Deceit Chapter 3

"Don, Don, Don", Charlie yelled as he burst through the doors leading into the FBI office. Don sensed that his brother had something big to tell him from the look on his face and he flew threw the doorway. "I've got something for you, on those last bomb killings—it was something Larry said to me. Here, look at these case files, ok look at the pattern of these killings here, first two people were killed, then three, then five..."

"Ok so you do know that I'm really not following you on all of this right?" Don said, looking at his brother with a bit of inquisitiveness, waiting for him to elaborate.

"Well you see here, the pattern is actually quite simple. It's called the Fibonacci sequence," the mathematician said as he quickly pulled over the white board in front of him with all of the victims' pictures and known information.

Just as Charlie was launching into his explanatory lecture for his brother, Megan and David walked in. "Hey Charlie, I see that we are in for another one of your informative, and oh so useful mini-lectures." Megan said as she pulled up a chair.

"Yes actually you are right—it was actually Larry that realized this first. Look at the pattern in these killings." "Charlie, we have already gone through all of the case files looking for any sort of pattern among the killings. All we can get is that all of victims were killed in an explosion and that our killer likes to take pictures of his crimes with some sort of combination of numbers, which incidentally have you discovered what those may represent yet?" David said.

"No, well yes, well no." Charlie said hesitantly. "Ok come on Charlie, you know this is serious, please just say what you mean and just finish this explanation." Don said with a bit of a raised, irritated voice.

"Ok well for short, we did think that those combinations were addresses, but as you guys all told me, they were just vacant lots, so yes we are still working on them. Anyway, back to Fibonacci," the younger Eppes said.

"The what?" Colby chimed in as he walked through the door.

"Just the pattern that Larry may have found between these killings," Don said.

"Yes, anyway, Fibonacci, it's basically a sequence where you just simply add up to two preceding numbers. Here look, the first was two killings, and then three, two and one makes three. And then again, five are dead, two and three makes..."

"Yeah ok Charlie we get it—just tell us what you think," Don quickly said to get his brother to move on.

"Well I think not only are we working with any serial killer, but one that is intelligent and knows quite a bit about maximizing just the number of death's he or she is after, and minimizing anything that may be left behind. And one that is keen on keeping to this pattern, more than likely someone that stalks their victims seeing that he or she strikes with such precision."

"OK, well with that in mind, Megan, I want everything on all of these victims, who cleans their pools, where they bought their car, where they went to high school, everything!" Don said as he quickly got up from the conference table and addressed his team.

"But Don, we already did get everything we could from the victims. Your brother even ran it through his algorithm, and by the way where is Emma in all of this? She hasn't been around for the last two days, since that weird textbook incident," Megan rapidly responded.

"Yeah I know," the older Eppes said with hesitation and worry. "She got a really bad case of the stomach flue, so I told her just to stay home. With a case as mysterious as this one, I really can't stand to loose any more of my agents. Anyway, I want all of their families re-questioned, their lives re-examined down to the littlest detail. Are you telling me this killer is just picking people out at entirely random patterns? I really doubt that considering his precision in killing."

"God isn't that convenient that she just happens to get the stomach flu right when the case goes cold," Colby said under his breath while looking at his watch and realized that he hadn't taken a break from the case in well over 24 hours.

Megan seemed to be the only one that heard the agent's snide comment and just sort of snickered very quietly, knowing full well that everyone deserved a break. And don't forget stalking these people," she said getting up from her chair and heading off to find more information, " I mean if he knew just exactly where his victims were going to be all together at one particular time, I'm sure he had to be examining their patterns for a while. And really it's not that uncommon for serial killers to map out every little detail of their victims life before striking, catches them more off guard that way."

Just then Don's cell phone rang with some saddening news, "Eppes," he said, "HUH yeah ok, no I understand, we're on our way."

"What's going on Don?" Megan asked just as she was walking out the door and mouthing something about her odd co-worker's behavior to Colby, knowing full well that this was out of character for her. In her mind, there was just something about Emma's demeanor that rubbed her the wrong way.

"Well we now have more data to try and find some sort of link—there was another murder. Although, yeah Charlie you are really not going to want to hear this, just a single woman, killed in her car, sitting in her driveway, by means of a lethal injection—however, she." He said angrily before being cut off, running his hands through his hair and folding his arms in disgust.

"Another murder, but wait, a single woman, no bomb, nothing that is even remotely similar to these past crimes. It doesn't fit the pattern nothing, Don, why are they--?" Charlie interrupted.

"Well if you would have let me finish little brother, then I would have told you that they found the same pictures with the same mysterious set of numbers."

"So what are they thinking, a copycat? Some sort of imposter?" Megan said.

"I don't know, but what I do know is that we are definitely going to have to go check this out, even if it does not turn out. Because face it, if we don't find some sort of lead soon, from anything, their families, just something, more and more people are going to die bombs or not." Don said as he quickly threw on his suit jacket and picked up his car keys.