Borderline by Chase T. A. Page A

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    Tanner hung up and settled back at his desk, opening the software to enlarge the particular part of the pictures interesting him. He printed multiple copies of them and taped one print to each collection of photographs on the board. The other set he carried to a chair he placed next to the window in his office. He’d grabbed a magnifying glass out of his desk as he went by.
    Why did the carving intrigue him so much? All his instincts told him it held the secret to the killer’s identity. Yet he could already tell something about the man from the photographs. He’d written down some of his thoughts and would type a preliminary report for Sam and Captain Billingsley, including everything he’d told Mac the night before.
    What was the Knife’s most important ritual? The one thing he had to do to get any satisfaction from killing? Tanner scrubbed his chin and squinted out the window.
    Damn ! He was going to have to go through all the evidence collected at the scenes. He hated touching items connected to such violent murders. At times, it felt like the pain and horror of the victims rubbed off on him. After especially horrific cases, he would take a vacation to the islands or even up into the Rockies, trying to erase from his psyche all the hatred and insanity.
    He understood he wouldn’t be able to profile much longer. He didn’t have the right mind-set to do it for the rest of his life. Too much violence and death marked a man deep inside, even when he was only responsible for cleaning up the aftermath. He was starting to wish he worked somewhere preventing the violence or trying to stop it before it got as far as someone dying.
    His desk phone rang, and he went to answer it. “Wallace.”
    “Our meeting is in an hour at your office. You want me to bring anything?”
    “No. I’ll be ready.” He smiled at Mac’s brisk question. “See you in an hour.”
    “See you then.”
    Mac hung up, and Tanner shook his head. The man didn’t seem big on conversation, and it didn’t upset Tanner. He’d learned long ago to deal with silence because it was just him and his mom while he was growing up. His mom also never encouraged him to have many friends. He understood her reasoning, but he’d been lonely as a child until he learned why they had to keep to themselves.
    Tanner never once questioned his mother’s choices for their lives. He hardly missed his father once the man was out of the picture. Of course Tanner’s dad had never had much to do with him. He’d been too busy with his business, so Tanner always hung out with his mother, and when they moved to the States, he’d accepted his new home.
    After opening the top left drawer of his desk, he pulled out a framed picture. He sat down and leaned back in his chair, staring at the photo. It had been taken when he graduated from college. His mother had been so proud of him, and he’d been excited. As far as Tanner knew, he was the first of his family to graduate from high school, much less college. Once he got a job with the FBI, he’d been able to help his mother out with bills. She only stopped working when she was diagnosed with cancer.
    He took after her in his lean build and dark eyes. Until she got sick, she’d looked more like his older sister than his mother, and she always joked about that with him. The months before she died were some of the most difficult he’d gone through, because he was alone with his grief. She wouldn’t let him dwell on it. She kept him laughing, though she did admit she regretted not being able to see him settled down and in love.
    Coming out to his mother turned out to be easier than he’d expected. She had cried when he told her, and he thought it was because he disappointed her. She’d held his face and smiled up at him, explaining in her heavily accented English he could never disappoint her. She cried because it would be a tough journey he’d undertaken, and since she believed God didn’t make mistakes, she knew he