Page 39 of The Girl He Claimed

"I have something."

Christopher came over, staring overher shoulder. Paige could feel the closeness of his presence, but right now,her full attention was on the screen.

"What did you find?"

"Most of the employees wereinside the facility, but one of the female guards used her key card to gooutside, and didn't come back in for three hours. It's more than enough of awindow for her to have gone to meet Adam and killed someone alongsidehim."

Christopher's eyes narrowed."Who is it?"

Paige pulled up the personnelfiles, scrolling through them until she found the guard's name: Gia Ramirez.

Was this the name of theExsanguination Killer?

"We need to bring herin," Christopher said.

Paige shook her head. "Notyet. Remember what happened last time we relied on this. Someone had stolen akey card. We need to know more about Gia and we need to look at the security footageto make sure that this isn't a false trail."

They would need to talk to hercoworkers and see if anyone had noticed anything suspicious. They would need todig into her background and try to find any connections to Adam Riker or theother murders.

Paige started with the securityfootage. The cameras near the doors were back online, which meant that Paigewas able to pull up footage from the times when Gia Ramirez was meant to haveleft and come back.

Paige saw a woman leaving andcompared her to the picture on Gia's file. It was her, a Latina woman in hermid-twenties, with dark hair and a lean frame. Paige checked the time when shewas meant to have returned and again saw Gia Ramirez on the cameras.

That suggested that this wasn'tanother case of a stolen ID card. Paige took note of the time of Gia'sdeparture and the exact time she returned. She had a hunch that thisinformation might be useful later on.

It seemed to be the confirmationthey needed, but Paige needed more. She started to read through Gia's file.

There wasn't much there. Herpsychological evaluation seemed normal enough, but there were a few red flagsas Paige started to dig deeper.

"It looks as though she spentsome time in a psychiatric institution when she was young," Paige said."There are no details of what for, but it's mentioned in her initialevaluation."

"But she passed it,"Christopher pointed out. "If there had been any suggestion that she wasdangerous, she wouldn't have been allowed to work here, would she?"

"She wouldn't, but if she istruly the Exsanguination Killer, she'd be good at hiding how dangerous sheis."

It was a detail that made Paigethink that they might be on the right track in looking at Gia Ramirez. Even so,she knew that they needed more if they were going to bring her in and questionher.

"Come on," Paige said toChristopher.

"Where are we going?" heasked.

"I want to talk to some ofGia's coworkers," Paige said. "I know what's in her file, but I wantto find out what she's really like from the other guards here."

Christopher nodded and followedPaige out of the library. The two of them walked through the facility untilthey found a group of guards sitting around a table in the staff cafeteria.Paige vaguely knew a few of their faces from her time here, but judging by thesuspicious looks the guards threw her way, they saw her purely as an FBI agentmeddling in the business of the St Just Institute at this point rather than asa former colleague.

"Hey, do any of you know GiaRamirez?" Paige asked, walking over to the table.

The guards exchanged looks, and oneof them spoke up. He was a man in his early thirties, broad-shouldered andtough looking. "Yeah, she's been here a while now. Why do you want to knowabout her?"

"We're investigating something,"Paige said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. "Have any of younoticed anything strange about her behavior lately? Has she been actingdifferently, or saying anything suspicious?"

The guards shook their heads. Theone who had spoken didn't look friendly.

"What? You're not content withtrying to pin things on Karen Williams, now you're going after Gia?"

"We're not going afteranyone," Christopher said. "We just want to know more abouther."

"Sure you do, and anything wesay will be held up as proof that she helped Riker to escape, or that thisplace isn't working right. Dr. Neil made it clear that you FBI would likenothing more than to see the Institute shut down."

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