Under cover.

Chapter 1:

"What do you mean we have Nothing on the writer?" 

Special agent Derek Gordon was in a fool mood since he got the report he asked to be done on their primary suspect, in a serial murder investigation. He parked his SUV, and stepped out of it to pace in the empty parking lot of a small grocery market.

 He was the lead in charge of this case, where a still unknown killer uses the story line of a famous, best selling serial thriller books, as his sophisticated Do It Yourself guides. Until a few weeks ago they had no idea the killer was doing copycat work from those books, it took a combination of google research and lucky browsing to find the disturbing similarities.

His MO until now consisted of reenacting the murders committed in the books, from the victim choice to the setting. The only difference is the Red Bow tied on the torso of the victims body. A detail they did not share with the press.  

Normally the primary suspect would be the author. He or she would have already been found and questioned, especially with the press scrutiny they were getting. But they still had no luck finding out their identity. His team had done a full background search on the books, publishing company, editor and so on. but they still could not find out anything about who wrote those novels. They fucking only had a pen name, R.B. Crow.  

It felt like the books just came up out of nowhere. There was no personal social media account associated with the author, the only one they found belonged to the publishing company.

The company itself claims to not have information about the writer. As if he could believe that. How can someone sell the products of an unknown party, unless it's for illegal purposes. They were threatened with law suit, and charges varying from hiding a suspect identity to obstruction of justice... But they still did not budge on their claim.    

So after that debacle, he got the okey from the higher up to do a full and throughout check on the company. His team had gone through they financial records, HR files, agendas, security cameras you name it. However he had just got the report concluding, that the company did in fact publish the books of a completely unanimous writer. 

Derek had gone on 2 tours in Afghanistan, spent 6 years as a homicide detective in the NYPD, and now he was an FBI lead agent with a full team for close to four years; he could honestly say that he had seen his fair share of anomalies. But this...he did not know how to process it. 

Now he was on the phone with his IT expert agent Joshua Grant -a perpetual teenager in a adult body, but a prodigy none the less- who communicated to him the maddening news.

"Boss, i have gone through all the files of the company, emails, social media accounts, financial records. You name it... This person whoever they are... they're fucking good. They are using emails made from bogus IP addresses, which pings all over the worlds before going back to starting point. While their bank accounts... well, they are all offshore and... outside of our jurisdiction."   

Fuck. "Josh, this has been the fucking irritating mantra that has plagued this case... I fucking refuse to believe that someone can do anything in this day and age without leaving a trace." 

" Its not that they are not leaving traces, per-se." Sound of plastic wrapping being opened. " It's just that they are leaving just enough--" Chewing sound. "--to make it legit while hiding the other shit they're doing with their mad skills... I swear if we were not hunting after a murderer... i would seriously consider asking for a date."

"Wait... Mad skills" He stopped pacing "...yes that's it!"

"What?" Sound of soda can being opened.

"You said so yourself, they must have mad skill if they could hide their traces, so they definitely are known in the dark web!..Someone who is this good but does not stir law enforcement attention."

"That just leave like... seventy percent of them?!"

No, we need more to narrow it down. "Where are we on the profile of the writer? did Riley add anything new to it?" 

Riley Sullivan was their Profiler, or Behavioral and psychological analyst, as she like to be called. She was a genius who graduated at the top of her class but had her last research paper refused by the department committee. They had met at one of his cases when he was still in NY, she was only a college student at the time, but had helped resolve the case and find the killer. Since then, he had taken her under his wing and suggested to her the FBI position, after she had graduated. Now she was a pain in the ass little sister, who refused to submit her report unless, they satisfied her perfectionist view. 

"I just sent her an email of what you said...wait she is on Skype. what the...?" 

"what?" 

"She said that, she had already gotten the same idea, and has completed her profile enough to run a check. Which she is doing now with Lucy! And what am i chopped liver?!" 

"Good," he got back into his SUV and started the engine. "gather the team, this has got to be the priority. I'm on my way"

"Hey, just so you know i am the IT guy, not Lucy. Everyone need to stick to..."

At that point Derek had already hang up on Josh. He hoped that this would bring results, and fast. Because the killer is still out there and they need to catch him or her.