mess-up put him over the edge.”

“Except these murders haven’t been going on for years, which would mean it happened not too long ago…why no pictures of him before it?” Mason asked.

“Yeah, you’re assuming he hasn’t been getting surgeries for years and that there haven’t been murders.” Four put his phone down and faced us. “He has cafés all over the world, you said. Start fishing about deaths in any of those areas. Also, if he thought he was hideous and needed plastic surgery to begin with, that would be why he avoided the camera.” Four chuckled. “A man desperate for affection and attention, chasing the spotlight, trying to be worthy of it only to end as a mangled version of himself? Sad.”

“When did you become so fucking insightful…and talkative?” Angel grimaced.

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