Page 76 of Defender

“Damien wanted to kill Summer, not me,” Ashton said.“Harper wanted me, but the second man was always after Summer.The explosives would’ve taken both of us out.A bonus, I guess.”

“Damien Freihof is a psychopath.Completely evil.But he’s also a genius and loves games.Puzzles.”Brandon stared at the wall again.“I have absolutely no doubt this wall is his way of giving us clues to keep the game interesting.”

“If we can figure them out,” Jon muttered.

Ashton shook his head.“That’s part of the game, right?If we can’t figure it out in time, then we can’t stop whatever he has planned.”

“Exactly.”Jon nodded.

“I’m looking at this mug shot of Freihof.”Lillian spun her laptop around.“Granted he was arrested five years ago, but that picture doesn’t look like the man we caught on security footage talking to Harper.”

All three men studied the picture.“Different facial structure,” Ashton pointed out.“Fuller cheeks, hair and eyebrows different.But he meets the same basic height and build so it could be him, if he’s got some expertise in disguise.”

“It would certainly explain how he’s eluded us for so long,” Jon agreed.“If he knows how to change his appearance enough to fool facial recognition software.”

After notifying Steve Drackett of their fears and taking a short break for lunch, everyone headed back to study the wall again.

By midafternoon, Ashton hated that thing more than he’d ever hated any inanimate object.

“I don’t know how they do stuff like this every day,” he said to Lillian.“A profiler’s life is definitely not for me.Give me a building to rappel down or a window to break through any day over this.”

Jon and Brandon, with the occasional help of Molly Humphries-Waterman, Derek’s wife and genius in her own right, had narrowed down whatever it was they were looking for until they were studying one small area near the left bottom corner.

Jon walked over and pointed to a newspaper cutting on the opposite edge of the wall.“This clipping is about a playing card company that decided to start using a new type of ace card.”

Brandon pointed out another section of the wall.“And the string was attached to these sets of dates: June 3, 2010, June 23, 2011, June 7, 2012, May 30, 2013, and June 19, 2014.”

Ashton walked closer to the wall.“Do you think those are crimes?Something happened on those days connected to Omega?”

“We don’t think so.”Brandon turned to Lillian.“Can you look up Catholic holidays?”

Ashton stared at the wall he couldn’t make any sense out of whatsoever.The dates weren’t familiar to him at all.“Catholic?Is this guy some sort of religious fanatic?Takes religious beliefs and slants them for his own selfish purposes?”

“No,” Jon said.“We don’t think so.”

“Those are all dates that the Catholic Church has celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi over the last few years,” Lillian said.

“Corpus Christi,” Brandon whispered.

“I don’t get it,” Ashton said.“What does a Catholic holiday have to do with the deck of cards company or our guy?”

“It’s not the card company,” Jon said.“It’s the fact that they have new aces.”

“Nueces County, pronounced new-aces, is where Corpus Christi is located.”

Ashton might have studied this wall for the rest of his life and never put those two clues together.“Okay, I’ll buy it.And Corpus Christi has something to do with whatever you’re talking about down in that corner.”He pointed to the opposite edge of the wall.

“It’s a newspaper clipping about a restaurant in Chicago that burnt down a few years ago named Wales and Gill,” Jon said.

“Did Omega have anything to do with that?Did we investigate or make arrests?”Ashton didn’t remember anything of the sort.He wanted to beat his head against the wall.

“No.”Jon shook his head, then turned and brought up something on one of the laptops sitting on the table.He spun it around so Ashton and Lillian could see it.“I worked a case eighteen months ago in Corpus Christi.A serial rapist.The local detective who worked the case with me is Zane Wales.The rapist’s last victim before he was killed was one of my fiancée’s best friends.Her name is Caroline Gill.”

Wales and Gill.

“We need to warn them that a madman might have them in his sights.At the very least make them aware that it looks like Freihof is back in the picture and possibly targeting people with ties to Omega,” Brandon agreed.

“They’re both coming to the wedding in two weeks but that might be too late,” Jon said.He had his phone in his hands and was walking out into the hallway.

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