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Then Paige saw it. A series of cases involving a criminal named Fabiano Selani, who had been associated with a series of muggings the previous year, all targeting art students close to the college or artists out on the boardwalk.
“I think I have something,” Paige said. “Fabiano Selani, 28, arrested last year after a spate of muggings all targeting art students or artists. He was finally arrested, but not before he’d stabbed one of his victims, wounding him badly.”
Paige saw Christopher frown at that. “Shouldn’t a guy like that be in jail?”
“It looks like there was a mix up somewhere in the system, enough that his lawyers could get an appeal through that saw him released a month ago.”
“A month?” Christopher said. Now, Paige could see the excitement on his face. The killings starting so soon after Fabiano had been released seemed to make it more likely that he was involved.
“Does he have an address?” Christopher asked.
Paige shook her head. “There isn’t one in the file. I guess if he was released after an appeal rather than on parole, he wouldn’t have to provide one.”
“Hold on,” Christopher said. He opened the door leading to the main open plan office area of the police department. Paige saw him wave over Detective Basman.
“What do you need?” Basman asked as he came over.
“Do you know anything about a mugger named Fabiano Selani? He was released about a month ago, and he likes to go after artistic types.”
Basman shook his head. “I don’t know him, but someone in the department will. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be able to tell you. Or you could wait until morning. It’s getting pretty late.”
Paige shook her head at that. “We don’t know when this killer is going to strike again. I want to do as much as possible tonight. Fabiano sounds like he might be our guy, and that means that I want to talk to him. Tonight, before anything else can happen.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You’re sure this is the place?” Paige asked, looking around at the space beneath the bridge Detective Basman had sent them to.
It was lit by a couple of flickering lights that were obviously designed to make the place a little less dangerous, but also by the flames of a fire started in an old oil drum by a couple of homeless guys.
“This is where he said,” Christopher replied. “Apparently, Fabiano has been harassing the people down here and sleeping among them until he gets back on his feet.”
“Or hiding out down here so that he’ll be harder to find while he kills people,” Paige said.
“Exactly.” Christopher gave her a worried look. “We’ll need to be careful here. These aren’t the kind of people who want law enforcement looking into their lives. Most of them will be resentful, some of them might be actively hostile.”
Was he expecting her to go blundering in, demanding answers? Or was he afraid for Paige’s safety? Either way, Paige wasn’t the meek researcher he’d met back at the start of all of this. She was a fully trained FBI agent who had taken down several killers. If Christopher hadn’t learned to trust her judgement by now . . .
Well, it was a good thing that Paige was transferring out of the department.
She got out of the car now, heading over towards the underpass. The space beneath the bridge was dingy and dirty, the walls lined with graffiti. Instinctively, Paige found herself looking around for the same marks she and Christopher had seen at the crime scene. That had been his theory, hadn’t it? That they were gang markings?
Did that mean that the two of them were potentially walking into the middle of a gang’s territory without backup? That thought made Paige look around for Christopher. He was there, just a few paces from her.
Ordinarily, that would have made her confident that they could take on anything the world could throw at them. Ordinarily, there would have been no backup in the world that Paige would rather have had. Now, with the new distance between them, Paige found herself feeling nervous.
She had never expected that things would end up like this. Paige had assumed that she and Christopher were the perfect partners. She’d trusted him absolutely even from the first time they’d met. Now, though, Paige found herself wondering—just for a moment—if Christopher would be there fast enough if she was in danger. She hated that thought, hated herself for thinking it.
Shaking off that thought, Paige headed over to the homeless guys standing by the fire, wrapped in layers of clothing so thick that it was barely possible to make out their features. Paige took out her phone, pulling up Fabiano’s file and checking the photograph there. It was of a skinny, angular white man who looked a little older than his twenty-eight years, with a couple of small scars on his jaw and dark eyes that seemed almost hollow.
He definitely wasn’t either of the men Paige was approaching. One of those was in his fifties, the other probably older than that, both of them with greying hair and beards. Neither one of them looked comfortable with Paige approaching, so she tried to keep her tone carefully soft, trying not to sound like a federal agent.
“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for someone I think might be around here.”
“No one around here you’d want to find,” one of the men said.
The other one grunted. “Law. Look at them. You cops. You have to tell us if you’re cops.”
“That’s not actually a rule,” Paige said, but she showed her badge anyway. “FBI. We’re looking for a guy by the name of Fabiano. Is he here?”
