Alex said nothing but sent Shane a direct look that the HRT operator calmly returned. Alex was probably wondering why Shane kept sitting next to her in meetings. Next, he’d be thinking they were friends…or something more. Her cheeks heated again. Alex followed Frazer to the other side of the room and sat beside him.

Shane leaned in so close his breath tickled her ear. “You may not know it, but you just met the Bureau’s most legendary profiler.”

Yael blinked but she shouldn’t be surprised. Alex’s wife Mallory worked for the BAU-4 and Yael knew the person she’d bought the house from was Mallory’s boss.

“No wonder your alarm system is top of the line,” said Shane.

More people started to crowd inside the large room. Detectives, federal agents. Analysts from the Strategic Information and Operations Center attended virtually via a large monitor. Finally, at eight sharp, a blonde woman with shadowed eyes, wearing a charcoal suit and crisp white shirt walked into the room and strode to the front.

Her eyes scanned everyone assembled and she nodded to Ashley. “It looks like everyone is already here. Good. My name is Assistant Special Agent in Charge Carly Sloan and I’ve been given command of the task force investing the EGMURD case. Let’s start with what we do know about this so-called Evi1Geni-us. Ashley, would you mind giving us a breakdown summary?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ashley Chen took over the briefing. “From what we have seen online he—and we believe it is a male suspect from the general build—has been running these ‘choose your own adventure’ murders on the dark web for approximately two years. Alex Parker from Cramer, Parker & Gray first brought this killer to the FBI’s attention a little over a year ago.”

Ashley turned on a visual presentation, because of course she did, and up popped the faces of the victims. The images included the official FBI headshot of Dave Monteith, the HRT operative who’d died in Texas.

Shane stiffened beside her. Yael shot him a glance. His jaw flexed as his gaze fixed unwavering on the screen.

“So far we have nine known victims at roughly three-month intervals, ten when including our HRT colleague, Agent Monteith.” Ashley’s voice grew emotional but she pushed through it. Yael blinked away the sudden blurring of her own vision.

“Nothing connects these victims in terms of gender, age, race, religion or location that we know of yet.”

“Except they are all adults and, as far as we know, Evi1Geni-us only operates in the contiguous United States,” Lincoln Frazer cut in.

Everyone in the room tensed at his words. The idea of that monster doing these things to a child… Yael’s hands started to shake so she slipped them under her denim-clad thighs.

Ashley nodded. “Let’s hope that continues.”

“A-fucking-men,” Shane muttered under his breath.