I pushed down the reminder I was the reason that particular girl was dead. I tried not to dwell on that, though. Instead, I found comfort in Claire’s theory that, had I not been home that fateful night, this guy would have killed Piper, too.
God knows what else he would have done to her had I not intervened.
“There’s one in the suburbs of LA,” I continued. “One around Houston. St. Louis. Cincinnati. Hell, even as far north as Chicago and Boston.”
“Those are the outliers, though.” He faced me. “Even so, we can’t completely discredit them. Variations from a pattern can often give us as much information, if not more, as an established pattern can.”
“How?”
“Think about it.” He shifted toward the corkboard again. “The majority of his kills occur within 200 miles of Atlanta.”
“Yes.”
“We also know this pattern is an obsession for him.”
I nodded.
“Taken together, it’s logical to conclude that the only reason this guy committed those kills outside of his comfort zone was because he had no choice.”
“Why would that be?”
“At first, I figured maybe he was worried the cops were closing in, so he decided to travel outside his normal radius to continue the pattern. But if you look at the map, you can see he doesn’t kill two people from the same city. At least before Claire. Which tells me two things. One, he’s intentional when choosing his victims, which we pretty much assumed he was in order to repeat Jaskulski’s kill cycle.”
“And two?”
“I don’t think Claire was his original target. I think she was killed because she was on to this guy, and he silenced her. The fact it was on July tenth was just a coincidence. Either that, or he’s becoming a bit more brazen and doesn’t think he’ll get caught. At least not here in Atlanta.”
“Okay…,” I drew out.
I had no idea how Ethan figured all this out based on a bunch of thumbtacks, but what did I know?
“So Claire may not have been his original target. How do we figure out who his original target was? Have you found anything on any of your shared drives or in her files that could help?”
He snorted a laugh. “Don’t I wish. I told you Claire had a system. Unfortunately, that has prevented me from figuring out what she’d been looking into the last few weeks of her life. I knew she hoped to connect these suicides to Domenic Jaskulski, but I can’t figure out if she ever did. However, I do have a theory.”
I arched a brow. “And that is?”
“Based on this map and what we know about serial killers, I think it’s a possibility this guy travels for work and these are the locations he frequents. If we consider the 200 miles around Atlanta his main comfort zone, these other areas could possibly be secondary comfort zones. Places he visits frequently enough to be familiar with. Which would also give him an opportunity to select, observe, and attack his target. He wouldn’t have the means or the confidence to pull off something like this if he didn’t feel comfortable in each of these secondary locales. It doesn’t fit the profile.
“So I started looking into companies with offices here in Atlanta, as well as in these outlier cities.”
“An airline maybe?” I suggested. “Atlanta does have the busiest airport in the world. Houston. Los Angeles. Boston. Chicago. New York. These are all major cities where any airline would fly.”
“That crossed my mind. But then I remembered something I learned when I briefly dated a flight attendant.”
“What’s that?”
“They often don’t know where they’re going from one day to the next. They certainly wouldn’t be able to put in the requisite planning this guy clearly undertakes in choosing the perfect victim, then carrying out the attack. Which is why I don’t believe he works for an airline. This is someone who probably has his travel schedule far enough in advance to know he’ll be out of town on the date in question, requiring him to choose a victim in a different city. Hell, he may even hire a private investigator to keep tabs on them while he’s back home.”
“So it can be anyone,” I sighed, frustrated. “We’re no closer to figuring this out.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Ethan rolled up the sleeves of his shirt past his elbows.
For someone who worked from home, he still dressed as if there were some corporate dress code policy, wearing a button-down shirt tucked into a pair of khaki pants.
“When I noticed this pattern, I did some digging to see if my theory held merit. I ran a search of all medium and large companies with offices in Atlanta, as well as these other cities, focusing on those with a home base here.”
He lifted his gaze to mine, almost hesitant.
“One company matched every single one, with one exception.”
“One exception?” I asked.
He gave me a knowing look, silently telling me Piper was the exception.
I had a feeling she always would be.
“And what company matched all of this?” I asked, a premonition settling in my gut that I wasn’t going to like his response.
“I think you already know the answer.”