"Right, and—" Vanessa pulls up another screen "—she's not a ghost online. I found search patterns. Judges' home addresses, daily routines, medical histories. All researched within seventy-two hours of each death. Different VPNs, different devices, but same behavioral fingerprint."
"And the FBI missed this because...?" The question comes out sharp, clipped—the voice she uses from the bench when counsel wastes her time.
"Different field offices, no centralized database access, each death looked like a random cardiac event in a different jurisdiction." Vanessa shrugs. "They were looking at geography. I was looking at behavior."
"The flowers?" I ask.
"Belladonna." Damian pulls up toxicology reports. "Atropine. Scopolamine. Mimics cardiac events." A beat. "No forced entry. No struggle."
"She published on this." Vanessa pulls up an academic abstract. "'Bioavailability and Cardiac Effects of Tropane Alkaloids.' Dosing thresholds, metabolic pathways — basically a manual for calculating lethal doses based on body weight." Hermouth twists. "The compound ratios in every autopsy match her methodology exactly."
"So she poisons them and it looks like heart attacks." Jax's leg has stopped bouncing. "Cold start, clean exit. No victory lap."
"She gets invited in somehow." Kade sets down his tablet. "Professional courtesy, maybe. Fellow expert. Whatever it is, they trust her enough to let her close."
Angelina's grip tightens on my hand. I squeeze back. Once.
"The sister." Mira speaks from her seat, voice clipped. "Rose. Victoria spent eighteen months filing reports, hiring investigators. Legal channels. Then she stopped."
"Then she started killing." Kade's voice is flat. "Best we can tell, someone reached out to her. Gave her direction. Turned her grief into a weapon."
"Who?" Xander asks.
"Don't know yet. That's what we need to find out."
No one speaks. A woman who lost everything to trafficking, now being aimed at targets by someone else.
She has been hunting Angelina. Harsh sentencing. High conviction rate. DeLuca case.
"So what's the play?" Xander sets his tablet down. "We know who she is. How do we get her?"
"That's the problem." Kade pulls up a timeline. "She's careful. Varies her timing, her approach. We could wait for her to make a move, but—"
"But she is patient." I finish his thought. "She could wait weeks."
"She is patient." Mira's voice is cool. "So am I."
"And Angelina's countdown doesn't stop." Damian's query results scroll behind him. "Eleven days."
Silence while options cycle through: surveillance, stakeouts, intercepting her travel patterns. None of them fast enough.
"We need to draw her out." Kade looks at me. "Fastest way to catch a hunter is to give her prey she can't resist."
Angelina goes still beside me.
"Bait." The word comes out flat. Final.
Every tactical response I have ever learned screams no. She is not a mission objective. She is—
"Controlled bait," Kade clarifies. "Full team coverage. We pick the location, the timing. She thinks she's hunting. She walks into a net."
"Her house." I say it before anyone else can. Seven years of surveillance means I know every angle, every sightline, every vulnerability. "Victoria knows where Angelina lives. If Angelina goes home, resumes a routine—"
"Chesca." Angelina's voice is sharp.
"Stays here." I meet her eyes. "Summer break. Vacation with the team."
"She already knows me," Xander offers. "We'll be fine."