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

“No, shoot it to me.” Jo passed him a card with her contact information. “This Serioulias. How close is he to the new owners of the Cave?”

“You mean Rian and Evan? Pretty close. He’s like the fourth rank below them.”

Holy shit, Sullivan mouthed to Jo.

The rank caught Jo’s attention, but it wasn’t what sent stark panic through. What sent her heart racing in fear was Allen knew Rian and Evan’s names.

Chapter 11

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s all blurred together for Jo. She got little to no sleep because of the robberies, suicides, murders, and home invasions paired with various divisions running on skeleton crews so their officers were able to have some family time. Her schedule left no time for hunting Slenderman. Luckily, Redden and Ian continued to work on it, even though they’d gone to their respective homes to be closer to their families for the holidays.

However, as November turned to December and the frost of January began to roll through Alabama, all the leads they’d gathered slowly dissipated like fog to the sun.

None of the weapon makers could remember the last time they’d made a pugio. Each had sent Jo the past five years of orders to be sure their killer hadn’t commissioned one for the first killing. They hadn’t, which left a dead end.

Of the seven names Allen gave, none of the people behind the screen names had anything illegal tied to them. A few traffic violations. One drug possession. Nothing major, but she wasn’t taking chances and had to coordinate with different state law enforcement agencies to check up on those individuals. Jo received the last confirmation a few days ago none had traveled to Texas, Michigan, nor Alabama, though two were in Tennessee at different times but not during the time of the murder.

From the fifty names, Jo coordinated with Redden to keep the potential victims safe without warning the killer. It was complicated and messy with so many jurisdictions, but no one wanted to tip their hand and have the killer escape.

Even Rottensteer’s death had not produced any new leads. No security cameras. Plenty of fingerprints, but none that matched anything in any system, which frustrated Ian since in England they now collected prints with passports as did several other countries. Brazil, Norway, and Germany being a few. The new biometric security narrowed the search down to only those admins in the Cave listed outside of those countries.

Two weeks into January and the divisions were back to operating with full staff. All of hers and Sullivan’s cases were caught up with the paperwork filed. Ian and Redden had flown back to Alabama to meet with the mayor, chief, governor, and Captain Walker to update them. Not that there was anything to share, just more bad news.

“Slenderman isn’t Serioulias and I hate that name. We should call him William Scott.” Ian stuffed a forkful of pancake in his mouth.

Jo poured more coffee and sat at the kitchen table while Rhys cooked raspberry pancakes behind them. Sunday was always raspberry pancakes if they were both off work. It was nice to take a break after spending only a few hours here and there together during the holidays.

“I prefer Serioulias. And how can you say that? He termed those who leave the Cave, which is Rian and Evan’s group name, as betrayers. The same as the serial killer.”

Redden poured maple syrup over his stack of pancakes. “He’s right, Jo. The guy hasn’t left England. Ian even had someone stop by his place. He was there, and no tickets or passport scans came up with his name.”

Jo growled. She knew it was the guy. Kyle had helped her get an account to read the channel, and Serioulias became rigid when it was him and two other admins but kept quiet whenever Rian, Evan, or the friendlier admins were on. “What about the other two . . . PsyMom and Auroraus?”

“Nope. Auroraus is in Seattle, and I’ve had the agents there run by and check-in—”

“Dammit. You know it will tip these admins off.” Jo stabbed at the pancakes on her plate.

Rhys rubbed her back as he set another plate of food on the table and joined them.

“That Serious guy could be using a fake passport,” Rhys said filling his plate.

“It’s Serioulias, Rhy. My gut says it’s Serioulias.” Ian tipped his head from side to side. “And you might be right about the fake passport, but with the fingerprint security in England, he’d be caught in a heartbeat. We’ve tried to be circumspect in questioning him so our killer isn’t warned, but we’re out of time.”

Rhys shook his head. “I wasn’t talking about the passport. I meant on the game. Was it him? Or someone playing at being him?”

“Based on the IP address linked to the bank account, which is direct pay for the game, it was him.” Ian’s cell pinged, he lifted it, and cursed. “Looks like our killer hit in Brazil.”

“Dammit,” Redden growled.

“My boss is asking me to go liaise if it’s our guy.” Ian wiped his mouth and stood. “My flight leaves in a few hours, and I need to go pack.”

Redden stood too. “I’ll drive so you can fill me in because none of our potential victims were in Brazil.”

“What I meant is, Serioulias might be sharing accounts,” Rhys said.

Jo froze, a forkful of pancake hovering over the plate. “Holy crap.”

All eyes turned to Rhys. It was Redden who broke the silence. “What?”

Rhys shrugged. “Evan and Rian sometimes swap accounts. Like if a quest or a boss is too hard, they’ll do the task for each other. Maybe this Serioulias guy is the same.”

It made a lot more sense when she factored the account being shared.

“Holy shit.” Ian ran a palm over his face. “That would explain why sometimes he doesn’t have as hard a stance on people guesting while other times, he’s overly aggressive.”

“Great. How do we get the guy whose bank