Page 55 of Built of Illusions

With Josie in his life for the past few weeks, he’d become aware that he wanted more. More life, more happiness. More Josie. What would it take to make that happen?

The pull to stay in Vermont was strong, but Josie’s life was in Sacramento. Nico leaned back in his seat and checked the time again. Still an hour until he landed then he had to drive to Midnight Lake.

He’d silenced his phone but it flashed with a text on the Wi-Fi. Joe, who had been called to a hostage situation in New York.

Someone leaked our case to the press.

Shit. They weren’t ready to release it yet. They wanted data on Nelson’s whereabouts before that happened. There were still two weeks before he struck again and they were hoping to close in on Adrian far before he threatened another woman.

A media leak changed everything.

Adrian Nelson had already been dangerous. This potentially upped the danger factor.

Nico didn’t have all the data on Nelson yet, but he’d spent the flight poring over what he did have. School records and not much else.

Intelligent. Reading between the lines of the elementary school information, Nelson had been self-absorbed from an early age. Unconcerned about other kids, adults, and animals. He didn’t make friends easily.

As he’d grown older, the reports were less detailed. Generic, showing he hadn’t left much an impression on anyone. No arrests but his work showed contacts with some sketchy companies.

Nelson didn’t appear to care about the spotlight so the media leak wouldn’t have him preening and gloating. No, this man would be pissed. He likely thought he was smarter than everyone else and having his plans outed because someone had figured out his complex strategy was going to make him angry.

Knowing he couldn’t say much on the crowded plane, Nico called Joe anyway. “Tell me what happened.”

“Someone down in New Mexico appears to have inadvertently leaked the information. Doesn’t appear to be an intentional act. Some reporter had snuck into the police station looking for a scoop on a story. Any story.”

Nico sighed. “And they found one. How much is out?”

Joe’s voice was tight and angry. “Too much, but at least they didn’t divulge his name. They announced that a serial killer is targeting Latina women from Texas and up through California.”

Jesus. That was going to cause a ton of panic. Every crime reporter in the affected states was going to be digging into past murders. And for every one that turned up something worthwhile, ten more would do nothing but cause trouble and interfere with the actual investigation.

Joe continued. “Nothing about Vermont or any names of investigators yet.”

But it was only a matter of time before more tidbits dribbled out.

With the people around him, Nico was reluctant to continue the conversation. “I’ll land in about an hour. In the meantime I’ll work on my end of things.” He knew Joe would understand he’d been working on his profile.

After hanging up, he simply stared at the seat in front of him and let his mind wander over the new data.

How would Nelson respond to the leak?

There were a few options. The first was that he would ignore it and stick to his schedule. Nico didn’t think that one was particularly likely.

He might glory in the press and get sidetracked by collecting information and watching what others thought of his plans. This could lead to sloppy work and making mistakes. Nico didn’t think this was any likelier than the first.

He might be angry enough to escalate his timeline. It would depend on why he’d chosen the three-week schedule in the first place. They hadn’t identified any reason for that. The killings hadn’t happened on the same days of the week or even at the same time of day.

Nico was leaning toward the fact that the first two deaths had been three weeks apart, so Nelson had adopted that as a pattern. If it was anything more important than pure chance, Nelson might not change things up. If it was truly a random time frame, there was a much higher chance he would escalate it.

He might also take out his anger on someone else. Nelson wouldn’t have the time to play his games, but his anger might dictate that he needed to make a kill soon. He might want to show the media they were wrong, he could kill whenever he wanted and didn’t need to stick to a schedule.

Nico thought that by this point, Nelson would see all Latina women in their late twenties or early thirties as potential victims, as substitutes for his mother. He didn’t think the man would have any qualms about adding in a few more victims.

Couldn’t this plane fly any faster?

Josie dug her hands into the clay and closed her eyes. Music streamed through her earbuds and she hoped the upbeat tempos would lift her from the anxiety sniping at her from all directions.

Eleven dead women.

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