“I guess I should start at the beginning.”

Bri sat on Mike’s bed with her legs crossed. He took her hand more for his sake than hers.

“We’ve talked a little about what my unit does at the Bureau. My teammates and I are called “Charlie’s Angels” around the building, not because we lead sexy and glamorous lives. Far from it. Most of us are boring nerds. But our unit is all female and our director’s name is Charlie. Some of our FBI colleagues have dismissed us as a bunch of chicks, but Charlie understands that female analysts seem to have exceptional ability to see patterns and relationships even in the most complex data. I’m sure you know that the CIA analyst who tracked bin Laden for ten years is a woman.”

Mike interjected, “Before you continue I’d like to point out that you are the sexiest nerd I’ve ever seen.” He leaned in to kiss her on the tip of her nose and was rewarded with a smile.

“Using the Bureau’s computer systems, we can search data by any number of parameters. There are some standard programs we run on a regular basis as well as other software written specifically to sort for a particular piece of intel, for example, a perp’s MO. We use the internet as a tool as well as the old-fashioned method of researching paper files. Sometimes one of us may be directed to search at the request of a regional office for a suspected pattern of criminal behavior in that geographic area. We work as a unit and as individuals utilizing technology and an instinct about when to follow the bread crumbs. If we have a lead worth pursuing, it’s handed off to that unit in the Bureau, like white-collar crime or organized crime.

“Every once in a while one of us will work on an interesting tidbit of intel that may or may not lead to anything criminal. About a year ago, I ran into typical data on unsolved homicides and I just had a feeling there was something I was missing. I continued to work on it when I had time between projects, and then started staying late and coming in on weekends. Charlie and my team began to worry that I was becoming obsessed. I knew there was a pattern if I could only find it. Out of the blue it hit me. What if the perp’s MO was deliberately random and that was the pattern?

“Bri, I’m following you, but I can see why everyone’s concerned. The idea that a killer’s pattern is random sounds like an oxymoron. But … there’s more than that, isn’t there? I gotta tell you this is starting to scare me.” He held her hand tighter.

“It’s well documented that sociopaths are highly intelligent and have their own reality that can go undetected for years. A predator may pursue a victim with a certain body type or hair color because those characteristics remind him or her of the real target, such as an abuser. Or all the victims may be named Mary or their initials hold some secret message. It all makes sense in the sociopath’s mind. I believe I have tracked an individual who has killed more than a dozen people randomly—male, female, young, old, all ethnicities, and cause of death runs the gamut from strangulation to shooting—with one exception. The killer takes the first letter of the victim’s name to spell a different name.” Bri paused. “My name.”

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