Flash Point by Colby Marshall Page A

anyway …’
    â€˜It could’ve been less that she felt maternal and didn’t want to see a kid die so much as that she identified with him,’ Porter said.
    â€˜Now, we’re getting there,’ Jenna said, winking.
    â€˜She also used a switchblade. So maybe she’s got a street background?’ Porter said.
    â€˜Can’t see it close enough to tell, but I’d say so. There’s a chance it could be a collector’s piece or the sort of blade used to cut twine on a farm, but somehow I seriously doubt it,’ Dodd said.
    â€˜Street fits. Cutters are often trauma victims. I know that’s speculating, but let’s face it. This whole profile is a lot of guesswork based on not a whole lot of grainy video, so why not?’ Porter said.
    â€˜Wonder what the significance of the name Scout is? I get the
To Kill a Mockingbird
reference, but is it just a random book character, or is there more to it?’ Saleda said.
    â€˜I think we’ll need to wait for Irv to find my contact before we speculate too much on that,’ Jenna muttered. God, she was hoping Irv could find Grey as much as she was dreading it.
    Teva pointed to the monitor again, squinting. ‘So, the taller figure that goes for the kid’s mother. Definitely feminine. Maybe those two know each other, since they sort of attacked together? I mean, I realize
all
the attackers
know each other. But as many of them as there are, I figure it’s more likely they were closer to like-minded acquaintances when they somehow met, eventually formed the group, rather than them all being blood relatives playing bank killers as a family reunion game. But maybe some of them
within
the group are closer, had a relationship outside of just the whole, you know,
terrorist thing.
’
    â€˜Doubt it,’ Dodd said. ‘Scout finishes her kill, then leaves the fellow attacker – damn it. We’re gonna have so many UNSUB code names before this case is over I might have to keep them written on my hand to keep track, but even I have to admit calling them just attacker or UNSUB makes it hard to distinguish any of them. But yeah, Scout does her own business, then leaves the slender UNSUB alone to do her thing while she freaks out off by herself.’
    â€˜True,’ Jenna confirmed. ‘And Slender UNSUB gets in trouble in the video after she kills the boy’s mom, too, right?’
    â€˜Oh, yeah!’ Saleda said. ‘I noticed that. Two of the other attackers reacted to it … or at least, in movement, it
seems
they’re reacting. Play it again.’
    All eyes turned to the video to watch as, on the screen, Slender UNSUB rushed toward the lanky victim they now knew to be forty-three-year-old Rebekah Webb, holding some sort of small blade high, Slender UNSUB’s arm even with her own forehead.
    Jenna grimaced as Slender UNSUB’s blade gouged directly into Rebekah Webb’s right eye. The orange/pink tone of cooked shrimp flashed in. Slender UNSUB’s movements weren’t sloppy, which was why the shrimp color had come in instead of cornflower blue. They were determined, just not very graceful. She had a cumbersomeness about her. Even as Slender UNSUB whirled around the victim and produced a second knife, which she plunged downward into the victim’s neck, she still displayed an awkwardness in her movement not hidden by the swift and decisive violent blows.
    The woman collapsed as the stab to the back of her neck hit the spinal cord. Slender UNSUB smoothly removed the blade, then took a swift shot to the side of the woman’s neck close to where the carotid artery would be.
    â€˜That’s a lot of stabbing for one jab to the carotid,’ Porter said, shaking his head.
    â€˜But she didn’t die from a severed carotid,’ Saleda said, flipping pages inside one of the folders. She traced a page with her finger, then, she tapped her pointer finger hard on a specific