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It didn’t.

“And the alley murders,” Charlie spoke up, the sound of the keyboard keys clacking beneath his warp-speed fingers filtering through. “What would lure a heterosexual man into a dark alley?”

I popped off the wall. “A woman.” Stepping to the desk, I flipped open the files on the victims found in an alley. “So, what are we looking at? A past scorned lover maybe upset because the victims wouldn’t call her back? Or maybe the victims rejected the unsub’s advances?”

“That’s an angle. Let me dig more into these guys’ backgrounds. I had to focus on another case for Sam today, so there could be a few things I could uncover.” I nodded like Charlie could see me. “There has to be something tying them together. A bar, a grocery store, hell, a doctor or a fucking dentist. They all came in contact with our unsub. We just have to find out how.”

“Thanks, Charlie. I appreciate it, man.”

“Based on what I see,” Rhyan cut in, “I’d say Caucasian female, late twenties, early thirties. The anger she has toward men comes out in her daily life, so ask people if they’ve noticed anyone whose demeanor has changed at work or at home. They won’t be able to keep this kind of anger toward a certain type of male hidden for long.”

Damn, Rhyan was good. Not only was she an awesome boss who cared about every member of her team but a damn amazing profiler. Add in that her partner, Charlie, being the best computer hacker I’d ever met, and they were an unstoppable couple. They technically met on a case, so maybe they would both understand if I mixed a little pleasure with business while I compiled a more detailed profile here in Santa Coasta.

“So, how do I stop this from happening to someone else?” I mused. “Thank fuck the unsub has a decent gap between kills, probably to learn the next victim’s routine, and plan.”

“Keep asking questions,” Rhyan stated. “Find the answer to why these men and you’ll be able to get ahead of her. Like Charlie said, we’ll look into things from here, but you’re at ground zero. Talk to the neighbors again. Find answers to a few of our questions and you’ll be home in no time.”

My stomach tightened at her comment. Did I really want to be home in no time?

That would mean leaving Rain behind.

“Yeah,” I offered absentmindedly.

“Don’t sound so excited,” Charlie laughed. “Though I have a feeling you’re not minding the long stay in Santa Coasta. Maybe because of a certain ME you worked with before?”

I groaned, though my lips curled in a smirk. “If you sing ‘Jameson and Rain sitting in a tree—’”

“F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”

“That’s not how it goes.”

“It does in the adult version. Though how that would work in a tree….”

“Can you two focus, please,” Rhyan said, sounding exasperated, like our antics were annoying. But considering she was with Charlie, she put up with way more than this on a day-to-day basis. “I think we’re overlooking a way that might tie all the victims to the unsub.”

“Go on, please. I need something, anything,” I pleaded. “What am I not seeing, boss?”

“You suggested a jaded lover or someone they rejected. And sure, there is that possibility, but from a woman’s perspective, I’m thinking a different angle. One you two don’t immediately think of because you’re men and have never been in a situation like our unsub. What if all these men, our victims, wouldn’t take no for an answer when they were with our unsub? Maybe came on too strong, called her something when she rejected them, or, even worse, assaulted her?”

Anger churned in my gut, making heat flare in my veins. I fucking hated this part of the job. Seeing all the ways men abused a woman’s trust or smaller size. There were too many out there who forgot that women have a voice. The men who pushed for what they wanted, took without consent, were the worst of the worst and deserved to have their own voice taken from them. Let them see how it felt to be violated and taken advantage of.

Sadly, our justice system did not feel the same way.

Fingers massaging my gunshot wound, tracing along the muscle to help ease the insistent throb, I said, “My only question is, if there was an assault that triggered this, wouldn’t the unsub have identified them in a report if she knew who it was, which would’ve led to them being arrested?”

“And what are the odds of the same woman having five arrogant assholes taking their interest too far? I know it happens more often than we realize, but the odds of it happening to the same woman are low,” Charlie muttered, voice distant, as if he’d moved away from the phone. “I’ll run a search in the Santa Coasta area for women who reported assaults and see if there’s one victim with multiple cases pending. If we find nothing to go off of, then I’ll expand my search.”

“Charlie,” I called out before he lost himself in this new search, “can you check the Santa Coasta database for our victims’ names in any files? Maybe they weren’t officially charged and booked in the system, which means they wouldn’t pull on any reports, but if they were listed as a potential suspect or even had their name mentioned by the victim….”

“Then it wouldn’t show up in their background since nothing was actually filed. That will take a little more time considering I’ll have to set up a search to scan each of the written reports from the last few years.”

“Ten,” Rhyan added. “Go back ten years, Charlie. I think we’re onto something. If my gut is right, this unsub has a list she’s working from and won’t stop until she’s marked off every name.”

“This is so fucking sick,” I bit out, slamming the file folder closed, which did nothing to calm my rising anger. “If what we’re assuming is true, these assholes assaulted one or multiple women and were never charged. How could the system just let these fuckers walk?”

A heavy silence poured through the phone, all of us no doubt simmering in our own rage at how unjust the system could be. The evidence needed for an arrest was great to keep the innocent from being falsely imprisoned, but it just put that much more burden on the victim and detective to gather enough evidence to prove guilt.

Sometimes we knew we had the right person but just couldn’t find enough evidence to prove without a reasonable doubt that they were guilty.

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