“Good,” Rodney said, rubbing his hands together.
She glared at him. “Oh, hell no.”
He nodded. “Oh, hell yes,” he said. “Simon got his nose into that other case, and now he’s got his nose into this one. How do I know he’s any good for you?”
“The last time I checked,” she said, “I was an adult, and eighteen was a hell of a long time ago.”
“Nope, nope, nope,” he said, with a big grin. “You don’t get out of it that easy.”
She sighed. “It would really be good if you’d let it be.”
“Not happening,” he said, “and you should probably stay out of this case yourself, now that you’re involved to this level.”
“Stay out of the case, my ass,” she snapped. “I can’t do that, and I’m not. This is too important.” At that, everybody turned to look at Colby.
He narrowed his gaze and said, “No point in taking her out because, if we did, this guy is likely to just keep killing if she doesn’t interact with him. I mean, in theory he’ll stop, but all he’ll stop is interacting with her. He might start with somebody else, and he might say, ‘Screw it, I’ll just keep killing because nobody can stop me.’”
“And maybe it’s a plea for help,” Kate said, stopping and turning to look at her sergeant. “It wouldn’t be the first time somebody said, ‘Somebody stop me. I can’t stop myself,’ would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Colby said, with a heavy nod. “Good, it’s settled then. And you should go talk to our new shrink.”
She winced at that. She remembered the last one. The sister of two pedophiles. Not someone she wanted to talk to.
He said, “The new shrink, remember? The other one is busy dealing with her own legal issues.”
She snorted. “That woman is a psychopath.”
“Well, she was certainly the twin of a pedophile psychopath,” he nodded. “And definitely aware of his crimes and their brother’s too. Now you need to go talk to Dr. Abrams.”
“Will he give us a profile?”
“Don’t know if it’s a profile we want at this point in time. He’ll probably say we don’t have enough data but try. Get your head wrapped around the psychology behind somebody like this.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Really not what I want to do though.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said cheerfully. “Maybe you can tell your woes to the shrink while you’re there. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
She sighed. “I’m not sure that cookies are a really good topic right now.”
As her stomach grumbled, he laughed. “Didn’t you get down to the bakery?”
“Not yet,” she said, “we didn’t pick up anything while we were out, and, yeah, I’m hungry.”
He nodded. “Well, Forensics first,” he said, “and you can look after your stomach afterward.”
She didn’t have much to say to that. She just nodded and took off walking. As soon as she got to the Computer Forensic Division, she explained to Stoop what was going on, forwarded everything from her cell as she spoke. There were a couple questions back and forth as Stoop looked at her and said, “Seriously? You think somebody is trying to get others to commit suicide, based on threats against their family?”
She nodded and said, “Yes, we do.”
“What’s the motivation driving the nutjob behind that?” he exclaimed.
She sighed. “I don’t know. I’m supposed to go talk to the new shrink about it.”
He laughed at that. “Wasn’t it you who got the last one canned? That should be a great meeting.”
She winced. “Do you think he knows that?”
“Oh, you can bet on that,” he said.