Page 43 of Just Right

"I have two ideas," Cami said. “Because I see here that Becker connected with all his victims. He was friends, or a follower, or a liker of all of them. He does have a connection with every person he’s killed so far.”

"So, what can you conclude?" Connor asked.

"My programs can use this information. I’m going to run two different ones. The first is an algorithm that I'm setting up. I'm going to see if it can pick up any patterns to his movements that we haven’t seen so far, and then I'll feed that back to us. If it works, we might be able to predict where he's going to go next."

"That algorithm sounds good." Connor nodded. "As soon as I have his address details, you can feed it in."

"Yes. That'll be important. It'll help it work better for sure knowing where he’s based."

"And the second? You said you had two ideas?"

"The second is to look through Becker's friends and connections. Because he will be targeting his next victim from them. So, we need to look for someone who fits the right profile and who’s in the area where he will be going next, according to his pattern."

Cami ran her crawler program again. She was now looking to unearth the private list of Becker's connections. Those he knew and that he'd connected with. Because within them, his next target could be waiting.

"Okay," Connor said, sounding motivated. "I've got an address for him. He lives at 40 Spruce Gardens, in an outlying suburb of Chicago."

"I'm looking it up now. It's a low-cost apartment block," Cami said.

"I think that aligns with what we concluded about the accident," Connor said. He's not a high earner. He doesn't seem to have significant IT expertise. He's just looking to trace people who resemble his dead family, by fairly basic means."

Now that they were making progress, the friction between them had gone. Cami felt like they had a chance now. She added the address to the algorithm and let it do its work, watching the program run, hoping that the results it would bring them would take this forward.

Connor got on the phone again to his team in the office and Cami felt grateful that they were doing some of the legwork. This time, he was finding out the registration details for Becker's car. But that didn't seem to be as easy.

"I'm not picking up anything for a vehicle," he said, sounding as if he was about to lapse back into irritability. "It could be that he's rented or borrowed a car for this mission, or even stolen one. Who knows? But there isn't a vehicle registered in his name."

That was a big setback, Cami knew. A car registration and a vehicle description would have been very helpful. Connor wasn't giving up, though.

"I'm going to see if my office made any progress with getting the two sets of camera footage from the two different scenes. If they have that by now, or it’s coming soon, that could help us. So, how’s your program doing?"

He pressed his lips together, glancing again at Cami's laptop.

"It's running. It's running, I promise. As fast as it can," she assured him.

She was also staring at the laptop as if her own gaze might help the programs go faster, but she knew that they were working at maximum speed already. They couldn't go any quicker than they were. They were good programs. This was top drawer coding. She'd gotten it and tweaked it, and she knew that it was going to be as effective as it could.

When it finally threw out a result, of course. Until then, they'd just have to sit and wait. That applied to her. Connor was now standing up and pacing.

"Your programs. Can they run in the car?"

"Sure. They can. I just need to keep the devices open," Cami said.

"Let's head out. I feel that we're wasting time here. We can at least go in the direction of his house. Perhaps there's a clue there, something we can use. Perhaps there's that tiny chance he might still be home. I’ll ask the local cops to process James McCallum’s release, but to ask him to stay in the local area with his phone open in case we need to speak to him again.”

"Let's do that," Cami said. She also felt glad to be going somewhere and getting out on the road. It felt as if, that way, they were at least getting a step ahead.

After organizing James’s release with the local police, they climbed into the car. Connor set off, heading for the apartment, which was in a rundown area to the south of Chicago, Cami saw.

She kept checking her devices. Surely, by now the program should have wrapped up. She felt impatient as if time was bleeding away and there would soon be none left. Where was he now? Where was he heading?

And then, abruptly, the program ended. Cami stared down and took a look at what the results were.

"Connor, we’re going in the right direction," she said. “But we’ll need to go further if he’s targeting one of his connections.”

“Why?” He braked sharply.

"I've got the map and the friends list. Based on the two programs, the comparisons between them, and the description of the victims he’s choosing, my software is telling me there are two people he could be targeting next. I don't know which one of them it will be."

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