Desperate Girls (Wolfe Security #1)(51)

He looked her directly in the eye, confirming what she’d known at a glance, that he had to be Liam’s brother.

“My brother is a criminal profiler,” Liam told her. “He offered to give us some help with our analysis.”

“Analysis?” she asked.

“The letter you gave us.”

Brynn shot a look at Erik.

“Mark works in the Cyber Crimes Unit at the Delphi Center crime lab,” Liam said. “Before that, he was with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, known as BAU.”

“We’re still conducting some forensic tests on the samples,” Mark said, “but I wanted to relay what I have so far.”

“I’m sorry, samples?” Brynn looked at Mark. “As in, more than one?”

“We recovered two similar notes from Judge Ballard’s desk,” Lindsey said.

“Two?”

Lindsey nodded. “Both were anonymous but contained similar wording to the one you received.” She opened the folder in front of her and passed over two sheets, both photocopies of a note on lined paper. Brynn’s stomach knotted as she recognized the block handwriting: I HAVE EYES ON YOU. The second note said, YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME.

She glanced at Mark, who was watching her closely. His eyes were brown, but he had the same piercing stare as his brother.

Unsettled, she turned to Lindsey. “These were in Jen’s desk?”

“At her office, yes.”

“When did she get these?” Reggie demanded.

“We don’t know,” Lindsey said. “Her clerk wasn’t aware of them. Said she’d never seen them before. They were stashed in an unmarked manila folder in a drawer filled with office supplies.”

Brynn passed the notes to Ross. “Did you ever get any—”

“No,” he said tersely. “I answered this before. I haven’t gotten anything.”

He glared at Liam, as if the security specialist had somehow conjured up the notes.

“I understand yours was placed on your windshield,” Lindsey said to Brynn. “Based on that, we’re thinking something similar happened to Jennifer Ballard, maybe on the way to work, and she collected the note and stashed it in a folder when she got to her office.”

“But she never told anyone about these notes,” Brynn stated.

“Not that we’ve been able to find,” Lindsey said.

“So we don’t know when she got them. And they’re anonymous. I assume you fingerprinted them?”

“No prints except the judge’s,” Lindsey said. “And no DNA.”

“What about Mick McGowan? Did he get any of these notes?”

“Not that we’ve found.”

Brynn looked at all the faces around the table, ending with Erik, who sat calmly beside her, watching her reaction.

She turned to Liam and smiled. “I’m sorry, but . . . what am I missing here?”

“Ma’am?”

“I must be missing something.” She folded her hands in front of her on the table. “Almost the entire team is assembled here for this meeting. Everyone’s tension level is through the roof. And you’ve brought a criminal profiler up here all the way from the Delphi Center”—she turned to Mark—“which is four hours away in San Marcos, if I’m not mistaken?”

He nodded.

“And on a Friday, no less. All so we can talk about three little slips of paper that aren’t even signed?” She zeroed in on Liam. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Liam watched her for a long moment. Then he looked at his brother. “Why don’t you start with the notes?”

Mark nodded. “As Detective Leary mentioned, we have only the recipient’s prints and no DNA on the samples recovered from Judge Ballard. We had the same results with your sample. However, we were able to trace the paper.” He paused. “It comes from a four-by-six notebook with perforated sheets. This particular type of notepad is carried in the prison commissary at the Stiles Unit in Beaumont, and James Corby purchased four such notepads over the course of his incarceration.”

Brynn stared at him. “That’s it? That’s the basis for this whole panic?”

Liam’s brow furrowed. “No one is panicking.”

“What we are doing,” Mark said, “is viewing this as a potential communication between James Corby and his victim.”

“Based on paper?” Brynn shook her head. “That doesn’t prove anything. Thousands of inmates had access to that same type of notepad, not to mention all the other places those notepads are sold. It’s not direct proof of anything.”

Everyone was watching her, and she realized she sounded like a defense attorney. She looked to Reggie for support, but he was uncharacteristically silent.

Mark leaned forward. “Ms. Holloran—”

“Call me Brynn.”

“This is not a trial, Brynn. We are not here to prove that Corby did something beyond a reasonable doubt. We are here to assess the threat to your safety”—he turned to Ross—“and yours. And after analyzing these communications, I can tell both of you with confidence that I believe these messages came from James Corby and were somehow smuggled out or mailed out and delivered to you and Judge Ballard on carefully selected dates. And I believe they are yet another example of Corby communicating with not just you but also the public.”