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

job in that field. She may currently have a job that involves either butchering animals, or something to do with hunting, but that is not where she learned how to dismember. Her knowledge of human anatomy shows a skill that indicates training and practice. We should look not just at doctors and nurses, but medical examiners, possibly morticians or those who might have had access to human cadavers to practice on.

“The unsub will rely on the compassion and trust of her victims. She approaches them by asking for some sort of help that requires the victims to either walk with her or direct her. This action diverts them from their previous course or path and brings them into a place where she is able to incapacitate them, most likely using something with an instantaneous effect, such as a stun gun.

“It is unlikely that the investigators of our victims’ disappearances had contact with her, and in contrast to many killers, she may move on to another place, another victim, relatively quickly. She is organized, with logical, careful pre- and post- behaviors. The crime scenes, if they were found, would most likely be not just cleaned as a countermeasure, but tidy.”

Annalise stopped there, looking around the table.

Almost as one, Dimitri, Grigoris, and Jakob all leaned in, Dimitri and Grigoris peppering her with questions. Annalise took what paper copies she had of photos and reports and passed them out. They divided up the task of reviewing footage, focusing on other female pedestrians. Notes and plans were made, digital files copied, and…

And the admiral of Hungary was frowning, and had been for quite some time.

“Question, Admiral?” Annalise asked.

“You no longer work for the German police, correct?” Nikolett asked.

Uh-oh.

“That’s correct. I’m a professor at Heidelberg University. I left my position due to the issue with my stalker.” She hoped that would divert attention, but given that no one seemed surprised, she guessed Dimitri or Nikolett had briefed the others about what had happened yesterday.

Nikolett raised one brow. “Then why are you looking into these killings? If our killer is crossing borders, Interpol should be handling the investigation.”

Shit.

Annalise smiled to hide her pounding heart. “You’re right, and though I’m no longer working directly for the police, I have consulted with Interpol in the past. I’ve also engaged in research on various abnormal psychology topics.” Maybe they would assume she’d figured all this out as research. She didn’t want to outright lie.

Nikolett’s brow rose higher. “You weren’t hired by the admiral of England to consult on this.”

“No, you’re correct.” Annalise looked at Jakob, wondering if things were about to go very bad. If the admiral thought she, Jakob, and Walt were lying in order to hide something, there would be consequences.

“Then why are you looking into this?” Nikolett demanded.

“Josephine deserves justice,” Annalise said, hoping that would end the conversation.

“You care enough about Josephine to try to find her killer, but you didn’t know her well enough to have been told that she was placed in a trinity, posthumously, with Nyx and Grigoris?”

Nikolett wasn’t going to let this go. Annalise settled for smiling vaguely.

“And those lists of names, the files…you didn’t get those yourself. Not without help from someone at Interpol, someone who had access. And I just checked,” she held up her phone, “there’s no record of you requesting these files from Interpol.”

“I have other resources,” Annalise murmured, hoping Nikolett couldn’t hear how loudly her heart was pounding.

“I’m sure you do. But not enough to have compiled all this without having to tell someone what you were doing. And so far, no one I’ve messaged had any idea a psychologist from Germany was looking into a potential serial killer. Not Rome, England, certainly not here in Hungary.”

Dimitri stiffened. “Annalise is the killer.”

The room exploded, nearly everyone coming up out of their chairs. Walt yanked Annalise back across the room away from the others, while Jakob stepped around the table, coming between her and Dimitri, who was now holding a gun that hadn’t been there the moment before.

Demands were flying—Dimitri demanding Jakob step aside. Jakob demanding Dimitri drop the gun. Grigoris demanding that Nikolett and Nyx—who were still seated—get out of the way, and when his wife didn’t move in time, Grigoris dragged Nyx, chair and all, away from the table. Vadisk had moved to the admiral, putting his hands on the back of her chair, as if planning to copy Grigoris and haul both her and the chair out if needed.

Annalise wanted to laugh. The situation would be funny if it wasn’t so ridiculous. If she hadn’t just been beaten and terrorized by her stalker yesterday, she might have even been scared. But that emotion appeared to be dormant at the moment.

“Enough.” Nikolett stood, her voice ringing with authority. “Dimitri, I don’t think she’s the killer.”

He hesitated. “Admiral, if she’s not the killer—”

“Where did she get all the files and who told her to investigate?” Nikolett stepped closer, so close that Jakob wasn’t between them anymore. Annalise felt the weight of the other woman’s attention, her utter focus and resolve. She was a force of nature, the kind of woman who would have ridden at the front of her army in custom-made chain mail rather than stay safe in the castle.

And Annalise couldn’t answer her question. Eric had forbidden it.

“I took it on as a project because I am thinking about leaving academia and returning to law enforcement.” That statement was half-lie and half-truth. Because on the helicopter ride here, to keep herself from dwelling on what had happened to her, she had been thinking about going back to the Kripo.

“Please do not lie to me. Who gave you this information, the files? Why are you investigating?” Nikolett was relentless.

Annalise opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She grabbed the back of Jakob’s shirt, scrunching the fabric in her fist. She’d run out of half-truths and deflections.

“Ritter,” Nikolett snapped. “Tell me the truth.”

Jakob did silence much more calmly than Annalise. He was composed and resolute as he