Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel by Mari Carr (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

She explained the psychology behind a possible medical-invention-based killer, like the Cleveland Torso Murderer, and why they had dismissed it given the geographic diversity. She showed them the file of the victim in Belgium, explained that was the second place they’d considered going, but had decided to go to Krakow since almost all of Alicja Lewandowski’s body had been found.

Finally she told them what the medical examiner had revealed—the blanket chest, his agreement with Walt’s assessment of the skill, the floral scent that may have been the victim’s perfume.

Everyone but Nikolett was nodding.

Grigoris and Dimitri had both been taking notes. Dimitri spoke first. “What do you know about how they were taken?”

Annalise flipped over to the very last known image of Alicja. A still from a store’s security camera footage. “She was taken while walking down a city street. A route that was part of her normal routine.”

Grigoris grunted. “He’d watched her.”

“Yes, I believe the unsub was stalking her for quite some time. Enough to not only know her routine, but to have identified physical locations along her regular walking commute where there were no cameras.”

“Drove up in a van and grabbed her,” Dimitri said.

Annalise shook her head. “No van is visible on any of the tapes.”

“Then how is he getting his victims?” Dimitri asked. “How did he physically move them somewhere where he could kill them?”

Annalise had been thinking about the case, the profile, on and off for days, even with all the other things that happened. She’d come to some possible conclusions that were both alarming and interesting. “I believe the victims are going willingly with the unsub.”

Grigoris frowned. “You mean he’s using a gun, knife?”

Annalise briefly froze, remembering the feel of the knife grazing her skin. Nyx, too, looked stiff.

“No,” Annalise said slowly. “I think the unsub has more skill, and more subtlety, than that.”

Nyx shook her head. “I would not follow a strange man no matter what he said. And Josephine, she was kind, generous, but not stupid.”

Annalise raised one eyebrow, took her time looking around the table. “Who said the unsub was a man?”

There was a collective shocked inhale.

Nyx was the first to recover. “You said Alicja was raped.”

“Which doesn’t actually require a biological penis,” Annalise pointed out. When no one spoke, she went on. “Using a blanket chest, plus the care that was put into wrapping her head…these are both more typically female behaviors, as, anthropologically speaking, it is traditionally women who care for bodies, wash them, tend them.”

Nyx nodded in agreement.

“The killer is a woman.” Dimitri sat back, clearly thinking. “Nyx, Admiral, if a woman approached you on the street and asked you for help, would you go with her?”

“Yes,” they answered in unison.

“Don’t,” Grigoris said.

While Dimitri grunted and added, “Not anymore you don’t.”

Annalise took a moment, considered her next comment before turning toward Nyx. “Even Josephine’s head…it was deliberately placed in order to shock and horrify, correct?”

Nyx’s face was smooth and calm, but frozen, a marble bust, the only flaw the line down her cheek. Grigoris just looked grim.

“But if shock and horror were the end goal, why the basket?” Annalise asked.

“Putting someone’s head in a basket is horrifying,” Grigoris pointed out. “Or maybe it was about forcing someone to look in the basket.”

Annalise raised a brow. “Wouldn’t a decapitated head sitting on the table, or placed on some sort of spike, be more horrifying?”

Nyx closed her eyes. “Yes. Displaying the head would make it more like the aftermath of an execution.”

“Let us say that Petro asked the unsub to place Josephine’s head in the library where it would be seen. The killer…she compromised by putting it in a basket.” It was getting harder and harder for Annalise to maintain her objectivity. She could sense Nyx’s grief, but the vice admiral was made of sterner stuff. Though the conversation was no doubt painful, she remained in the room, clearly determined to listen and understand.

“Where we would find it, but no one would see Josephine unless they looked inside,” Nyx murmured.

Annalise nodded, then gave everyone—Nyx and Grigoris most of all—a few moments to process before clearing her throat. “Another point we haven’t discussed in detail yet—”

“There is more? Ebatʹ,” Dimitri spat.

“—is that our three victims, Josephine, Alicja, and the woman from Belgium, are all from places that are either English speaking, or where the majority of the population is bilingual, with English as the second language.”

“So we start there,” Grigoris said.

“There is more work to be done analyzing the last video we have of Alicja,” Jakob said. Then, to Annalise’s delight, he continued talking. “It is possible the killer is on that tape, though their meeting isn’t, as nowhere on the footage does Alicja stop to talk to anyone.”

“Were you checking for women?” Nikolett asked.

Jakob nodded, but slowly. “I need to check again.”

“We,” Nikolett said firmly. “Not just you, Ritter.”

“And Josephine?” Nyx asked.

Annalise took over once more. “According to the case file, she was with her brother and left to get dinner. She was going to a restaurant she frequented, so though that was not something she did every day at that time, it was a somewhat predictable activity.”

Dimitri shook his head. “There is too much information in play. Simplify it, please.”

Jakob glanced at Annalise, his lips tipping up in a small smile. “Make it actionable.”

Annalise squared her shoulders, taking a moment to glance around the room.

It was time to give the profile.

“The unsub is most likely a woman between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five. She is a native English speaker, though is bilingual and well-traveled enough that she doesn’t stand out by the fact that she only speaks English. She appears non-threatening. This means, most likely, she does not have any visible tattoos or piercings beyond her ears. She also would not be taller than average, and may even be on the shorter end of the female height spectrum.

“She has either studied or worked in a medical setting, but does not have a full-time, steady