anyway â¦â
âIt couldâve been less that she felt maternal and didnât want to see a kid die so much as that she identified with him,â Porter said.
âNow, weâre getting there,â Jenna said, winking.
âShe also used a switchblade. So maybe sheâs got a street background?â Porter said.
âCanât see it close enough to tell, but Iâd say so. Thereâs a chance it could be a collectorâs piece or the sort of blade used to cut twine on a farm, but somehow I seriously doubt it,â Dodd said.
âStreet fits. Cutters are often trauma victims. I know thatâs speculating, but letâs face it. This whole profile is a lot of guesswork based on not a whole lot of grainy video, so why not?â Porter said.
âWonder 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?â Saleda said.
âI think weâll need to wait for Irv to find my contact before we speculate too much on that,â Jenna muttered. God, she was hoping Irv could find Grey as much as she was dreading it.
Teva pointed to the monitor again, squinting. âSo, the taller figure that goes for the kidâs 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 itâs 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
âDoubt it,â Dodd said. âScout finishes her kill, then leaves the fellow attacker â damn it. Weâre 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
âTrue,â Jenna confirmed. âAnd Slender UNSUB gets in trouble in the video after she kills the boyâs mom, too, right?â
âOh, yeah!â Saleda said. âI noticed that. Two of the other attackers reacted to it ⦠or at least, in movement, it
seems
theyâre reacting. Play it again.â
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 UNSUBâs arm even with her own forehead.
Jenna grimaced as Slender UNSUBâs blade gouged directly into Rebekah Webbâs right eye. The orange/pink tone of cooked shrimp flashed in. Slender UNSUBâs movements werenât 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 victimâs 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 womanâs neck close to where the carotid artery would be.
âThatâs a lot of stabbing for one jab to the carotid,â Porter said, shaking his head.
âBut she didnât die from a severed carotid,â 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