Profiled Read Online Free PDF

Talton marked the beginning of another killing spree, which she did. John knew the killer had returned. And he had to end it this time for good. And for Abby.
    He flipped through page after page of documented evidence, autopsy reports, crime scene photos and pictures of each victim. All blonde. All pregnant. All single.
    The same signature. The same MO. And the same sick feeling in the pit of John’s stomach.
    Each woman smiled back at him from the page, but one pierced his heart more than any other. He moved through the six women of 1985, the seven from ‘92, then slowed his progression as he started through 1999’s victims.
    “Why, Abby, why?”
    Abigail Lynette Tucker beamed from the page and looked as beautiful as she had the day of the photo, their wedding day. The questions that had plagued him throughout the past fourteen years whispered through his mind once more.
    Was it a boy or a girl? Why hadn’t she told him she was pregnant?
    The police hadn’t requested a DNA test to verify paternity for the child, had assumed John was the father, since he and his wife had been separated for a couple of weeks when the murder occurred. But Abby started cheating well before they separated. She’d admitted it, even if she hadn’t acknowledged whom she’d fallen for when he’d spent his days and nights trying to capture the Sunrise Killer.
    While he put everything he had into sparing additional victims, his marriage disintegrated. Then Abby fell in love with someone else, got pregnant and became the perfect target to be murdered by the very killer John had been chasing. And then, as if his life couldn’t get any worse, the FBI profiler penned him as the perfect fit for their wanted man.
    Fourteen years had passed since the nightmare of 1999, and John still had to overcome the whispers, the memories, the suspicions. Even though the Feds never had enough to bring him in, that hadn’t stopped folks around town from talking. And it sure hadn’t kept them from dragging his name through mud as thick and unforgiving as Georgia’s red clay.
    He forced his clenched teeth apart and took a deep, cleansing breath. He’d made it through 1999, then 2006 and another set of murders and rumors, unscathed. But he’d also ended both years without apprehending the killer. This year would be different. One way or another, he’d put an end to this thing. One way. Or another.
    His phone rang, and he snatched it from his desk. “Tucker.”
    “Detective Tucker?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Leon Hawkins.”
    John closed his eyes. Knowing that this call would come didn’t make the reality any easier. “Agent Hawkins, what can I do for you?”
    As profile coordinator for the FBI’s Atlanta field office, Leon Hawkins would deliver the news that John would, once again, have to work with someone who’d see him as the perfect depiction of a serial killer. Although he had expected Leon’s call, John had hoped the Feds would give him full reign this time.
    No such luck.
    This morning John had received the District Attorney’s direct order to send his list of potential task force members to Atlanta to be authenticated and accepted by the powers that be. The Feds had evaluated his prospects and were ready to get the show on the road which meant, he assumed, sending their own person, or people, to join his team. John didn’t know how he’d control himself if Stanley Carlton stepped one foot in Macon.
    Stan, a young, determined, egotistical jerk, had placed a glaring spotlight on Tucker during the 1999 murders. The FBI and Macon PD hadn’t generated an official task force that year, but Carlton drove in from Atlanta in his big black car and delivered his spiel identifying John Tucker as a manipulative, conniving killer. Then he left town, while John faced endless speculation.
    But Carlton couldn’t put Tucker with his wife at the time of her murder. He had an airtight alibi, meeting with the father of victim number three. John had watched the wind