Mirrigold: Mutterings & Musings

A Thousand Vermilion Stars | Patricia Logan

F.B.I. Files #3

Release Date: February 21st, 2023

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Blurb

A copycat serial killer is driving their whole team crazy.

Dr. Leo Reeves has always considered himself a halfway decent criminal profiler. Some of his colleagues even call him brilliant. With this assignment, he sure as hell doesn’t feel that way. He’s been missing something at every turn. The case is dragging into its seventh month and every lead he and his team follow, takes them to a dead end…literally. Leo sure hasn’t come up with anything to move things along, as hard as he’s tried. They’re no closer to capturing their killer…even after following him all the way to Miami.

Special Agent Max Prince is worried.

The longer this case goes on, the farther down the rabbit hole, his partner and lover, Leo, seems to fall. To make matters worse, back home in Los Angeles, detectives Cassidy Ryan and Mike Williams have turned up a second graveyard filled with some surprising victims…victims the team know well. Worse yet, Miami has left them with even more questions. When a good cop is murdered, the whole case turns on its head. Everyone wants answers and their team doesn’t have any.

Something has to change.

Worst of all, the copycat hasn’t stopped killing, leaving strange clues behind, even inserting himself into the case. When one of their own is put in horrible danger, and DNA results reveal a shocking truth, things get even more complicated. No one likes taking risks, especially when they involve meeting the killer on his terms. But taking that risk, might be the only way to resolve this case. Whether it’s the desert graveyards of SoCal, the sexy hot nights of South Beach’s gay scene, or the sticky bayous of New Orleans, Max and Leo have vowed to end this monster once and for all…if he doesn’t end them first.

Excerpt

“Leo…Leo.” He blinked awake, then slowly rolled his head on the headrest to find Max staring into his eyes. As always, his lover was the most beautiful man, even when the expression on his handsome face was serious and his pale green eyes were clouded with worry. He’d been looking at him that way for several weeks.

“Where are we?” Leo sat forward, reaching up to wipe drool from his cheek. He’d fallen asleep against the plane’s window as it flew through the night.

“Somewhere over Central Texas. We still have two and a half hours before we land in Miami. Good nap?”

Leo dragged his gaze away from him and turned to the window. With the lights low in the cabin, he couldn’t even make out shapes in the night sky. He looked back at Max and sighed, bending forward so he could take his water out of the seat back. “I guess.” He took a long sip and recapped the bottle. “I don’t get much uninterrupted sleep these days.”

Max reached for his hand and threaded their fingers together before resting it on his thigh. “Do you think I’m not aware of that, darlin’?”

Leo frowned. “I’m sorry, Max. Of course, you are.” The last three months had been one long nightmare, trying to learn all they could about their elusive copycat during the day, and trying to forget all about what he did, at night. Lincoln was finally back at work, heading up his extraordinary FBI team as they worked to shut down the cell Gunter Becker’s Road Knights had controlled. The outlaw biker was currently cooling his heels in a Federal prison after the FBI had refused to sign off on his WITSEC deal when they found Kathy Campbell dead.

Meanwhile, the team had managed to put several of their targets permanently out of business. Between Grant Jacobs, a self-professed copycat of Dean Arnold Corll, and Andrew Wiley, a copycat who took great pride in modeling himself after Dr. Harold Shipman, two less killers had been deprived of their lives. Leo couldn’t say he’d been upset to see either man meet his end. Seeing them behind bars would have been preferrable to writing reports about how neither had survived when they’d been confronted by the team and opted for suicide by cop but that hadn’t been their choice.

“Leo?”

He met Max’s questioning gaze with one of his own. “Yeah, baby?”

“Grant Jacobs and Andrew Wiley…”

“What about them?” Leo cocked his head to the side.

“It’s like…ya know, it’s like they just tried to get themselves killed. They wanted it, right? That’s some kinda pathology, right? ‘Cause, I don’t think serial killers are usually prone to suicide. Am I wrong?”

Leo shook his head. “No. Not usually, Max, but the vast range of pathologies that go with that kind of mind are so huge, they truly can’t be painted with a single brush. A lot of the time they’re extreme narcissists, while they loathe themselves so badly, they long for death at any cost. Most of them fall somewhere in the middle on that spectrum.”

“And the serial killer working with Greg Campbell? The Sweetwater Slaughterer’s copycat? He’s not suicidal, right?”

“We don’t know that yet, Max.” Leo smiled sadly at him. “We only know one thing about him.”

“What’s that, darlin’?”

“He’s not finished.”