“Seattle PD received a hand-drawn map early this morning from a witness who hasn’t been able to reach her sister for over twenty-four hours.” Supervisory Special Agent Miguel Peters tossed a thick manila folder onto the conference table, the scrape of card stock and wood cutting off conversation. A thick five o’clock shadow stood stark against his white button-down shirt and showcased the exhaustion under his eyes. The supervising director of the Behavioral Analysis Unit pointed to the head of the conference room. “Now we know why.”

The projector flashed to life at the direction of their tech guru—Liam McDare—at the opposite end of the table. A single image filled the screen. The bright seal of the evidence bag cut off the top two inches of a crude, torn piece of lined paper with penned outlines of vague, unlabeled buildings, sidewalks, a park and a large red X off to one side. SSA Peters hit the remote in his hand, and the image on the projector changed. A woman—no older than twenty-five or twenty-six—sat on a commercial steel bench outside what looked like a wall of windows leading into the main floor of an apartment building. One leg crossed over the other, the victim looked as though she’d sat down to take in the sunrise from across Puget Sound to start her morning. Aside from the angry purple-and-blue strangulation marks around her neck and the red X carved into her right cheekbone, she’d been a strikingly beautiful woman.

“The map designated where the victim’s sister could find the body.” Hell. Special Agent Nicholas James leaned forward in his chair, a knot of dread knifing thought him. No. It wasn’t possible. Reaching for the folder SSA Peters had tossed in his direction, he pried it open and compared the crime scene photos to those taking up nearly an entire wall in the BAU’s high-rise conference room. All the signs were there, right down to the positioning of the body. He locked his back teeth against the denial clawing up his throat without looking up. “Who is she?”

“Victim’s name is Kara Flood, a kindergarten teacher who lives in the building you see behind her, and, in case you can’t tell from the crime scene photos, she resembles a few victims we’ve come across before.” SSA Peters pressed his palms onto the edge of the long conference table. “Director Branson wants this handled as quickly and as quietly as possible. We can’t have the public panic. Agents James and Striker, meet your next assignment.”

A kindergarten teacher? Nausea churned in Nicholas’s gut. Gravity pulled the blood from his face as he memorized the woman’s features.

“The X Marks the Spot Killer.” Madeline Striker, the unit’s kidnapping expert, unfolded her arms and set her elbows on the table. Dark, layered hair with golden highlights framed perfectly angled warm brown cheekbones. A hard light of dedication to find the missing echoed in her dark, rich eyes. Her flawless complexion made her look younger than her age, but any perp who had the guts to take advantage learned St
riker had an uncanny ability to handle herself. “He chose women who were in their early to mid-twenties, single, with short brown hair and were much smaller than him to make it easier to strangle them from behind. He was all about control, domination. She matches his profile.”

Nicholas’s ears rang as images of his childhood superimposed the faces of the victims from his first case assignment for the unit three years ago. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to come up with some other explanation as to why Kara Flood had been targeted, strangled and mutilated with an X. They’d found the killer. They’d put the bastard behind bars.

Confusion altered the clean lines of Madeline’s dark eyebrows. “He hunted his victims in that same neighborhood, but Cole Presley was found guilty and sentenced to life behind bars. We need to contact the warden at Washington State Corrections to ensure Presley is still accounted for.”

“We never released the details of the X Marks the Spot case to the public, and there haven’t been any leaks in information as far as I can tell after the conclusion of the trial.” BAU’s resident cybercrimes expert, Dashiell West, tapped his hand against the table. The light from the agent’s laptop cast shadows along chiseled features and thick beard growth. Two years older than Nicholas, West had more experience in the digital world, but serial cases would always default to Nicholas. Especially this one. “The only way this guy could’ve gotten the specifics of how the victims were killed is if he was involved in the case somehow. Maybe one of the original victims’ family members? They would’ve been informed about manner of death.”

“The X Marks the Spot Killer strangled and mutilated thirty victims over thirty years that we know of, every year on the same day. Assuming one of the victims’ family members is involved, that leaves hundreds of suspects.”

Only Nicholas had known the killer by a different name when he’d been a kid. Right up until he’d put the cuffs on a man he’d trusted his entire life. The bones under his knuckles threatened to break free from the callused skin on the back of his hands. Kara Flood. He didn’t know the victim or recognize her name directly, but instinct heightened all the same as he studied perimortem photos of the woman discovered this morning. He could almost see the resemblance, and a shot of warmth dumped into his veins. Dark brown hair, same shade of honey-colored eyes, possibly a similar face shape. Had the victim been related to Dr. Aubrey Flood, the medical examiner who’d performed the autopsies on the last three victims of the X Marks the Spot Killer? He scanned the file in front of him. “The sister found the body.”

“Yes.” The lines around SSA Peters’s mouth smoothed. “According to her statement given to Seattle PD this morning, Dr. Aubrey Flood found the map taped to her door this morning, then immediately tried calling the victim. When she didn’t get an answer, she followed the clues the killer had left for her. Forensics is trying to pull prints from the map and the tape, but the lab is backed up as it is. We won’t have results for a few days.”

“Dr. Flood was the ME in the original case. She performed the autopsies on Presley’s last three victims.” Nicholas licked his suddenly dry lips as a visual of the doc replaced the violent memories in his head. Wisps of soft medium-length brown hair highlighting a creamy complexion, a honey-warm gaze that had pierced straight through him and the voice of a siren tempting him to believe in something other than the worst in people.

He’d only met the medical examiner a handful of times to discuss the initial case, but there always seemed to be a forged intimacy between everyone involved in a serial investigation. Emergency responders, agents assigned to the case, the first officers on scene. Drowning in that kind of darkness brought out a need for safe human contact that even the most veteran investigators clung to, and Aubrey had been part of the team. She’d been professional, respectful and warm toward the victims under her scalpel, a miracle considering the kind of work she had to face on a daily basis as Seattle’s chief examiner.

“She gave us the exact type of blade Cole Presley used to carve an X into each of the victims’ cheeks by swabbing particles from the wounds and testing hundreds of blades. Without her insight, we never would’ve caught up to him. We can’t discount the possibility her sister’s death might be some kind of retaliation from one of his super fans.”

“You think this killer might be trying to get the attention of the X Marks the Spot Killer by drawing out the medical examiner who put him away.” SSA Peters centered himself in the light from the projector as the slideshow ended. The FBI seal tinted the antiterrorism expert’s Cuban American skin tone blue.

“It makes sense, but I think there’s more at play than we’re seeing here. This is the first victim we’ve uncovered using a previous serial MO, and something tells me it won’t be his last.” Not when Dr. Flood was quickly becoming a central element to this case. Nicholas studied the photos of the victim again. “It can’t be a coincidence Kara Flood was strangled and marked after her sister became connected to the case, or that the killer delivered the map directly to Aubrey Flood’s door. His target wasn’t random.”

Nicholas raised his attention to SSA Peters. The question was why. That was the specialty of the Behavioral Analysis Unit—to make sense of the incomprehensible, to get into the minds of humanity’s worst killers to stop them from striking again. Cole Presley had strangled young women in their twenties with brown hair and marked them with an X to show the victims’ family members where to find his treasure, his masterpieces, but Nicholas wasn’t willing to risk Aubrey Flood’s life in order to add to his profile of this killer. He closed the file in front of him. “He knew exactly what he was doing and whom he wanted to draw into his game.”

“All right. I’ve got Caitlyn Yang meeting with Dr. Flood and the family now to fill them in on the investigation and explain where we go from here. Dr. Flood is one of us, and we owe her nothing less than the full support of this unit.” SSA Peters straightened. “West, I need you to search through security footage from the good doctor’s apartment building. There might be something there to give us an idea of when our unsub left the note so we can track his movements last night. James and Striker, take Dyson to check out the scene where the killer dumped the body. I want to know if anyone noticed our victim or her killer before she wound up in front of her apartment building.”

“You got it.” Nicholas pushed away from the conference table and headed for the double glass doors leading out into the main offices. Blinding hits of sunlight glimmered across Puget Sound through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Liam McDare, the tall, lanky IT tech with an easy smile, unplugged the projector from his laptop and nodded as he passed.

“Agent James, a minute,” SSA Peters said from behind.

Pivoting, Nicholas let the team maneuver past him as he faced the supervisory agent. “Sir?”

“Dr. Flood specifically requested for you to work this case after your work together three years ago, but I know how close you were to Cole Presley before you discovered who he really was.” SSA Peters stalked toward him, and Nicholas’s defenses automatically bristled. “No one would blame you if you recused yourself from this case. It isn’t every day we find out the people we trust aren’t who they seem. The team is here for you. However you need.”

His mind instantly snapped back to the moment he’d cuffed the man who’d taught him how to play catch, how to drive, who’d been the role model he’d needed in his life when his father hadn’t been around. His next-door neighbor had turned out to be the X Marks the Spot Killer, the very same killer who’d inspired him to join the BAU. SSA Peters was right. He’d never be able to trust the mask people presented to the world, including the pretty face that’d been the key to putting Cole Presley behind bars. “It won’t be a problem.”