Dead By Morning

DEAD BY MORNING

“Do you think you can put together a profile with what little information we have?” Maleah asked.

“I’m going to try,” Derek said. “The Copycat Carver has gone to a great deal of trouble to copy Jerome Browning’s MO and yet he deliberately sent the pieces of flesh he removed from the victims’ bodies to you instead of hiding them away somewhere the way Browning did. Why?”

“The reason he didn’t stick to Browning’s MO was because he wanted to send me a message.”

“Very good reasoning. We’ve agreed that for some reason, it’s important to the copycat for you to be personally involved in this case. That’s why he chose Browning to emulate.”

“Because Browning killed Noah Laborde, my former boyfriend. But the question is why me? If Nic or Griff is the real target, then . . .” She paused for a full minute. “Could it really be that simple? Is he making me jump through hoops simply because he can and he wants Nic to know he can control her best friend?”

“It’s definitely what Griff thinks and it does make a crazy kind of sense. If tormenting Nic and Griff is his objective, then he’s punishing them for some reason. He’s going to strike again and again, possibly getting closer and closer to his ultimate target with each kill, eventually discarding the Carver’s MO.”

“If that’s the case, then what are the odds that he’ll try to kill me before he moves on to Nic and Griff . . .”