Secret Deception (Jonathan Black's Love Story)

Chapter 3: Speechless

Jonathan and I sat in my office watching the plane take off.
"You're not going?" He asked.
"I said I'd stay out of the field. If I got on that plane I wouldn't have been able to keep that promise. I wouldn't have been able to stay in the office as my team went out and risked their lives to bring down whoever's killing these women." I sighed.
"I know." He smiled at me.
"So, we'll stay here and work the case from here. Wanna help me?" I asked standing up.
"Yeah, should we call the others?"
"Sure. We can use it as a learning experience, since I never did finish your training."
Less than 45 minutes later my Deception team was gathered around the conference room table. I stood at the head of the table with the pictures of the murdered women on the board beside me along with the crime scene photos.
"We'll start with victimology. So, at first glance we have four women with nothing in common other than the fact that they were all flight attendants. What else should we look at?" I asked.
"Maybe the airline they fly with?" Jordan suggested.
"Very good. They all flew in on Heavenrise Air. Does that open our pool of suspects or close it?"
"Is it possible it's neither?" Dina asked.
"That's entirely possible. Their airline might mean nothing. In reality all it does it limit the area of the airport that the UNSUB could have run across the victims." I answered.
"Then victimology might not give us much?" Gunther asked.
"That's true. Typically victimology is used to figure out who could be at risk or who the UNSUB could be replicating in the murders."
"So what's next?" Cameron asked.
"We need to make a Geographical profile. Obviously we have Detroit International as the epicenter for this serial killer, but the motels can play a large role in this profile." I began, pulling a map of Detroit up on the corkboard.
"Detroit International is here." I said placing a thumbtack in the board over the airport.
"The four motels are scattered 10-15 miles north of the airport."
"That could mean he lives further north." Kay added.
"Lives or works, yes. It's also possible that the UNSUB works at the airport itself. I already asked Penelope to run the names of the airport personnel through her database. We do these things to keep our options open. Profiling is not an exact science. It never has been. It gives us areas to investigate that we may not have explored without the profile.
"Typically, sadistic killers like this will follow the investigation closely as well."
"I don't see sadism..." Gunther spoke up.
"At first glance you wouldn't, but see these marks on the neck here?" I showed my team a close up photo of one of the victim's neck injury.
"The ligature marks here show that she was strangled at least three different times during her nearly two hour ordeal. All four victims have these marks."
"They also all have broken ribs, a clear sign that the UNSUB killed the victims more than once before performing CPR to bring them back. It's a common sadistic type of torture." I added.
"Is this something we should be talking about? With the baby and all." Jonathan asked.
"It's still too early for the baby to hear us. Babies in the womb start hearing around week 18. I'm about to enter week 13." I smiled at him.
"So we'll stop talking like that in a month?" He asked and I laughed.
"Sure, Jonny."
"Why are we doing this?" Dina asked.
"It's a good way to get practice. It's possible we think of that they don't. In profiling a fresh set of eyes is often helpful."
I leaned against the chair in front of me.
"Why don't you sit down for awhile?" Jasmine said standing up and taking my arm.
She eased me into the chair.
"I'm alright. I'm just tired. This pregnancy is exhausting." I chuckled softly.
"Let's take a break for lunch and we'll come back to this."
"Are you hurting?" Cameron asked when he came back with his lunch.
"No, Cam. I'm just really tired. I have my next ultrasound tomorrow. They'll give me some ways to keep from being so tired." I said as Jonathan brought in lunch.
After lunch we continued going through the case file but kept hitting dead ends.
"This isn't as easy as you make it look." Jordan mentioned.
I laughed.
"I've been doing this a long time.
"When you guys come in tomorrow there will be some paperwork for you to fill out. Jonathan and I have an ultrasound to go to so we won't be in."
Laying on the ultrasound table somewhere between asleep and awake my nerves were on fire. Perhaps it was just the stress of work weighing down on me on top of the pregnancy.
"Are we ready to see your baby?" Our ultrasound technician asked cheerfully walking into the room.
"Absolutely. Will we be seeing Dr. Roberts today as well?" I asked.
"Of course you will. Every time you have an ultrasound you'll see the doctor as well." She smiled.
After she powered up the machine and began the ultrasound she stopped and tilted her head at the screen.
"Let me get the doctor." She told us.
I looked at Jonathan and his face mirrored my concern.
Dr. Roberts walked into the room and took the wand adding more gel before pressing it gently into my abdomen.
After a moment she smiled.
"Well, Mr and Mrs. Black, it appears that your embryo split late." She said.
"Which means?" Jonathan asked.
"We're having twins."