Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,92

a lack of adequate blood for transfusion. Probably from some kind of accident. It may be recent, but I suspect it would have happened when your killer was young—maybe twenty to thirty years ago—and the result imprinted on their psyche in some way. I’d do a search of deaths due to hemorrhage of people with the rarest blood types. Also, the killer could blame the homeless for his loved one’s death. Perhaps they received the rare blood and made it unavailable for others your suspect deemed more worthy of it.”

“He sees them as useless, even parasites living on society,” Brianna said, her eyes bright with understanding. “So, he harvests their blood for someone else to use, cleans them up, because now they’ve given something useful—their blood—to society and he’s transformed them back into their previous lives.”

The woman would make a good profiler. She had a natural talent for it.

“Exactly,” Carson said.

“Because he’s able to put the blood into the system and follow the protocols,” Kirk F said, “he probably works in one of the blood bank labs, right?”

Carson nodded at the young man, then turned to the chief of police. “I’d suggest you start doing background checks on all people actively working in the blood banks labs across the city. And also, anyone fired or who may have quit in the past year.”

“We’ll have our tech people start searching,” the Chief said to his assistant, then turned to the smaller man beside him. “Stedaman let’s get your people out talking to the homeless and volunteers in the shelters to find out anything about this guy posing as a journalist. Maybe we’ll stop him before he can pick up another victim.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen,” Aaron said, his jaw tense and one muscle ticking from it down into his neck.

“Why?” the chief asked, even though his eyes said he knew the answer already.

“We believe he’s already got his next victim.”

27

“His name on the streets is Steroid Kyle,” Aaron said, writing his name in a third column beside Art’s on the whiteboard. “One of the homeless we’ve interviewed said the journalist he’d seen speaking with Art also spent time talking with this young man.”

“Talking to the witness,” Brianna took up the story, “we learned that Steroid Kyle was once a promising football player, a standout in college, but got hooked on drugs and didn’t last long in the pros.”

Jaylon pulled a picture out of the file in front of him and taped it to the whiteboard above the name Steroid Kyle.

“After doing some late night research,” he cast a scathing glance at Aaron, who had called him at three a.m. and asked him to search the local colleges, even Ohio State, to see if a Kyle that fit their description and lived in the area had ever played football for them, “we have this as our possible third victim. Kyle Dandridge.

“I remember him,” Aaron said. “He was a former linebacker for Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, standout player for Cleveland Heights High School and ranked in the top two hundred national high school players seven years ago.”

Jaylon nodded and went back to the file he started on the guy. “Drafted out of college, played pro for almost three years with the Bears, which makes him about twenty-six, the age our witness thought he might be.”

“We’ll get a copy of his picture and put him on the patrols’ list to question the volunteers and homeless about,” Stedaman said, glancing to the captain of the patrol division, who nodded, writing the information down.

“I’ll get this out to them now,” he said and left the room, along with other division chiefs.

“There’s one last element we need to address,” Aaron said with a nod to Jaylon.

“Because it takes time to drain the blood from his victims and because he froze Mia Tanaka, we determined he’d need a place that had both privacy and a refrigeration unit of some sort,” Jaylon said. “Kirk F has started searching for old meat-packing plants.”

“Young man,” the chief addressed Kirk F.

“Yes, sir,” he said sitting straighter in his seat.

“You keep searching until you find something.”

Kirk F swallowed, glanced at Aaron, who nodded. “Yes, sir, I will.”

“Good.” The chief stood and everyone, but Brianna and Carson followed suit. “Let’s find this SOB before he litters our city with more of our citizens as corpse statues.”

The core group of Stedaman, Aaron, Brianna and the pup, Kirk F, Matt Edgars, the profiler Carson, and Jaylon stayed in the conference room after the