Nikolett took a spot at the head of the table, the other end occupied by Nyx. Dimitri and Jakob sat together on one side, facing Annalise and Walt. Grigoris had rolled Nyx’s office chair over to sit next to and slightly behind his wife.
“Walt, can you set up my laptop?” Annalise asked.
“Do we need a whiteboard?” Nyx asked, sounding almost hopeful.
Annalise blinked. “No, but do you have a projector?”
For the first time, Nyx grinned. “I like visual aids.”
Grigoris helped Nyx set up a small projector on the tabletop, then lifted a painting down off the wall to give them a wide white surface.
Annalise was working one-handed—Walt grumbled at her each time she tried to slide her arm out of the sling—so Jakob got up and acted as her assistant. He knew how she worked, what she would need. In a way, he could imagine he was helping her prepare for a lecture.
Finally, Annalise tapped the trackpad and projected on the wall was a window showing two files. One titled “Decapitation,” the other “Dismemberment.”
Grigoris murmured something in Greek, Dimitri stiffened, and Nikolett sat forward, all their attention on the screen.
Nyx had gone perfectly still.
Annalise began. “I was asked to consult on the profile of a possible serial killer.”
“By whom?” Nyx turned dark eyes to Annalise.
Jakob tensed, the feeling that he was amongst dangerous people increasing. Annalise ignored the question.
“As you can see, the potential uniting factor is that the bodies are not left intact. From that broad categorization, there are two subcategories, each with possible different pathologies.”
Annalise clicked open the decapitation file, and a list of subfolders appeared, each bearing the name of a victim. Annalise clicked on the folder labeled Josephine O’Connor.
Nyx jumped to her feet, her chair toppling backwards. Her face was stark. Pale. “Josephine.”
Annalise looked over. “Oh, I’m sorry, I should have warned you that you might know of some of the victims.”
“Know of?” Nyx snarled.
Grigoris reached over and closed the laptop.
The projection cut off.
“We don’t…didn’t…just know her,” Grigoris said softly. “She was our wife.”
Chapter Seventeen
Annalise stared at Grigoris and Nyx, utterly horrified by what she’d just done. A wave of nausea passed through her.
Josephine had been their third? Nothing in the file the fleet admiral had given her mentioned that Josephine was married. She’d thought, given his unyielding determination to bring the killer to justice, that perhaps she and the fleet admiral had been lovers.
Nyx closed her eyes for a moment, then put a hand on her husband’s arm. When she opened her eyes, she stared straight ahead and sank down into her chair, which Grigoris had righted.
“She would have been our third,” Nyx said softly. “If she hadn’t been murdered. But most importantly, she was my friend. I felt her death keenly.”
Nikolett was looking at Nyx with such compassion that it softened the admiral, who struck Annalise as the sort to take no prisoners. Of course, at the same time, Nikolett was the kind of woman who wouldn’t have broken, wouldn’t have gone into hiding from a stalker. She would have stood her ground in the middle of the street and dared the villain to come for her, especially if, by doing so, she was protecting someone else.
Annalise glanced at Walt, then Jakob. They each smiled back at her, and she tried to let their kindness ease her guilt over upsetting Nyx.
“I’m so sorry,” Annalise said quietly. “I didn’t know.”
“Please continue,” Nyx said.
Annalise glanced at Grigoris, unwilling to traumatize Nyx any further. He was looking at his wife, but after only a moment, he nodded.
Annalise opened the lid of her laptop, her mental notes already reshuffled to approach this from a different direction.
“I am attempting to identify murders that may have been committed by the same person who killed Josephine.”
“Petro murdered her,” Nyx said softly. “Even if he didn’t actually cut off her head, he was the killer.”
Annalise nodded, but she was going to approach this as if she were giving a profile to a roomful of officers, all of whom usually had their own theories or assumptions. She had learned during briefings such as this that she had to ignore their comments, keep calm, and speak with authority.
“Our primary victim’s head is the only part of the body recovered to date.” She tapped her computer, bringing up Josephine’s autopsy report. “I’d like to warn you all there will be graphic photos of bodies in this briefing. If you’d like me to warn you before showing one of those photos so you can look away, please let me know now.”
She waited, but no one said anything.
Annalise nodded and pulled up the screen showing the original files Eric had given her. “We started with these lists. As you can see, the victims were divided broadly into those who were just decapitated, and those who were dismembered, either with or without decapitation.”
“What about that list?” Nikolett pointed. “Cross-referenced with Masters’ Admiralty. Who is in that file?”
“That isn’t important,” Annalise said.
“How could that not be important? Petro is, was, the mastermind.” Nyx sounded cold, angry.
“And we know he mentored other killers,” Dimitri added.
“Thank you for bringing that up. Let us start with the possible partnership between our unsub and Petro.
“I believe their relationship was not a full partnership. Not in the way of the González sisters, the Hillside Stranglers, or Wolfgang Abel and Marco Furlan. Nor, I think, is the unsub we’re looking for the submissive partner, but I will explain my reasoning for that further in a moment.
“What we have here is a partnership where, I believe, both parties considered themselves the dominant partner.” Everyone, including Jakob and Walt, looked at her. This was news to them too, because it was part of the profile she hadn’t been able to give at the coffee shop meeting with Eric before they were interrupted.
“Petro provided resources, and in at least one instance that we know of, identified a victim, using our unknown subject as a weapon.” She very carefully didn’t mention Josephine’s name again.
“Why would he think he’s in charge if Petro was telling him who to kill?” Walt asked.
“Have you ever worked in a hospital, a large one?” Annalise asked, deciding it might be easier to explain this by way of analogy.
“Well, during my residency, yes. And I was in the military, so if you want to talk about large organizations…”
“And did you have people above you in rank, or with more authority than you, but who were not doctors? They knew less about how to treat a patient, about medicine and taking care of another person, yet had some authority over how you did your job.”
Jakob’s brows rose and he sat back, a sort of faraway expression in his eyes. He’d figured out not only where this conversation was going, but the implications.
Her best student.
Walt nodded. “Okay, Dr. Fischer, I see what you mean.”