Mason didn’t ask how Brody knew about the meeting. His past attempts to figure out Brody’s sources had been fruitless. The reporter never told him anything he didn’t want Mason to know. But the sight of the man flirting with Ava was making his spine itch.

“When are you getting married?” Mason asked Brody.

The reporter’s grin widened. “No date yet. Soon, I believe. Probably late this summer. I’m trying to break Jamie’s habit of planning every step of her life. I think we’ll take off on a whim and get married on a beach somewhere.”

“You’re not letting her plan her wedding?” Ava asked, disbelief on her face. Her admiration for the reporter had clearly dimmed, making Mason very happy.

“It’s a long story,” Brody said. “But trust me, she’s onboard.”

“Every woman wants to plan her wedding,” she argued. “Why would you stop her? Some women have been dreaming about that white dress since they watched Cinderella when they were five years old.”

Mason cocked a brow at her. Was Ava one of those women? His ex-wife had planned an elaborate event for their wedding, but he’d always felt it’d been more about her being showcased than about the fact that they were committing to each other. Did every woman want that day at the center of attention?

“It’s not like that,” Brody stated. “Jamie has plenty of ideas about how she wants to celebrate, but I get to choose the date and location as long as it doesn’t affect her job. She’s already bought a dress.” He grinned at the wary look on Ava’s face. “Don’t worry. We came to an agreement on how to move forward.”

She nodded and settled back into her chair, but looked as though she didn’t quite trust the reporter.

Good. Keep that attitude around Brody.

“You’ll let me know when you have an ID on the latest victim?” Brody said quietly to Mason.

Mason sighed. “Don’t you have someone at the medical examiner’s office who can leak you that information?”

“Of course. But I’d rather hear it from you. You don’t think I’d print something without triple-checking it first, do you?”

“Tell you what. If you get a name, give me a call, and I’ll let you know if it’s accurate,” Mason offered.

“You’ll answer the phone if you see my number?” Brody asked.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Deal.” Brody looked as satisfied as a dog with a big steak. “Last chance to get me into that BAU briefing.”

“Now you’re pushing your luck. Go away.”

Brody leaned closer to Mason. “Good luck to you. I like her.”

Brody nodded at Ava and vanished, leaving Mason speechless at the reporter’s perception.

Ava fought to keep her eyes open. The day had started early on a bridge far outside the city and felt like it would never end. She and Mason waited for Special Agent Bryan Euzent to start his briefing on his analysis of their unsub. Glancing around the room, she saw that the other agents looked as tired as she. Discreet yawns, peeks at watches, scanning of phones. The team was running on empty.

Zander slid into the chair next to her.

“Nice job at the press conference,” she told him. “You handled that idiot at the back of the room with a lot more tact than I would have.”

He shrugged. “You couldn’t see the widespread eye rolling from the other reporters. The lack of professionalism was annoying them, too.” He pinched the front of his shirt and shook it. “You also couldn’t see how I was sweating under my shirt.”

“Seriously? You seemed completely in control.”

“Public speaking isn’t my thing.”

“Careful, if Duncan hears you say that, he’ll throw you up front as much as he can to help you work through it.”

Zander shuddered. “No, thanks.”

On her other side, Mason leaned forward to speak to Zander. “What do you think about Carson Scott being chosen as the first victim to pull the FBI and early publicity to the cases?”

Ava’s mind had been spinning with the theory since Michael Brody had mentioned it.

“Are you saying that might be the only motive behind Scott’s murder?” Zander looked stunned.

Mason was grim. “No, but that’s a possibility. Maybe out of this group of men, he was chosen to make certain all eyes were on the case early on. Both the public’s eyes and the FBI.”

Zander nodded slowly. “I can see that.” He glanced at the agent opening his laptop on a table at the front of the small room. “We need to run that by Euzent.”

Special Agent Euzent didn’t look old enough to be one of the nation’s experts on criminal profiling, or old enough to have graduated from college, but his looks were deceiving. A trim man with glasses, he looked like he could kick anyone’s ass at chess. He’d flown out from Quantico, where he worked in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. He cleared his throat and the murmurs in the room quieted.

“So, your lucky city has hatched one of the odd ones, I’d say.” Euzent grinned at the choked laughter he sparked in the room. “But in my book, the weirder they are, the more interesting they are, and they provide another opportunity for us to learn.” He rubbed his hands together, and Ava could see the excited interest in his eyes. He had a specimen to dissect.

Ava understood the agent’s humor. Some might find it disrespectful to joke about the deaths, but when you dived into the minds of killers every day, you learned to remove yourself from their twistedness to protect your mental health. Sometimes humor was the best way. A bit of detachment and a view of the deaths as an important puzzle to solve were how she stayed sane. She’d learned the mental skill while working in the Crimes Against Children division.