The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(19)
“I remember sitting in one of my criminal justice classes when a detective came to speak to us. I found his talk inspiring and I hope to do the same for some of you today. I also think back very fondly on the time an FBI profiler came to speak to my class, and, well, that ended up changing my life.
“I’m going to leave the last twenty minutes for questions because hopefully what I’m about to discuss will get you thinking. Listen to what I’m saying. Challenge it. Ask questions—because thinking critically is a key to just about anything you do in law enforcement, whether it be forensics, prosecuting offenders or—God forbid—defending them.” She smiled, but they all wore serious expressions.
Get on with it, Karen. You haven’t won them over yet. Jonathan’s probably rolling his eyes. Don’t look at him.
Vail swiped her finger across the screen and the next PowerPoint slide appeared: a red and black header reading “Violent Crime” appeared above a photo depicting a puddle of blood beside a victim’s chalk outline.
But as she opened her mouth to speak, her phone vibrated. She pressed a hand against her pocket, hesitated a second, then pushed forward.
“Many of you have heard of the Behavioral Science Unit from the movies or TV shows. Although it’s been renamed the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit, its focus has remained the same since it was started in the early seventies.”
Her phone vibrated again, and again she let the call go to voice mail. “Simply put, the goal behind behavioral science is to study, and understand, human behavior. More specifically, BRIU, as it’s called—because the government loves its acronyms—focuses on criminal behavior so we can gain insight into who these offenders are, how they think, and why they do what they do. If we can understand that, it’ll help us solve crimes and potentially head off future criminal activity. Now if we drill down a bit deeper, the criminal behavior we’re most concerned with in the BRIU, and my unit, the Behavioral Analysis Unit, is violent crime.”
Her Samsung vibrated a third time.
Someone’s determined to reach me. Vail glanced at Jonathan, then the professor. “Excuse me for a second.” She fished out the phone and checked the display: Erik Curtis. Answer it?
Vail did just that—and got an earful.
“Jesus, Karen, were you on the shitter or something? I’ve been trying to reach—”
“I’m teaching a class at GW—”
“Oh—sorry. Sorry. But I thought you should know that the officer we put on Jasmine’s house is, well, he’s missing.”
“Missing? What the hell does that mean? He’s a goddamn police officer.” She caught herself, glanced up at the class. Jonathan’s gonna hate me. If not for the interruption, for—
“He’s not reporting in or responding to his radio. Karen, you there?”
“I’m here. I assume you’re searching for him? Is Jasmine okay?”
“She’s fine. I’m on my way but I’m told she’s not there. Trying to verify. Can you get over there? She’s got some kind of bond with you, a women’s th—”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Give me an hour.”
She hung up before Curtis could object. I’m not supposed to be babysitting her. Curtis can handle this.
“I apologize for the interruption. One of my cases.” She rubbed the creases in her forehead, looked at the PowerPoint, and gathered her thoughts. “Okay, so let’s pick up where we left off. The BAU, where I work. Anyone interested in understanding why offenders do what they do? How about walking into a crime scene and picking up on hidden clues about the killer that no one else sees? But you see them because you’re trained to see them, to put it all together, to understand who committed the crime—and why.
“It’s very powerful. Think of it like a foreign language that you don’t know how to speak. It sounds like gibberish. But once you learn it, you start to see things differently, you understand what’s being said. You understand the nuances of a language very few others can comprehend. Let me give you an example.”
Her phone buzzed again. She closed her eyes as she fished out the cell. A text message from Curtis.
found missing officer
hes dead
killed like the others
like the other blood lines vics
wtf
Vail swallowed. She was staring at her screen, her thoughts zipping by so fast she could not process them. None of this made sense. The Blood Lines killer was behind bars ninety minutes from here. For life.
“Agent Vail,” the professor said. “Are we interrupting?”
“I, uh—I’m sorry, a case. It’s—”
Her phone vibrated again—in her hand. It was Gifford.
She slowly brought the handset to her face, almost afraid to answer it.
“Yes sir.”
“Karen, I know you’re offsite at GW, but you need to take a rain check.”
She brought two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “I heard about the officer.”
“What officer? I’m calling you about Roscoe Lee Marcks. He escaped two hours ago.”
Vail felt dizzy. This can’t be happening. Fuck.
She glanced up, hoping she had not verbalized that thought. All eyes were on her but no one appeared shocked. Then again, these were college students.