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Atlas Missing - Part 8

'We're not even sure it is a him. Pandora's Children were all women. The Oak Leaf Killer could be too,' Jaci said.

'That's kind of #transitive, isn't it?' Hannah asked.

'Maybe, but we know nothing about them. We need a timeline and victim profiles for both killers.'

***

'We can get started on that as soon as we get to the office,' Hannah said as we drove toward her house.

'As long as we can #permute the timeline in the right order, we'll be able to figure out what happened when, which will give us our best hope of catching them both.'

***

'I'm having the Oak Leaf Killer's evidence couriered over from the respective jurisdictions. We should have the full #set by the time we get there,' Hannah said as she pulled up to a nice house in the suburbs. 'Welcome to Casa Derricks.'

'Any wife or kids?' Jaci asked.

***

'Ex-husband, ex-wife, two kids,' Hannah answered. 'Is that the #metric by which I'm to be judged?'

'I was just curious,' Jaci replied. 'I saw you were interested in Annie.'

'I've mixed business with pleasure before, and it didn't work either time. I'm a little gun shy.'

***

'I'll be here for as long as it takes to catch LaShonda Marcus,' I told her. 'You don't have to look at it in a #negative light. If you want something, there'll be no strings attached.'

Hannah smiled. 'Maybe. Come inside, freshen up, and then we'll go to the office.'

***

Hannah opened the door to let us in but hung back. Jaci went in first and Hannah said to me, 'the #finity of your stay is a point in your favor.'

Before I walked inside, I kissed her on the cheek. 'I hope to get more points then.'

She followed me in and closed the door.

***

'I love the #fractal pattern on the tiles in the bathroom,' I told her, emerging from said room.

'Thanks. They're custom made by a friend. You ready to go? Jaci's in the car already.'

'Yes. I want to take a look at this evidence and see what kind of set up you have.'

***

I was surprised when we got to the field office. We had a conference room and couple of offices in which to work, but an #archaeological dig this wasn't. The sum total of evidence from the five Oak Leaf Killer murders was in five bankers boxes, and none of them were full.

***

Jaci pulled the police reports from the boxes and I spread out the physical evidence across the table. There were #multifarious aspects to this investigation and we would have to explore each to bring both killers to justice. I didn't want LaShonda Marcus to escape again.

***

'I'm still waiting on the autopsy results from the first victim of the two killers working together. The chief medical examiner is being somewhat #obstreperous,' Hannah told us. 'I have everything else at my desk though. Another agent is bringing it up.'

'Thanks.'

***

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