Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(82)

“I don’t get it,” Marty says for the second time. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest, nicotine gum forgotten in one corner of his mouth.

Is he acting dumb? Maybe he’s just in shock. Charley couldn’t have been any clearer.

“What’s not to get?” Kayla asks. She’s on one end of the love seat, bent elbow braced against the arm, resting her face in her open palm as if it’s the only thing keeping her head from falling apart.

“The plan,” Marty says. “What’s the plan? I mean, it’s one thing to want to go after this guy. But how are you going to find him?”

“That’s your brother’s job, right?” Kayla asks Luke.

“You think your brother’s going to be able to find out who’s killed those women with just a few keystrokes?” Marty asks.

“No, I don’t,” he answers.

“And why not?” He’s touched ice blocks warmer than Charley’s voice.

“He’s good, but he’s not that good.”

“Says who?” Charley asks.

“Says me.”

“He found a white-collar criminal living under an assumed name in Australia and he hacked a satellite to do it.”

“Fundamentally, he knew who he was looking for,” Luke responded, “and he exploited a back door in a telecommunications company, a back door the company has since publicly acknowledged and closed.”

“Sounds pretty skilled to me,” Kayla says.

“Everything about this is different. Back then, he had his target’s height, weight, everything about his mannerisms, physical appearance, and tics. It may sound irrelevant, but that’s all pivotal in a hack because it allows you to predict what passwords they pick, how they might try to move money. Possible aliases.”

“Who’s the expert in hacking again?” Marty asks.

“I looked into it some because I wanted to know how my brother had destroyed his life.”

“You don’t know he’s destroyed his life,” Marty says. “He could be in Tahiti covered in swimsuit models right now.”

“Yeah, ’cause he was always a big hit with swimsuit models. The point is, the only way Bailey’s been able to pull off something like this is when he had a body of knowledge about a specific individual. He doesn’t have that here. He’s got a ghost, just like the cops. Whatever methods he does use to try to find the Mask Maker, there’s no reason to believe they’ll be any better than what LAPD’s using right now.”

“They could be faster,” Kayla says, “given that he won’t have to deal with warrants and all.”

“The best he’ll be able to do is hack LAPD and get you as much of the case file as he can. Maybe the BSU profile on the guy if there is one.”

“Well, that’s super illegal,” Kayla mutters, but she’s staring at the floor vacantly, as if strict concepts of legality don’t mean as much to her as they did the day before but she’s still obligated to reference them now and then.

“BSU?” Marty asks.

“Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI,” Kayla says. “They deal with serial killers.”

“They try to deal with serial killers,” Charley says.

“What does that mean?” Luke asks.

“It means two agents from BSU probably flew to LA on the taxpayer’s dime and spent a few days in their hotel rooms using trendy pop psychology to write some superficial ‘profile’”—she mimes air quotes—“based on a shallow reading of the crime scenes. Now the local cops are leaning on that profile instead of doing their jobs, which is actually investigating the evidence they have. In the process, they’ll eliminate way too many potential suspects so they can trim their workload and the ‘profile’”—she fires off another set of air quotes—“will give them permission to do it.”

“That’s a lot of air quotes there, Trigger,” Marty says.

“And a pretty rash dismissal of an esteemed unit of the FBI,” Luke says.

“Really?” Charley asks. “You’re going to start defending the FBI?”

“Look, I get it. You’re mad at me for telling them you want to—”

“No, I’m sick of people getting tingly over BSU because of Clarice Starling, OK? Have any of you ever read the FBI profile of the Bannings? A crystal ball would have been more help.”

“I heard they used those, too,” Kayla says.

“Charley,” Luke says, “FBI profiling is a very valid—”

“The profile ruled out all women, for Christ’s sake. It was a female serial killer.”

“To be fair, she was working in conjunction with a male sexual predator, who connected up with many of the points made in the profile,” Luke says.

“And he wasn’t committing the murders. She was. And by ruling out all women, the profile blinded the local cops to something they should have seen before.”

“Which was what?” Kayla asks.

“There were no signs of struggle at most of the abduction sites because the victims, mostly women traveling alone, trusted their abductor. More than they would have trusted any lone man traveling on a back road or hiking through the woods. And they trusted him because he had a woman with him. If the profile had been right, and Daniel Banning, or some sick freak just like him, was acting alone, there’s a chance my mother never would have rolled down her car window so fast.”