Page 12 of The Girl He Claimed

Back then, he'd been obsessed withher, thinking that the two of them were the same, that they should be together.Then Paige shot him in the shoulder to bring him down. Adam had tried to gether to finish him, to kill him, and Paige had refused. She doubted that hewould be feeling so friendly towards her this time. She had to go up againsthim again, this time with the added complication of a possible accomplice. Onewho might be a serial killer in her own right. The thought was terrifying,almost overwhelming. They were two of the most dangerous killers out there, andthere was a chance that they were working together.

Paige pushed her fear to one side.She couldn't let her fear get in the way of catching Adam, or theExsanguination Killer. Too many lives were at stake.

Paige wondered who theExsanguination Killer could be and what she wanted. Was she working with Rikerbecause she enjoyed the challenge of helping a fellow killer evade capture? Didshe just want to keep him from talking, or was there something more to it? Theonly benefit to the situation now was that, with the two of them workingtogether, catching one would mean catching both.

"If we're lucky, there will besome clue as to who helped him," Paige said. "Maybe helping Adam toescape will have left us the evidence we need to identify the ExsanguinationKiller."

The best way to start finding Adamwas to identify who had helped him escape. Maybe there would be evidence in theinstitute that would let them work that part out. It had extensive securitymeasures, all designed to keep patients inside, none of which seemed to haveslowed Adam down in the slightest. There would be cameras, though. Last timehe'd escaped, the security guard who helped him had been all over the camerasthere. Paige hoped so because the alternative... the alternative meant thatthere were two serial killers out there, free to kill, and there was no tellingwhat they would do next.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"The security cameras are deadaround Riker's room," Christopher said.

Paige winced at that. She'd hopedthat the footage would give them an answer and would make this easy. She satback in a chair in the institute's library, trying to think. They'd set up anoperations center there on the basis that it let them be closer to the place atthe heart of the investigation while they looked into its staff and tried torecover what was possibly its most dangerous patient.

Caroline was still there for now,helping the local police department to set up additional computer terminals.Paige wondered how the librarian felt about her small demesne in the middle ofthe institute being taken over like that.

Paige was currently working on onecomputer, trying to go through the files for each member of staff to try tofind any who might fit the profile to be the Exsanguination Killer. It was slowgoing, as there were over a hundred staff members spread across the guards, theadministrators and the treatment staff, but she was determined to find anypossible leads.

Christopher was meant to be lookingthrough the security footage, but it sounded as though that wasn't going towork.

"The cameras are justdead?" Paige said. "As in someone destroyed them physically,or..."

"It looks as though they usedsecurity access to turn them off on a path that Riker must have taken throughthe facility," Christopher said. "Either that, or someone hackedthem."

Both were more complex solutionsthan most people might have employed. Either way, it meant that they wouldn'thave anything as simple as an image telling them who had helped Adam Riker toescape.

"What about the footage fromthe surrounding areas?" Paige asked, hoping that there was at leastsomething they could work with. "Maybe it will show him leaving and giveus a direction he could have gone in."

"We're working on that,"Christopher said. "But so far, I can't find any trace of him on theexternal cameras around the institute. We can keep looking further out, butwithout knowing where and when to look, though, it could take a while."

Paige sighed. They didn't have awhile. Every second that Adam was free was a second that someone else could bein danger. The first thing he'd done the last time he'd escaped was to killagain.

She closed her eyes and took a deepbreath, trying to calm herself down. She needed to think to come up with a planof action.

"Do we have a list of whoshould be in the facility?" Paige asked. "Is there anyone missing whoshould be here?"

It was the most obvious way to workout who had helped Adam. If whomever it had been was on the run with him, thentheir name would quickly appear as absent.

"The local cops checkedeveryone when they arrived," Christopher said, puncturing Paige's hopes."Everyone who should be here is accounted for."

Paige frowned, thinking hard. Therehad to be something they were missing, some clue that would lead them to theExsanguination Killer and Adam Riker. How could they check who was where in thebuilding without the cameras?

From the side, Paige heardCaroline's voice: "Have you thought about the staff key cards?"

Paige's eyes widened. "Ofcourse. The doors are key card controlled. Adam would have needed someone witha key card to let him out of his cell, unless someone managed to hack thesystem. We just need to check the security logs. I assume they're on heresomewhere if we have the security footage already."

"That looks like themthere," the librarian said, looking over Paige's shoulder. Paige hadexpected help from a lot of people on this case, local cops and FBI techs, butnot the librarian of the St Just Institute.

Paige pulled up the applicationCaroline pointed out. It showed a map of the facility, each door clearly markedas open or closed. Clicking on a door showed a log of cardholders who had gonethrough it.

"Is the systemfunctional?" Christopher asked, coming over to look. "Has it beentampered with the way the cameras were?"

"There's an easy way to findout," Caroline suggested, going over to the door of the library andswiping her card. "Is that coming up correctly?"

Paige checked the logs for thelibrary. "Yes, it's here, and there are the ones for us coming in here.Before that, nothing for a couple of hours at least. You were in here since Ileft?"

Caroline shrugged. "I had alot of cataloguing. At least I guess it means you can eliminate me as asuspect."

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