"You better have a good reason for dragging my ass out of bed," I say, approaching Jensen and Morgan as they stand at the curb waiting for me.
Crime scene techs, beat cops and a small crowd of people are beginning to swarm the barrier of police tape. I cross over, keeping my head down and avoid the flashes and snaps of multiple cellphone cameras.
"That depends on what the techs find," Morgan responds.
"What do we know so far?" I shoot back, hoping they at least have a name.
"Victim was found this morning, friend came in to check on her after she hadn't been responding to texts or calls for a few says. Found her in her living room, it's quite the sight." Jensen tells me as we turn and head up the front steps of the brownstone and into the victims home.
The first thing I notice is that there are no signs of a struggle or forced entry on the lower level. "Break in?"
"Unlikely," Morgan responds. "No signs of struggle, she might have known her attacker which means we might be one step closer to bagging this guy."
He's not technically wrong. The problem is, in all of the previous Hell's Kitchen Hacker cases every time a victim was found in their home there were no signs of forced entry. While some of them might have known their assailant, it's uncommon for every victim to know him. What's more likely is that either he's a really unassuming, non-threatening man or he knows how to get into places without making a mess.
I'm not sure which of those options are worse.
We make it to the second level where the techs are hard at work, swabbing ever possible surface and taking pictures, laying down markers and dusting for prints. If the last 14 cases linked to this guy are any indication they won't find anything.
I approach the body, she's face down on the area rug beside her desk. I assume she's some kind of doctor from the line of medical textbooks on the shelf beside the desk.
"Walk me through it," I tell the tech crouched beside the body in a full hazmat suit and protective gear. She glances up just long enough to see my face and then goes back to work.
"From the looks of it, she's been dead at least two days, maybe longer. Multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdominal region." She raises the victims hand and points to the scratches on her hand and the one gaping hole in her palm. "Defensive wounds indicate she wasn't drugged or tied down like the other victims, he also didn't use as much Sodium Hypochlorite this time, either he's getting sloppy or he was in a rush."
My eyes widen infinitesimally, that's a break in pattern. Thus far, every single victim we've found has been bound or bashed in the head. We'd assumed it was because our perp is a smaller man, not capable of taking his victims on one-on-one, especially since most of his victims tended to be men.
What strikes me as odd is that jot only is our latest vic a woman, but she was killed in her him, and the method seems slightly off. "Are we sure this is our guy?" I ask, just to be certain.
"Nine inch serrated blade, same trauma to the wound as all the other victims. It's the same murder weapon so unless out guy loans out his knife for his killer friends it probably the same man."
I nod, taking in the information. It's most probably the same person based on the murder weapon alone, but the change in M.O doesn't sit right with me. Somethings off here.
"So, what makes out Vic so special that he breaks his routine for her? This guy's committed fourteen other murders, not once has he strayed from the pattern and suddenly he breaks all his rules." I ask the room, Jensen, Morgan and the tech all look back and forth at each other before Morgan speaks.
"My theory is that she actually did know him. Our Vic is a doctor, a psychologist actually. I think he was her patient and she put the pieces together, realized he was on a killing spree and before she could do anything about it he whacked her."
"Makes sense," I nod, looking around the room, taking in anything I might have missed before. "Go through her patient list, speak to anyone she's had an appointment with in the last three weeks, speak to anyone that works with her too, in case she mentioned something to them." I say, watching as the crime scene tech flips the body over.
My stomach plummets to the ground, my heart echoing dull thuds in my ear. "That's Emily Delaney."
"How'd you know that?" Jensen asks looking between me and the body.
"She was Kiera Landry's psychologist for a while." She still is, when was the last time Kiera saw her. I know it would have been fairly recent. Maybe, just before we left for the trip even because she'd emailed me almost two weeks ago now.
Scanning over the room again with new eyes, I turn to Morgan and Jensen. "I need one of you to get in touch with Nicky Barnes."
"The guy that shot you?" Jensen asks with wide eyes and a pale face. Morgan shoots me a confused look and the crime scene tech goes back to work completely ignoring our conversation.
"Yes,"
"Why?" Morgan hedges, his eyes narrowed in thought and suspicion. I've worked with him enough to know he's already running through every possibility for any links between the cases and Nicky Barnes. I hesitate, not sure if I should reveal why I suddenly suspect Nicky Barnes of these murders, I don't want to drag Kiera into the middle of this investigation. She's been through so much already and I also know that shinning a light on her would shine a light on the less than legal investigations she's been running over the last three years so instead I keep my answer vague.
"Because two Fridays ago Emily Delaney sent me an email about him sniffing around her office for information, she seemed upset by the incident. I didn't think much of it because she didn't say anything about him threatening her or behaving in a threatening manner but now I'm think maybe that's the lead we've been looking for."
"Think it could be him?" Morgan venture, a look of hope in his eyes as he looks over to Jensen whose expression mirrors his.
"At this point anything is possible."