Slenderman by CeeRee Fields (good novels to read TXT) 📗

compared to Karma’s over the top personality. They balanced each other well. Maker knew when to rein Karma in and trusted when she said they needed to push the boundaries.

“I agree. Serial killers just starting out, they always mess up the first case. Something has to be there.” Redden ran a hand through his dark hair, sending the carefully combed strands into disarray.

“All my files are in the second drawer there.” Jo pointed to the far cabinet.

“Mine are at home, but I’ll bring them over tomorrow,” Sullivan said.

“Okay, let’s get our murder board set up and pick apart the cases.” Maker stood and opened the nearest box.

The rest followed suit.

~ ~ ~

Within a few hours, they had everything organized to go on the whiteboard. Redden and Sullivan worked on the profile, looking at the first case. Blair and Karma bounced ideas on how to narrow the suspect pool. Maker passed Jo the pictures while also making notes on the other side of the board about the similarities between the victims. Not that they had much, except the game seven of the victims played.

Jo wrote notes in red, fleshing out the victims lives the best they could. The infamous corkboard she’d used at her apartment for all her past cases hung to the right of her whiteboard and held a map with flags tacked to it of where each victim was found and the month and year.

“Jo!”

Everyone paused, and she turned to the open door calling out, “In here, Rian.”

Rian and his best friend, Evan, burst into the room. Luckily, they didn’t have any violent pictures up. Only the standard DMV, passport, and picture IDs they had gotten via Interpol and the FBI.

“Why’ve you got a picture of Ook up on your board?” Evan asked.

He was quiet. Diagnosed with high functioning autism, the young man had a lot of tics but also a high IQ that GlenCare helped foster, finding him a part-time job he could do from their facilities. His precision with numbers and computers made him a whiz at data entry.

Jo looked at the board wondering if Karma had put up a cartoon as a joke. But no, it still held normal pictures with descriptions next to each photo. Turning back to Evan, she asked, “Who’s Ook?”

“Ookamari is one of our gaming buddies. She’s a cool Japanese woman who dyes her hair in rainbow layers, but the top layer is black.” Evan stepped further into the room with Rian trailing him. “See,” He pointed to the hair. “Ook’s hair has the rainbow when she pulls it up in a ponytail like this woman. We talked about it for an hour while playing a mini-game—”

“Jo, what’s going on? Why do you have her picture up there?” Rian’s question cut Evan off and jarred everyone out of their gape-jawed state.

“Are you saying you know her?” Jo pointed to the picture. There was no information that this woman played the same game as the others. None of the crime scene photos associated with her showed Legends anywhere. It was in Jo’s notes to request each of the victims’ computer history but she couldn’t contact anyone until tomorrow since there were multiple agencies involved all in their own time zones.

“Rian and I both do.”

“And you think this is her?” Karma asked.

Both nodded. There expressions stubborn at Jo and Karma pressing them.

“Why?” Jo needed to understand why they were sure this was the same person.

“First, she has the same mole here above the right corner of her lip, and second her rainbow hair is in the same order as Ook’s,” Evan answered.

“How do you know this?” Maker stopped writing to face the two kids.

“I just told you, she games with us.” Evan moved closer to the board, tipping his head from one side to the other as he rocked back on his heels and then rolled to his toes.

“But how would you have seen them?” The question from Redden was drowned out by Blair’s question. “You’d only see their avatars, right?”

Jo held a hand up because the questions were coming from too many people and scaring the boys. They would dig into how the boys knew them via the game later. First, while Evan was focused, it was good to question him about Himari, who Evan called Ookamari if she was the only victim they recognized. She pointed to the other three pictures on the board. “Do these other people look familiar?”

Rian and Evan shook their heads at the pictures of Amy and Zach but paused at Rayyan Tengku.

“He kind of looks like FishRFriends.” Rian’s head tipped to the side.

“I don’t know, he looks young, Ri.” Evan took the picture from the board.

“Young?” Jo prompted.

“Well, yeah. FishR has gray here.” Evan brushed fingers across the picture, gesture at the man’s temple. “And a gray diamond in his goatee—”

“Yeah, and he has a line.” Rian cut in motioning from his ear to the middle of his cheek.

Jo’s heart stopped. The picture they had was an old one, but the two boys were describing him down to the last detail. Clearing her throat, she asked, “A line? Like a scar?”

“Maybe. It was really thin and hard to see.” Rian hummed.

“I’ve never seen it,” Evan added.

“I hadn’t either until we did that desert boss and someone called his name from off-screen. He turned his head, and the light caught it.”

“Oh yeah, I did that boss with Vermicelli.”

Rian turned to Evan a grin on his face. “I remember that. Didn’t you and him get that—”

“Okay, I don’t care about the desert boss. So, this picture looks too young to be FishRFriends?” Jo jerked them back on track while Karma stepped between the boys and Redden, who had a picture in his hand.

“Yes.” Rian bounced on the balls of his feet. “Oh, I know. We have some of FishR’s and Ook’s pictures on our clan forums.”

“Good idea, I forgot about those.” Evan’s fingers tapped against his legs in his excitement.

“This game you’re referring to isn’t Legends of Stone, is