Page 43 of Knotted their Beauty

“I love you, too. You and Cali are the only things keeping me from snapping the neck of whoever the hell is interrupting me.”

“Make good choices and don’t kill people.” My grin is artless and happy, and he huffs out a chuckle.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I have a meeting to head out to. Be good.”

The screen goes dark, and I force myself under the shower to wash off. This definitely is going to be the highlight of my day.

Chapter

Thirteen

ONE DAY LATER

VES

I don’t know why I’m letting this get to me.

In all my years with the FBI, I’ve never let a case consume me the way this one is.

Granted, none of my previous cases were used to push me out of the bureau and into early retirement, but still. The way The Orphan is eating at me is different, and I think it’s going to send me right over the goddamn edge.

“Ves,” Chandler says, as she knocks on the open door of the local office I’m borrowing. “I think I might have found something.”

I look up from the crime scene photos spread out over my desk as she and Walker enter, motioning for them both to sit.

“Victim numbers three, five, and nine were all registered foster parents.”

“Right…” I say slowly as I arch a brow. “We basically have everything short of their ancestry documented. Finding a common link has been next to impossible.” Which is putting it lightly.

Finding something that can establish victimology has been a fucking mind bender that’s most likely going to cause an aneurysm, and if there truly isn’t any connection between the people The Orphan has murdered, this fucker might be a new breed of serial killer.

“Next to, but not impossible.” Marley puts a piece of paper on the desk and turns it toward me, pointing as she speaks. “These three were foster parents. This row, victims two, seven, eight, and twelve were all foster children or adopted. One and eleven were raised in Catholic homes for children and never adopted, four spent her entire life on the street after her parents died. Six and ten each worked at the equivalent of an orphanage at one point, even if it was brief.” She looks at me expectantly, her eyes wide as she pushes her chart forward. “All twelve are connected by the lack of a natural family.”

I nod as my stare moves back and forth over her very neat presentation, her words starting to stitch the seemingly random pieces into a vague pattern.

“And get this.” I glance up at Walker as he sets his own, far less legible chart in front of me. “Victim three had seventeen complaints filed with CPS, a few of them were still open when he died. Eleven was an excommunicated priest, exiled for allegations of inappropriate relationships with altar boys. Six was a convicted sex offender⁠—”

“They all have some kind of record.” Fuck, how did we not see that sooner?

Marley’s connection is one thing. It’s not all cut and dry foster system related scenarios where it would have been clear. Especially when you throw in the two that worked at actual orphanages, and considering one was a brief stretch back in the sixties, it might not have even flagged. Sy’s point, that’s a little more obvious and the fact that we didn’t connect those dots is almost embarrassing.

Not to say we didn’t look at that before.

We did, even tried to see if there was a facility or agency in common, but since there wasn’t, it didn’t seem like they had anything to do with why they were killed.

Looking at it now, though, it seems obvious.

Sylas leans forward, overlapping the charts and pointing as he talks. “A lot of them involved abuse, but it’s not that simple. Possession, fraud, a little B and E. The charges are all different, on all twelve, so it doesn’t look like they’d be enough to add to victimology. But when you dive deeper…”

They’re all related to the same lack of family Marley referenced.

The vic with the possession got hooked by a foster brother, the vic with B and E charge broke into the all boys Catholic home they were raised in. The check fraud was cashing checks for kids they no longer housed. If you look harder at all of the victim’s records the way these two did, it’s clear they all point back to the connection they have to orphaned children in some way.

Seeing it now, it’s obvious why they were all chosen.

All but one.

“What about the most recent victim?” I start shuffling through the papers on my desk, moving things around to try to find the very little we have. “Have they been able to ID her yet? Was there anything matching her description in any system?”