Page 49 of Dead Fall (The Quantico Files 2)

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He was almost ready for his next target, and this plan was more creative than anything he’d done so far. He laughed to himself. He’d prove he was truly in charge.

He hadn’t decided how far he would go, though. When he would feel satisfied. He had two targets in mind. Would he bring down both of them? Or was the next one enough? He wasn’t sure. He was waiting to hear from his eyes and ears on the inside. He didn’t plan to leave anyone behind who might turn on him. No loose ends. Truth was he really didn’t like traitors. He would make sure justice was delivered. Judgment was right around the corner, and it would be dispensed soon.

Alex, Kaely, and Monty started going through the files again, but Alex had looked over everything so many times that the information was burned into her brain.

“We decided he’s male,” she said, “maybe in his late fifties or early sixties, but he could be older. Have you noticed that we haven’t seen him do anything that required physical strength?” She looked at Monty. “Your grandmother was elderly. Wasn’t able to fight back.”

“Is he killing this way because he has physical limitations?” Kaely asked. “He’s smart, but maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way.”

Alex thought about her comment. “You could be right. I was thinking he was trying to be clever, but maybe his MO is born out of necessity. He had to come up with a way to pull off his murder spree without being confronted by the person he wants to kill.” She thought for a moment before saying, “We decided his motivation for killing is his passion to prove he’s smarter than we are. Does everyone still feel this way?”

“I’m sure that’s part of it,” Kaely said. “But it might not be the only thing that’s driving him. It would help us to know what triggered him. If he is older, I have to wonder just how recently his plan was hatched.”

“We thought he might be someone who’d been turned away from the BAU,” Monty said. “But if we’re right about his age, that would have been years ago.”

“And if he knew Davis and Bayne, even longer,” Alex said.

“So why wait all this time to take revenge?” Kaely said. “That still doesn’t make sense. I don’t think our idea about him being rejected from the FBI—or at least the BAU—is viable.”

“Right. Why wait until you’re past retirement age to strike back?” Monty said.

“If you don’t mind a comment from someone without your training...” Julie said.

Alex smiled at her. “Of course. You’re a part of this team.”

“Wouldn’t this guy, the one you call your UNSUB, need time to put this together? If he operates out of this area, didn’t he have to wait until John Davis was here? The Murder Will Out convention is held only once a year.”

“That’s a great point,” Alex said. “This thing could have taken up to a year to plan. And most people don’t know anything about drones, so he would have had to train himself for that.”

“We’re checking drone sales in the area, by the way,” Julie said. “So far, nothing. We haven’t found anyone who seems suspicious or can’t account for their whereabouts when Davis died.”

“He may have bought the drone somewhere else,” Kaely said. “If I were him, I would buy it used from someone selling it on Craigslist or through newspaper or online ads. It would be almost impossible to track him then.”

“We won’t give up,” Julie said. “But I tend to think it’s a wild-goose chase at this point.”

“Let’s talk about Bayne,” Monty said. “I know we brought this up earlier, but it really bothers me. I doubt his death was easy to plan. How could our guy know Bayne would jump off the cliff? Seems rather sloppy.”

“Doesn’t that confirm Davis’s death was the most important to him?” Alex said. “That’s why he’s using pages from Davis’s books. And you’re right, Monty. He took more of a chance with Bayne.”

“How can you say he took a chance?” Julie asked. “Most people who jump off cliffs die when they hit the bottom.”

“But how did he know where Bayne was?” Alex said. “I mean, he obviously knew he was in Australia. It wouldn’t be that hard to find that out. But how did he know he was near a cliff? What if Bayne had fallen on something below the cliff edge and hadn’t ended up at the bottom? How could the UNSUB know? He would have hung up right after seeing Bayne jump, right?”

“But we know that didn’t happen because people saw his body wash out to sea,” Monty said.

“Look,” Kaely said, “I don’t believe the UNSUB knows everything you’re giving him credit for. He didn’t tell Bayne to jump. He just told him to put the phone where he could watch him die. And when you give people thirty seconds to kill themselves, they’ll find a way. Step in front of a bus. Take a knife from the kitchen and stab themselves. Or jump off a cliff.”

“Maybe...” Alex said.

“Let’s go back to the idea of an associate for a moment,” Kaely said. “Could this person have traveled to Australia so he could make sure Bayne died?”

Alex turned that over in her mind. “It’s possible, but I can’t quite believe that. That could make Bayne the most important target. I just don’t think he was. It feels like he was significant only because of his relationship with Davis.”

Alex was about to say something else when Logan and Cooper returned. Logan sat down, but Cooper didn’t.

“I owe you all an apology,” he said, his voice shaking. “My wife has a gambling problem. I didn’t know anything about it until recently. She would go to Baltimore with her friends for what she called a girls’ weekend. I had no idea she was really going to the casino. She ... came to me a few weeks ago and told me she’d cleaned out our savings account.” He shook his head. “She lost over two hundred thousand dollars. That was college money for our two girls. My father left us the money in his will for that purpose. With my salary alone, we’ll never be able to cover the cost.”

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