Page 51 of Psycho
“Let’s just tail him,” August suggested.
Lucas shook his head. “We have lives. We can’t just follow the man around day and night.”
August’s brows knitted together. “Not us. We’ll put a GPS locator on his vehicle. Bug his house.”
Adam scoffed. “I don’t recommend breaking into an FBI agent’s house.”
Thomas sighed. “Yes to the GPS tracker. No to the breaking and entering.” At August’s incredulous look, Thomas said, “For now.”
August huffed. “Fine.”
“Calliope, let’s make this the priority. Put Noah’s other cases on the back burner, see if you can narrow down the most likely victims as Lucas suggested, and also see if you can find any reference to Kohn owning any form of cryptocurrency.”
Nails resumed their clicking. “I’ll do my best, but if it’s not Bitcoin or Ethereum, if it’s one of these lesser known currencies, it’s going to be nearly impossible.”
“Do your best,” Thomas said. “Keep me in the loop. Nobody does anything without my say so. Understand?”
August’s nostrils flared but he gave a single nod. “Calliope, send me what you have on Kohn. I want to get a tracker on his car today.”
“Got it.”
With that, she was gone. Thomas looked at Lucas. “You need to make peace with the fact that you might never get the proof you need. If we can’t find his victims, there may come a time when you have to decide between a few missing women and a world full of potential victims.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Lucas said, choking on the thought of leaving these women to die somewhere.
“Then we’ll do it for you,” Archer said before shooting the rest of his drink.
“Yeah, there’s a clock on this operation,” Thomas said. “If we can’t nail this down in the next week or so, we’re going to take him out. We have no choice.”
Lucas scrubbed his hands over his face. He understood their logic, he did. They couldn’t hunt for these missing women forever. They didn’t even know who they were. It would be like chasing ghosts, maybe literally. At what point did he just let the Mulvaneys do what they did?
And could he live with himself when it was over?
August looked for Lucas after his first afternoon class ended. A bored freshman lingering in the auditorium said Lucas had left for the library twenty minutes ago to make copies of a rubric for a term paper. August frowned at that. Why wouldn’t Lucas just use the copiers for the faculty?
The library was a red bricked, three-story, gothic monstrosity with arched windows and entryways. When he entered, students frowned at him like he wasn’t welcome. He paid them little mind, grateful for the silence since he’d forgotten his headphones on his desk. He passed conference rooms and sound-proofed cubbies made just for studying as well as three checkout desks manned by students.
There were copiers on each floor, but August bypassed the ones on the first floor as they were visible from the entryway and there was no Lucas. He wasn’t on the second floor either. On the third floor, August headed to the most desolate part of the library, the section filled with how-to manuals and technical guides.
Even if August hadn’t known where the copiers lived, he could have just followed the sounds of Lucas’s frustrated curses. August smiled, picking up his pace. He rounded the corner just in time to watch Lucas kick the copier once, then again.
“This copier is notoriously temperamental. That’s why it’s back here in no man’s land.”
Lucas startled at August’s voice but recovered quickly, voice sullen. “Of course, it is.”
When Lucas smacked the top of the copier once more, August tugged him away, pulling him deeper into the stacks. “What’s wrong with the faculty copier?”
“It’s out of order.” Lucas glared at the machine beside them as if it had broken the other copier.
“Why not use the one outside your office?”
Lucas blew out a breath through his nose. August hadn’t ever seen him so on edge. “Because every time your friend sees me she tries to pump me for information about the two of us.”
“Bianca?” August asked.
Lucas shrugged. “I guess. You two seemed cozy the day we met.”
There was just the slightest hint of...something underneath his voice. Surely not jealousy. “Are you… Do you think I have a thing with my co-worker? Me? Do I seem the type?”
