Page 58 of The Truth You Told

“It gives us a false sense of security.” Shay shrugged. “It’s probably a best-practice-type thing, but for me, I don’t think that’s actually going to stop a serial killer from taking me if he wants to.”

Tori made a considering sound. “You’re more alert because you don’t have a weapon.”

“Yeah. But I guess I should just get a weaponandbe alert,” Shay said with a wry smile. “And pay attention to his hunting grounds and all that jazz. It just seems like it won’t do me any good.”

“And his hunting ground is widespread,” Tori pointed out. “Hard to just avoid the entire multicounty area.”

“Right,” Shay said, getting into it now. “And the task force talks a big talk but doesn’t really seem to understand anything about the man or his choice in victims.”

Shay made a silent apology to Callum, who probably did know more than she realized. Still, from the snatches of conversations and news reports Shay picked up at the bar, it didn’t seem like they had a firm grasp on anything.

Tori’s eyebrows went up. “It is strange that he doesn’t seem to have a victimology that’s easy to profile. I would imagine that makes him hard to pin down.”

“Have you tried?” Shay asked, leaning in. “I would imagine you have a little bit more insight than the average person.”

Tori blushed a little and looked away. “If I were the task force, I’d hate armchair psychiatrists coming in and trying to out-Sherlock me.”

“But I’m not the task force,” Shay said, a slightly distorted echo of Tori’s earlier words.

“Ahhh, okay,” Tori said, like she’d wanted to be talked into it, but still wanted to put up a token protest. “Okay. I don’t think he’s underemployed like most serial killers. I think he works in a fairly respectable position, where he would need to stay groomed and approachable.”

“Oh, how can you tell that?”

“The fact that there isn’t much sign of struggle at the scene,” Tori said. “He’s articulate, maybe even personable. He hides his psychopathyextraordinarily well in the short term. But he won’t have long-term friends or relationships. He can’t maintain them.”

Shay didn’t wince, but that did cut kind of close to what she’d just been thinking about her own life.

“He experienced some kind of major trauma as a child,” Tori said. “Either extensive sexual and physical abuse, or something that completely rocked his world. But in a violent manner.”

Like Max,Shay thought but didn’t say.

Tori continued on for a good twenty minutes, laying out a psychological profile for their local serial killer. Shay ordered another glass of wine halfway through, enjoying the perspective. But a lot of what Tori was saying seemed to be things she could pick up on those popular FBI and cop shows. When she alluded to that fact, Tori made that same considering sound.

“I think looking from the outside in, abnormal psychology can seem chaotic, or at least how it presents looks chaotic,” Tori said. “But there are familiar beats to it, like anything else. If a child is abusing an animal, that’s not necessarily diagnosable by itself; setting fires, the same thing. The behaviors start to add up, and when they do, so do the similarities to violent offenders.”

Her vowels were a little loose, a little twangy now. She’d had four glasses to Shay’s two.

“I’m just glad the field is moving away from its obsession with mothers,” Tori said, rolling her eyes. “There was a time there when the mother got blamed for everything.”

“Shocker,” Shay said dryly, and Tori laughed in agreement. “What are you seeing more of now?”

“The father,” Tori said. She lifted her glass in a toast. “Parity.”

Shay tapped her own against it. “For once.”

“There’s a theory about war veterans coming home without mental health treatment,” Tori said more seriously. “They beat their kids because they had extreme PTSD, and then those kids go on to become serial killers.”

“Do you think that’s our guy?”

It was strange how both of them had started referring to the Alphabet Man astheirs. She’d noticed that at the bar, too, when her regulars spoke about him.

What a claim to make.

“I don’t know,” Tori admitted, her smile as loose as her vowels. “Can I ask you something I shouldn’t?”

Shay leaned forward. “Always.”

“What were you really worried about, with Max’s box? It’s not as if she’s the Alphabet Man.”

---