Crush

ALSO BY ALAN JACOBSON

False Accusations

The Hunted

The 7th Victim

For Corey, Matthew, and Danielle:

You are the branches on my tree that keep on giving.

And I’m the old stump.

I love you all, to the moon and back.

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

—SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, WRITING AS SHERLOCK HOLMES

“You see, but you do not observe.”

—SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, WRITING AS SHERLOCK HOLMES

“In wine there is truth.”

—ROMAN PROVERB

“O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.”

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

PROLOGUE

675 15th Street NW

Washington, DC

“So the dick says to the woman, ‘I got nothing.’” Karen Vail burst out laughing. Here she was, out on the town with Detective Mandisa Manette—just about the unlikeliest of acquaintances she’d socialize with—and she was guffawing at another of Manette’s crass jokes. But she noticed Manette was not enjoying her own punch line. In fact, Manette’s face was hard, her gaze fixed. And her hand was slowly reaching inside her jacket. For her weapon.

“Don’t wanna ruin your evening,” Manette said, “but there’s a guy packing, and he looks real nervous. Over your left shoulder.”

Vail turned slowly and casually snatched a glimpse of the man. Six foot, broad, and as Manette noted, under duress. Sweating, eyes darting around the street. In a minute, his gaze would land on Vail and Manette. The guy looks familiar. Why? She watched his mannerisms and then, as his head turned three quarters toward them, she got a better look at him and—

Oh, crap. I know who he is. In a few seconds, he’d probably make them as cops, and then the shit would hit the fan. The image conjured up a mess—and that’s what would no doubt result.

Vail quickly turned away. “Don’t look at him. Definitely bad news, and stressed as hell. With good reason. That’s Danny Michael Yates.”

Manette’s eyes widened. “No way. The goddamn cop killer? You sure?”

Vail slid her hand down to her Velcro pouch. “Damn sure. What do you want to do?”

Manette moved her hand behind her back, no doubt resting it on her pistol. “Make a call, DC Metro, let ’em know what we got here. I’m gonna circle around behind him.”

Vail pulled out her phone and made the call. With her back to Yates, she watched him in the reflection of the Old Ebbitt Grill storefront. Meantime, she assessed the situation. The sidewalk was knotted with people waiting for tables, enjoying a drink with friends, spouses, and business associates. She wished she could yell, “Everyone down!” so they wouldn’t get hurt. Because she had an intense feeling that this was going to get very ugly, very fast.

Vail ended the call and slipped the BlackBerry into her pocket, her right hand firmly on the Glock 23 that was buried in the pouch below her abdomen.

She made eye contact with Manette’s reflection in the window and nodded, then stole a glance at Yates. He looked at Vail at precisely that moment, and Fuck—he made me—

Yates turned and pushed through the clot of people standing behind him. Vail followed, doing her best to navigate the tumbled bodies with her still-sore postsurgical knee. Manette, she figured, was also in pursuit. Manette was tall and thin, and she looked athletic—whether she was or not, Vail could only guess—but she had to be faster than Vail and her recently repaired leg.

She caught a glimpse of Yates as he turned left on H Street—and, yup, there was Manette, pumping away, in close proximity. Christ, this was not what she had in mind when she suggested they have a girls’ night out.

Vail turned the corner and picked up Manette as she kept up her pursuit of Yates. The shine of Manette’s handgun caught the street-light’s amber glow and suddenly a bad feeling crept down Vail’s spine. They were extremely close to the White House, where Secret Service agents and police outnumbered the citizens in the immediate vicinity. Snipers were permanently stationed on the roof, and—here was a black woman, chasing a white man, a big gleaming pistol in her right hand. No uniform. No visible badge.

This was not going to turn out well, and Vail had a sinking feeling it would have nothing to do with Danny Michael Yates.

Yates veered left, into Lafayette Park, and damn, if the guy wasn’t a stupid one—he was headed straight for the wrought iron of the White House gate. Stupid isn’t quite the word . . . insane might be more like it. Vail heard Manette yell, “Police, freeze!”

It had no effect on Yates except to have him veer left, parallel to the iron fence—which he had to do anyway.

But Vail had her answer: Manette was apparently a superb athlete, because she was now only fifteen yards behind Yates, who was moving pretty well himself.

Lights snapped on. An alarm went off.

Vail fumbled to pull her credentials from her purse, then splayed them open in her left hand, held high above her head, the Glock in her right hand, bouncing along with her strides. Showing the snipers she was a federal agent, not a threat to the president. And hopefully, by association, they’d realize Manette was a cop, too.

But as she processed that thought, a gunshot stung her ears like a stab to her heart. And Manette went down. Only it wasn’t a sniper or diligent Secret Service agent. It was Danny Michael Yates, who had turned and buried a round in Manette’s groin. She went down hard and fast.

And she was writhing on the ground. DC Metro police appeared behind Yates and drew down on him. Half a dozen Secret Service agents traversed the White House lawn with guns drawn and suit coats flapping. Snipers on the roof swung their rifles toward the plaza, their red laser dots dancing on clothing and pavement.

Vail brought up the rear, huffing and puffing, the cold night DC air burning her throat. She was heaving, sucking oxygen, when a weak “FBI!” scraped from her throat. She stopped fifteen feet from Yates, who was inching closer to Manette.

“She’s a cop,” Vail yelled. “She’s a cop!” She wanted all the law enforcement personnel on scene to understand what was going on. Manette was on the ground, her handgun a foot from her hand. But she was in no condition to reach for it. She was curled into a fetal position.

Yates took a step closer to her, and his gun—it looked like a Beretta—was raised slightly, pointing vaguely toward Manette. “Stop right there,” Vail yelled. “Take another step and it’ll be your last!”

“Just kill me now,” Yates said. “Because there ain’t no way you’re taking me in. I killed a cop, you think I’ll make it through the night alive in lockup?”

“I’ll personally guarantee your safety, Danny.” Vail stood there with her Glock now in both hands, her credentials case on the ground at her feet, spread open, her Bureau badge visible for all who cared to look. “I’ll make sure you get your day in court. I understand the way you think, I know you didn’t mean to kill that cop.”

“Bullshit. I did mean to kill him! I fucking hate cops, they raped my mother. You bet I wanted to kill him!”

Damn, he’s a dumb shit. No hope for this one. Served up a valid defense for his actions and he tells me I’m wrong.

“There’s only one way this can end good, Danny. You put the gun down and let me help my partner there. You got that?”

Yates took another step forward, his Beretta now aimed point-blank at Manette. Vail brought up her Glock, tritium sights lined up on the perp’s head.

“Now,” Vail yelled. “Drop the fucking gun!”

But Yates’s elbow straightened. His hand muscles stiffened.

Given the angle, no one else could see what she could see. He didn’t ‘drop the fucking gun,’ so Vail shot him. Blasted him right in the head. And then she drilled him in the center mass, to knock him back, make sure he didn’t accidentally unload on Manette as his brain went flat line. Two quick shots. Overkill? Maybe. But at the moment, truth be told, she didn’t really care.

Yates fell to the ground. Vail ran to Manette. Grabbed her, cradled her. “Manny—Manny, you okay?”

Manette’s face was drenched with sweat, pain contorted in the intense creases of her face.

And then Vail lost it. She felt the sudden release, the stress of the past couple of months hitting her with the force of a tornado, knocking her back against the lower stonework of the White House fence.

Commotion around her, frantic footsteps, shouting, jostling. Someone in a blue shirt and silver badge knelt in front of her and pried the Glock from her hand.

DARK-SUITED SECRET SERVICE AGENTS stood in front of the White House fence, stiff and tense. White, red, and blue Metro Police cars sat idling fifty yards away. Half a dozen motorcycle cops in white shirt/black pant uniforms milled about.

Thomas Gifford, the Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge who oversees the Behavioral Analysis Units, badged the nearby Secret Service agent and walked to the ambulance backed up against the short, concrete pillars that sprung from the pavement. Vail sat on the Metro Medical Response vehicle’s flat bumper, her gaze fixed somewhere on the cement.

Gifford stopped a couple of feet in front of her and raked a hand through his hair, as if stalling for time because he didn’t know what to say. “I thought you had dinner reservations. You told me when you left the office you had to leave early.”

“Yeah. I did. And then we saw Yates, and I called it in—”

“Okay,” Gifford said, holding up a hand. “Forget about all that for now. How are you doing?”

Vail stood up, uncoiled her body, and stretched. “I’m fine. Any news on Mandisa?”

“Going into surgery. Shattered pelvis. But the round missed the major arteries, so she’ll be okay. She’ll need some rehab, but she’s lucky. She’s lucky you were there.”

“With all the snipers and Secret Service and DC police around? I think she would’ve been fine without me.”

“That’s not what I’m hearing. They were assessing the situation, moving into position, trying to sort out what the hell was going on. The snipers weren’t going to act unless there was a perceived threat to the president. And callous as it may seem, Danny Michael Yates was only a threat to you and Detective Manette. After Yates said he’d killed a cop, Metro started to put it together. But I honestly don’t know if any of them would’ve shot him before you did. You saved her life, Karen.”

Vail took a deep, uneven breath. “I had a good angle, I saw his arm, his hand—I knew he was going to pull that trigger.”

Gifford looked away, glancing around at all the on-scene law enforcement personnel. “You still seeing the shrink?”

Vail nodded.

“Good. First thing in the morning, I want you back in his office. Then get out of town for a while. Clear your head. A couple months after Dead Eyes, this is the last thing you needed.”

A smile teased the ends of her mouth.

“What?” Gifford asked.

“It’s not often we agree on anything. I usually have some smartass comeback for you. But in this case, I’ve got nothing.”

Vail realized that had been the punch line of the joke Manette had told earlier in the evening. It didn’t seem so funny now.

Vail headed for her car, looking forward to—finally—getting out of town. Where? Didn’t matter. Anywhere but here.

ONE

St. Helena, California

The Napa Valley

The crush of a grape is not unlike life itself: You press and squeeze until the juice flows from its essence, and it dies a sudden, pathetic death. Devoid of its lifeblood, its body shrivels and is then discarded. Scattered about. Used as fertilizer, returned to the earth. Dust in the wind.

But despite the region in which John Mayfield worked—the Napa Valley—the crush of death wasn’t reserved just for grapes.

John Mayfield liked his name. It reminded him of harvest and sunny vineyards.

He had, however, made one minor modification: His mother hadn’t given him a middle name, so he chose one himself—Wayne. Given his avocation, “John Wayne” implied a tough guy image with star power. It also was a play on John Wayne Gacy, a notorious serial killer. And serial killers almost always were known in the public consciousness by three names. His persona—soon to be realized worldwide—needed to be polished and prepared.

Mayfield surveyed the room. He looked down at the woman, no longer breathing, in short order to resemble the shriveled husk of a crushed grape. He switched on his camera and made sure the lens captured the blood draining from her arm, the thirsty soil beneath her drinking it up as if it had been waiting for centuries to be nourished. Her fluid pooled a bit, then was slowly sucked beneath the surface.

A noise nearby broke his trance. He didn’t have much time. He could have chosen his kill zone differently, to remove all risk. But it wasn’t about avoiding detection. There was so much more to it.

The woman didn’t appreciate his greatness, his power. She didn’t see him for the unique person that he was. Her loss.

Mayfield wiped the knife of fingerprints and, using the clean handkerchief, slipped the sharp utensil beneath the dead woman’s lower back. He stood up, kicked the loose dirt aside beneath his feet, scattering his footprints, then backed away.

TWO

As Karen Vail walked the grounds of the Mountain Crest Bed & Breakfast, holding the hand of Roberto Enrique Umberto Hernandez, she stopped at the edge of a neighboring vineyard. She looked out over the vines, the sun setting a hot orange in the March chill.

“You’ve been quiet since we got off the plane. Still thinking about your application to the Academy?”

“Am I that transparent?” Robby asked.

“Only to a sharp FBI profiler.”

Robby cradled a tangle of vines in his large hand. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking about.”

“You’ll get into the Academy, Robby. Maybe not right away, with the budget cutbacks, but I promise. You’ll make the cut.”

“Bledsoe said he could get me something with Fairfax County.”

“Really? You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t want to say anything about it. I don’t really want it. If I talk about it, it might come true.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

He shrugged a shoulder.

“Fairfax would be a step up over Vienna. It’s a huge department. Lots more action.”

“I know. It’s just that there’s an eleven-year wait to become a profiler once I get into the Academy. The longer it takes to get into the Bureau, the longer I have to wait.”

“Why don’t you call Gifford,” Vail asked. “I thought he owes you. Because of your mother. Because of their relationship.”

“That was Gifford’s perception, not mine. He promised her he’d look after me.” Robby glanced off a moment, then said, “He doesn’t owe me anything. And I don’t want any favors.”

“How about I look into it, quietly, under the radar, when we get home?”

Robby chewed on that. “Maybe.”

“I can call first thing in the morning, put out a feeler.”

“No. We’re here on vacation, to get away from all that stuff. It’ll wait.”

They turned and walked toward their room, The Hot Date, which was in a separate building off the main house. According to the information on the website, it was the largest in the facility, featuring spacious main sleeping quarters, a sitting area with a private porch and view of the vines, and a jetted tub in the bathroom. A wooden sign, red with painted flames, hung dead center on the door.

Vail felt around in her pocket for the key they’d been given when they checked in fifteen minutes ago. “You sure?”

“Absolutely sure. I’m wiping it from my mind right now. Nothing but fun from here on out. Okay?”

Vail fit the key into the lock and turned it. “Works for me.” She swung the door open and looked around at the frilly décor of the room. She kicked off her shoes, ran forward, and jumped onto the bed, bouncing up and down like a five-year-old kid. “This could be fun,” she said with a wink.

Robby stood a few feet away, hands on his hips, grinning widely. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Nothing but fun from here on out, right? Not a worry in the world? No serial killers dancing around in our heads, no ASACs or lieutenants ordering us around. No job decisions. And no excess testosterone floating on the air.”

“The name of this room is The Hot Date, right? That should be our theme for the week.”

“Count me in.”

“That’s good,” Robby said. “Because a hot date for one isn’t much fun.”

Vail hopped to the side of the bed, stood up precariously on the edge, and grabbed Robby’s collar with both hands. She fell forward into him, but at six foot seven, he easily swept her off the bed and onto the floor, then kissed her hard.

He leaned back and she looked up at his face. “You know,” Vail said, “I flew cross-country to Napa for the fine wine and truffles, but that was pretty freaking good, Hernandez.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s just a tasting. If you want the whole bottle, it’ll cost you.”

As he leaned in for another kiss, her gaze caught sight of the wall clock. “Oh—” The word rode on his lips and made him pull away. “Our tour.”

“Our what?”

“I told you. Don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Uh, yeah, I, uh—”

“The wine cave thing, that tour we booked through your friend—”

“The tasting, the dinner in the cave.” He smiled and raised his brow. “See, I do listen to you.”

“We’ve gotta leave now. It’s about twenty minutes away.”

“You sure?” He nodded behind her. “Bed, Cabernet, chocolate, sex . . .”

She pushed him away in mock anger. “That’s not fair, Robby. You know that? We’ve got this appointment, it’s expensive, like two hundred bucks each, and you just want to blow it off?”

“I can think of something else to blow off.”

Vail twisted her lips into a mock frown. “I guess five minutes won’t hurt.”

“We’ll speed to make up the time. We’re cops, right? If we’re pulled over, we’ll badge the officer—”

Vail placed a finger over his lips. “You’re wasting time.”

THEY ARRIVED FIVE MINUTES LATE. The California Highway Patrol was not on duty—at least along the strip of Route 29 they traversed quite a few miles per hour over the limit—and they pulled into the parking lot smelling of chocolate and, well, the perfume of intimacy.

They sat in the Silver Ridge Estates private tasting room around a table with a dozen others, listening to a sommelier expound the virtues of the wines they were about to taste. They learned about the different climates where the grapes were grown, why the region’s wind patterns and mix of daytime heat and chilly evenings provided optimum conditions for growing premium grapes. Vail played footsie with Robby beneath the table, but Robby kept a stoic face, refusing to give in to her childish playfulness.

That is, until she realized she was reaching too far and had been stroking the leg of the graying fifty-something man beside Robby, whose name tag read “Bill (Oklahoma).” When Bill from Oklahoma turned to face her with a surprised look on his face, Vail realized her error and shaded the same red as the Pinot Noir on the table in front of them.

“Okay,” the sommelier said. “We’re going to go across the way into our wine cave, where we’ll talk about the best temperatures for storing our wine. Then we’ll do a tasting in a special room of the cave and discuss pairings, what we’re about to eat, with which wine—and why—before dinner is served.”

As they rose from the table, Robby leaned forward to ask the sommelier a question about the delicate color of the Pinot. Oklahoma Bill slid beside Vail, but before he could speak, she said, “My mistake, buddy. Not gonna happen.”

Bill seemed to be mulling his options, planning a counterattack. But Vail put an end to any further pursuit by cutting him off with a slow, firm, “Don’t even think about it.”

Bill obviously sensed the tightness in her voice and backed away as if she had threatened him physically. Judging by the visible tension in Vail’s forearm muscles, that probably wasn’t far from the truth.

They shuffled through the breezeway of the winery, their tour guide explaining the various sculptures that were set back in alcoves in the walls, and how they had been gathered over the course of five decades, one from each continent. When they passed through the mouth of the wine cave, the drop in temperature was immediately discernable.

“The cave is a near-constant fifty-five degrees, which is perfect for storing our reds,” the guide said. The group crowded into the side room that extended off the main corridor. “One thing about the way we grow our grapes,” the woman said. “We plant more vines per square foot than your typical winery because we believe in stressing our vines, making them compete for water and nutrients. It forces their roots deeper into the ground and results in smaller fruit, which gives more skin surface area compared to the juice. And since the skin is what gives a red varietal most of its flavor, you can see why our wines are more complex and flavorful.”

She stopped beside a color-true model of two grapevines that appeared poised to illustrate her point, but before she could continue her explanation, a male guide came from a deeper portion of the cave, ushering another group along toward the exit. He leaned into the female guide’s ear and said something. Her eyes widened, then she moved forward, arms splayed wide like an eagle. “Okay, everyone, we have to go back into the tasting area for a while.” She swallowed hard and cleared her throat, as if there was something caught, then said, “I’m terribly sorry for this interruption, but we’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”

Vail caught a glimpse of a husky Hispanic worker who was bringing up the rear. She elbowed Robby and nodded toward the guy. “Something’s wrong, look at his face.” She moved against the stream of exiting guests and grabbed the man’s arm.

“What’s going on?” Vail asked.

“Nothing, sigñora, all’s good. Just a . . . the power is out, it’s very dark. Please, go back to the tasting room—”

“It’s okay,” Robby said. “We’re cops.”

“Policia?”

“Something like that.” Vail held up her FBI credentials and badge. “What’s wrong?”

“Who say there is something wrong?”

“It’s my job to read people. Your face tells a story, señor. Now—” she motioned with her fingers. “What’s the deal?”

He looked toward the mouth of cave, where most of the guests had already exited. “I did not tell you, right?”

“Of course not. Now . . . tell us, what?”

“A body. A dead body. Back there,” he said, motioning behind him with a thumb.

“How do you know the person’s dead?”

“Because she cut up bad, señora. Her . . . uh, los pechos . . . her . . . tits—are cut off.”

Robby looked over the guy’s shoulder, off into the darkness. “Are you sure?”

“I found the body, yes, I am sure.”

“What’s your name?”

“Miguel Ortiz.”

“You have a flashlight, Miguel?” Vail asked.

The large man rooted out a set of keys from his pocket, pulled off a small LED light and handed it to her.

“Wait here. Don’t let anyone else past you. You have security at the winery?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then call them on your cell,” Vail said, as she and Robby backed away, deeper into the tunnel. “Tell them to shut this place down tight. No one in or out. No one.”

AS A FEDERAL AGENT, Karen Vail was required to carry her sidearm wherever she traveled. But Robby, being a state officer, transported his weapon in a locked box, and it had to remain there; he was not permitted to carry it on his person. This fact was not lost on Vail as she removed her sidearm from her Velcro fanny pack. She reached down to her ankle holster and pulled a smaller Glock 27 and handed it to Robby.

They moved slowly through the dim cave. The walls were roughened gunite, dirt brown and cold to the touch. The sprayed cement blend gave the sense of being in a real cave, save for its surface uniformity.

“You okay in here?” Robby asked.

“Don’t ask. I’m trying not to think about it.” But she had no choice. Vail had developed claustrophobia after the recent incident in the Dead Eyes Killer’s lair. Though she never had experienced such intense anxiety, it was suddenly a prominent part of her life. Going into certain parking garages, through commuter tunnels, and even into crammed elevators became a fretful experience. But it wasn’t consistent. Sometimes it was worse than others.

Overall, it was inconvenient—and no fun admitting you had such an irrational weakness. But she was now afflicted with the malady and she did her best to control it. Control? Not exactly. It controlled her. Manage it was more accurate. Take her mind off it, talk herself through it until she could move into roomier quarters.

Sometimes, though, she thought she might actually claw through walls to get out. Getting squeezed into an elevator was the worst. For some reason, people didn’t mind cramming against you if the alternative meant waiting another minute or two for the next car.

Vail slung her purse over her shoulder so it rested on her back, then moved the weak light around, taking care not to tread on anything that might constitute evidence.

“Maybe we should call it in,” Robby said. “Let the locals handle it.”

“The locals? This isn’t exactly Los Angeles, Robby. I seriously doubt they have a whole lot of murders out here. If the vic’s been cut like Miguel says, the local cops’ll be out of their league. They’re going to look at the crime scene but won’t know what they’re seeing.”

“Beyond the obvious, you mean.”

“The obvious to me and the obvious to a homicide detective are not the same things, Robby. You know that. When you encounter something unusual—no matter what profession you’re talking about—would you rather hire someone who’s seen that unusual thing a thousand times, or someone who’s only seen it once or twice?”

“If we do find something, we won’t have a choice. We’ve got no jurisdiction here.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

They turned left down another tunnel, which opened into a large storage room of approximately a thousand square feet. Hundreds of French oak barrels sat on their sides, stacked one atop the other, three rows high and what must’ve been fifty rows long. A few candelabras with low-output lightbulbs hung from above, providing dim illumination. The walls and ceiling were constructed of roughened multicolored brick, with multiple arched ceilings that rose and plunged and joined one another to form columns every fifteen feet, giving the feel of a room filled with majestic gazebos.

A forklift sat dormant on the left, pointing at an opening along the right wall, where, amidst a break in the barrels, was another room. They moved toward it, Vail shining the flashlight in a systematic manner from left to right as they walked. They stepped carefully, foot by foot, to avoid errant hoses and other objects like . . . a mutilated woman’s body.

They entered the anteroom and saw a lump in the darkness on the ground.

Robby said, “That bridge you just mentioned? I think we just came to it.”

“Shit,” Vail said.

“You didn’t think Miguel was pulling our leg, did you? He looked pretty freaked out.”

“No, I figured he saw something. I was just hoping it was a sack of potatoes, and in some kind of wine-induced stupor, he thought it was a dead woman.”

“With her breasts cut off?”

“Hey, I’m an optimist, okay?”

Robby looked at her. “You’re an optimist?”

As they stood there, Vail couldn’t take her eyes off the body. She’d come to Napa to relax, to get away from work. Yet lying on the cold ground a little over twenty feet away was an all-too-obvious reminder of what she’d come here to escape.

Then she mentally slapped herself. She was pissed at having her vacation ruined. The woman in front of her had her life ruined.

Vail took a deep breath. “You have cell service? We need to call this in.”

Robby flipped open his phone. “No bars.”

“No bars in Napa? Some other time and place, that would be funny.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Humor is the best defense mechanism. Honestly, this sucks, Karen. You needed the time away. It was my idea to come here. I’m sorry.”

“As our colleague Mandisa Manette is fond of saying, ‘Sometimes life just sucks the big one.’” Vail’s thoughts momentarily shifted to Manette, how she was doing in recovery. It didn’t last long, as the snap of Robby’s phone closing brought her back to the here and now.

“Okay,” Vail said, “one of us goes, just to see if she’s alive. We don’t want to totally destroy the crime scene.”

“Might as well be you,” Robby said. “Get a close look, see if you see anything worthwhile.”

Vail stood there, but didn’t move. “I already see stuff that’s worthwhile.” She sighed in resignation, then stepped forward. “Like you said earlier, nothing but fun from here on out.”

THREE

Vail crouched a few feet from the body, outside the penumbra of bloody soil, and shone the flashlight across the woman’s face, then worked her way over the chest, and on down to the leather shoes.

Robby stood twenty feet away, well beyond the visible field. “Feel her pulse.”

“Yeah, no need to. She’s done. Too much blood loss. No color left in the face.”

“Check it, just—just to be sure.”

Vail frowned, shifted her weight, and said, “I know death, Robby. I’m sure. Dead as the wood in those oak barrels back there.”

Vail continued surveying the body with the light. Miguel was correct—the woman’s breasts were severed, but then she never truly doubted that Miguel saw what he thought he saw. It’s kind of a hard thing to get wrong, even when stunned with fear.

“Sharp knife, probably a few inches in length.” She examined the slices, which were surprisingly clean. “No hesitation marks. Definitely not the first time this UNSUB has killed,” she said, using the law enforcement abbreviation for “Unknown Subject.”

“Any ritual behaviors?” Robby asked.

“Ritual” was a term used by profilers to describe unique activities a serial killer engages in with his victim’s body. Like a behavioral fingerprint, they were vital to understanding or identifying a particular killer.

Vail pointed at the victim’s chest. “For one, severing the breasts is a biggie.”

“Yeah,” Robby said. He cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I mean, aside from that.”

“Her pants and underwear are pulled down to her knees. If there was penetration of any sort, pulling down the pants wouldn’t be ritualistic, but if there wasn’t any sexual assault involved, then it would be. Follow me?”

“Yeah. If he pulled down her pants and . . . violated her, then there’s a reason for pulling the pants down. If he didn’t violate her, there’s no reason to pull down her pants. In which case it’s probably related to his messed up childhood.”

“Righto. But keep in mind that it’s hard to draw conclusions on only one finding. There could be staging involved, so it’s impossible to say for sure just yet.”

“Staging. To throw off the cops?”

Vail pulled a pen from her pocket and gently nudged away the woman’s collar. “If he’s killed before, he may try to create a different looking crime scene, or the appearance of a new motive, just to misdirect us. That’s why we have to consider the totality of the circumstances.”

“And what would those be?”

“Every behavior is analyzed and reconciled with the logic of the forensic evidence. You have to examine each aspect of the crime scene to see if the offender carried out each key attribute to its logical conclusion. Are they sequentially logical?”

“Because unless the offender is a cop or a CSI, he wouldn’t know all the details of crime scene reconstruction.”

“Exactly.” Vail shifted her weight to the right, leaned forward, and shone the light over the groin. “We’ll have to wait for the ME to tell us about penetration. Hard to tell.”

“The breasts?”

“Don’t see them.” She twisted and motioned to the forklift behind them. “See if there are keys in that thing, maybe you can shed some light on the situation.”

Robby turned and made his way out of the room to the forklift. He leaned in, and a second later the vehicle’s engine purred to life and the headlamp glowed brightly.

Vail rose from her crouch and stepped out of the beam’s way. She looked down at the body. Doesn’t look any better in the light.

A man wielding a powerful flashlight swallowed the mouth of the room. Robby spun, ducking from the beam’s painful brilliance, Vail’s Glock out in front of him.

“This is a crime scene,” Robby shouted. “Get back.”

The man, silhouetted by the handheld and the glare of the forklift’s headlamp, said, “Yeah, I got that. But I’m supposed to be here. You’re not. Now lower that fucking gun or we’re gonna have a big goddamn problem.”

“You are?” Vail asked, holding up a hand to shield her eyes.

“Detective Lieutenant Redmond Brix, Napa County Sheriff’s Department.”

Vail moved her head to the side, still fighting the glare. “Karen Vail, FBI. And that man with the Glock in your face is Detective Robby Hernandez, Vienna PD.”

“Vienna?” Brix asked. “Where the hell is Vienna?”

“Virginia,” Robby said, as he lowered his weapon.

Brix dropped his flashlight out of Vail’s line of sight. “Glad to meet you . . . Not really. Now, you mind getting outta my crime scene?”

Vail raised her hands in resignation, then backed away to Robby’s side.

Brix, his attention still on Robby, said, “Mind telling me, Detective, what you’re doing with a handgun in California?”

Robby handed the Glock to Vail.

“It’s my backup piece,” she said as she bent over to reholster it on her ankle.

Brix frowned. There was nothing more he could say.

“Crime scene’s yours, Lieutenant.” Vail rested her hands on her hips and watched as Brix stepped forward, following Vail’s path to the body. He lowered his Maglite and ran the beam over the victim. When the brightness hit the area of severed breasts, Brix rocked back involuntarily. He caught his balance and looked away a moment, then seemed to force his eyes back to the body.

“God damn,” Brix said. “Shit.” He turned away, then marched out, into the large storage room. Vail and Robby followed. “You okay?” Vail asked.

Brix seemed to collect himself, then lifted his head and faced her.

“I’m fine.” He extended a hand. “Thanks for securing the scene. Where are you staying? I’ll need to get a more complete statement.”

“Mountain Crest B&B.”

“I know the place.” He dug out his cell phone, flipped it open, and shone his flashlight in Vail’s face. He pressed a button, it made a camera shutter click, then he did the same to Robby. As he snapped his phone closed, he said, “I’ll be in touch. We’ll take it from here now. You know your way out?”

Vail felt her blood pressure rising. This was usually the point where she said or did something she later regretted. Robby either sensed the tension or he’d gotten to know her pretty well, because his large hand clamped down on her elbow. He pulled her close against his body, then gently turned her around.

“We’re fine, thanks,” Robby said.

It was all happening slowly, Robby’s voice somewhere in the background, as he led Vail through the tunnels. The next thing she knew, she was standing at the wine cave’s entrance, the cold fresh air of a Napa evening blowing in her face.

FOUR

After returning the flashlight to Miguel Ortiz, they got into their rental and rode in silence, at a considerably slower speed, along Highway 29. Although they were supposed to have been treated to an exceptional meal paired with exceptional wine, the winery offered them a refund or a rain check voucher and sent its guests home because of a “water main break deep in the cave.” Vail almost laughed aloud when they were told of the reason for the sudden cancellation, but stopped herself. It didn’t matter. After the discovery of the body, the excitement of the evening seemed to leave them like air escaping a leaky balloon.

Finally, with the sunset now only a distant memory from what seemed like a long-ago afternoon, Vail sighed deeply and said, “Where are we headed?”

“A restaurant my friend recommended. I don’t know if we can get in, but he said it’s worth the wait.”

ROBBY PULLED THEIR NISSAN MURANO into the parking lot of Bistro Don Giovanni. Vail was busy thumbing the keyboard of her BlackBerry, texting a message to her fourteen-year-old son, Jonathan. Vail’s Aunt Faye was visiting from New York and staying at her house with Jonathan while Vail was on vacation.

Vail hit Send, then slid the phone into its pouch.

They left the car and headed toward the restaurant. Vail saw clots of people sitting on an outdoor veranda that rimmed the bistro under a covered awning. They hovered in close quarters over flickering candles. Couples holding hands, friends laughing. Vail and Robby walked in and gave their name to the host, who had a thick Italian accent. The restaurant swelled with chattering conversation and clinking plates. It smelled of garlic, tomatoes, and olives.

“I think that may’ve been Don Giovanni,” Robby said, as they walked back outside onto the deck. He flagged a waiter heading toward him. “Hey, is that Don Giovanni?”

The server, who had an olive complexion and spoke with an Italian accent, grinned. “There is no Don Giovanni, sir. Donna Scala owns the restaurant with her husband, Giovanni. And yes, that man is Giovanni.”

“Got it,” Robby said. “Don, Giovanni.”

“Tell Giovanni his restaurant smells heavenly,” Vail said.

Robby thanked the man and turned away. “Just a guess, Karen, but I’m sure he knows.”

Vail’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out, read the text, and smiled.

“Jonathan?” Robby asked.

“He’s gotten his sense of humor back, which is good to see.”

They continued on down the wood steps into a gardenlike setting, an expanse of grass surrounding a fountain sprouting surreal brass sculptures that towered above the ground: a frog, hind legs in the air as it landed on a square pedestal; an Italian soldier balancing on a tall pole with one hand while supporting a large white boulder in the other; and a chef ascending an angled ladder with the flag of Italy in his outstretched hand, as if he were reaching to place it in a holder.

Vail and Robby crunched gravel as they walked to the fountain’s edge, then stood there examining the artwork.

She cocked her head to the side. “Interesting.”

“Not sure what to make of it,” Robby said.

“That soldier is balancing the delicate choices of life and death. Precariously suspended above the ocean, he holds a large boulder, which in reality he shouldn’t be able to support, as he keeps himself horizontal. A metaphor for staying afloat.”

Robby studied the scene before him. “Not sure how you got that, but okay.”

“I tend to get a little philosophical after seeing a serial killer’s handiwork while on vacation.” She turned and sat down at one of the small nearby tables that were arranged around the fountain’s periphery. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Bad enough seeing it, no need to talk about it in such a beautiful setting.”

Robby reached out and took her hand. “Violence is all around us, Karen. It’s a fact of life. We see it all the time. That’s our job. Can’t escape it.”

“What do you make of Brix?” she asked.

“Strange name.”

“Strange guy. But that’s not what I mean. There’s more to this murder than Brix is telling. I saw his face, his reaction when he looked at the body. Like he’s seen this before.”

“You got that from his reaction?”

“Body language. Then he sends us on our way.”

Robby lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. But it’s not our investigation, Karen. We’re not even in the mix here.”

A woman from the restaurant approached them in silhouette from the bright restaurant lights against the garden’s relative darkness. “Robby, your table is ready.”

“I’m leaving this talk out here,” Vail said as she rose from the chair.

Robby reached out and took her hand. “No argument from me.”

FIVE

Vail and Robby sat at the bed-and-breakfast’s rectangular table as the hostess announced what she would be serving: stuffed French toast with fresh fruit preserves and maple syrup, orange juice squeezed this morning, and Greek yogurt.

Joining them were a young couple who looked like they’d enjoyed the firmness of their mattress, and an older couple who appeared to be looking forward to retirement.

“I’m Chuck,” the gray-haired man said, “and this lovely lady here is Candace. Married thirty-five years tomorrow. And we lived to tell about it.” He elbowed his wife, who took it in stride and bumped him back with her shoulder. “And that’s Brandy, and her husband, Todd,” Chuck said. “Second anniversary is next week. Boston, right?”

“They can speak for themselves,” Candace said. “Sorry, Chuck sometimes likes to dominate conversations. Trick is to kick him in the shin.” Chuck gave her a look. “What?” Candace said. “It’s worked for thirty-five years.”

“We met Chuck and Candace a couple days ago,” Brandy said.

“Karen and Robby,” Vail said. “Virginia.”

“So what do you and Robby do?” Todd asked.

“Us?” Vail said. “I’m with the FBI—an agent out of a special unit you may have—”

“FBI,” Todd said. “Really? You know, I’ve always wanted to ask a cop what it’s like, but, well, I’ve never been in the right setting. Know what I mean? You can’t walk right up to a cop on the street and just ask.”

“Ask what?” Robby said.

Todd began nervously bouncing his left leg. “Well, what it’s like. What it’s like to shoot someone. Have you? Shot someone?”

“I have,” Vail said, flashes of Danny Michael Yates momentarily blinding her thoughts.

Todd leaned forward slightly. “Ever killed anyone? I mean, what does that feel like?”

“Todd,” Brandy said under her breath. “That’s rude.”

“Yes,” Vail said, looking into Todd’s eyes. “I have. But it’s not something that comes up often in my line of work. Actually,” she said with a chuckle, “that’s not true. I killed a bank robber and then almost killed my ex-husband a couple months ago. And then, last week, right in front of the White House—”

Robby leaned forward and cleared his throat. He forced a laugh, then said, “Karen’s got a very dry sense of humor . . .”

Apparently, Robby had taken Candace’s advice seriously, because Vail felt a kick beneath the table, a not so subtle signal for her to cut it out. The others at the table looked at each other, apparently trying to ascertain if Vail’s comments were something they should laugh at or take seriously.

“Joking aside,” Robby quickly said, “Karen’s a profiler.”

“Like on those shows?” Brandy asked. “What was that one, it was on years ago, we used to watch it right after we met,” she said, poking Todd in the arm.

“Profiler,” Todd said. “I loved that show.”

Brandy leaned back in her seat with folded arms. “You just thought the actress was hot.”

“No, I really liked it, the way she could touch the clothing and see the killer. That was cool—”

“That was a lot of bullsh—a lot of nonsense, is what it was,” Vail said. “We don’t have special powers. Real life isn’t usually as cool as Hollywood.”

“But it is pretty interesting work,” Robby said.

“What about that show Criminal Minds?” Candace asked.

“More like it,” Vail said. “Except we don’t have our own private jet. It was actually proposed about thirty years ago but it didn’t fly because it cost too much.”

“Good one,” Todd said. “The private jet didn’t fly.”

“And what do you do?” Chuck asked.

“I’m a detective,” Robby said.

“Sounds like you both see a lot of violence in your lives,” Chuck said.

We keep on this line of questioning and you’re likely to see a bit of violence, yourself, Chuck. Instead of translating that thought into action, Vail forced her friendliest smile, waved a hand, and said, “Enough about us. Let’s hear about you.”

And she and Robby heard about Chuck’s work as the owner of an auto detail chain and Candace’s career in banking. By the time the plates were cleared, Vail had lost track of the conversation. Her mind was elsewhere.

As Todd and Brandy stood to leave and wished everyone a “great time in the wine country,” Robby whispered in Vail’s ear. “What’s gotten into you?”

Vail turned away from the departing guests. “I don’t know, this thing with Manette affected me more than I thought, coming so soon after Dead Eyes. I’m just on edge, I guess.”

As the hostess started clearing the table, Robby thanked her, then walked with Vail outside to their car. A heavy dew still hung in the air from a steady, light rain during the night.

“Then it’s good we’re here. We can relax, put all this stuff behind us—”

“We have to go see Brix.”

“Karen, if you’re all dialed up about what happened last week, then you need to let go of this wine cave thing. Someone else will deal with it.”

“Not my style. It’s in my DNA, I can’t help it. It grabs hold of my brain and doesn’t let go—I tossed and turned all night. Something’s up with him. I need to ask him some questions, get some answers. See if there’s any way we can help out.”

“Didn’t seem like he wanted our help.”

Vail pulled open the car door. “Then we have to show him why he should.”

SIX

While Vail drove, Robby dialed the Napa County Sheriff’s Office and asked for Lieutenant Brix. Though Vail wanted to drop in, Robby felt that they’d pissed on his turf once and didn’t want to come off as confrontational.

“The courtesy of a phone call would go a ways toward defusing any animosity he may have toward us,” Robby had said.

“Hey, we were there trying to help out as peace officers. We weren’t trying to ‘piss on his turf.’”

“He gets to his crime scene and finds a big-time FBI profiler hovering over a vic’s body in his jurisdiction. That’s not intimidating?”

“Well, that and I’m a woman. I’m sure that didn’t help.”

“I’m sure not.”

Vail pursed her lips. “Fine,” she said, “we’ll do it your way.”

So Robby called ahead. “Got it,” he said into the phone, as he jotted something onto a scrap of paper. He hung up and said to Vail, “Brix isn’t at the station. He’s at a place called”—he consulted his notes—“Peju Province, a winery off 29.”

Vail pulled out her pocket GPS and began poking the address into its display. “Stella will tell us how to get there.”

“You named your GPS?”

“Better than saying ‘it,’” she said. She handed Stella to Robby and put the Murano in gear. “So how do you want to play this?”

“This is your show, Karen. I’m just along for the ride.”

THEY ARRIVED AT PEJU PROVINCE, drove down the tree-lined driveway, and pulled around the circle into the parking lot. They walked through the metal archway and entered the winery grounds, which were meticulously landscaped with a variety of shrubbery, lush grass, multicolored flowering plants, man-made reflecting pools, and mixed-media sculptures. They crunched along the curving, decomposed granite trail past a triangular white marble female figurine, then entered a paved path that led past a stucco and stone-faced two-story building with a pointed, weathered copper roof.

“Beautiful grounds,” Vail said.

“Cool sculptures.” Robby pulled on the wrought iron handle affixed to the oversize wood doors and they entered a gift shop area.

“Are you here for a tasting?” a smiling woman asked.

Vail held up her badge. “We’re here for some answers.”

The woman’s face drooped faster than a Vegas slot swallows a quarter.

“It’s okay,” Robby said, holding up a hand. “We’re looking for Lieutenant Brix.”

“He’s in the tasting room,” she said, still looking a bit rattled. “Follow me.”

Robby leaned down by Vail’s ear. “Jesus, Karen, cool your jets. You nearly gave that woman a heart attack.”

“I get this way when my internal alarms go off.”

“This isn’t our case, remember?”

The woman stopped in a large, high-ceilinged room containing a wall-sized dome-shaped stained glass window depicting the three Greek graces. Several Brazilian cherry cabinets and tasting bars lined the room. Sommeliers were pouring from red-topped wine bottles. And a man was yodeling.

“Is that guy yodeling?” Vail asked, nodding at a blonde-haired sommelier with a guitar strapped across his shoulder and scratching out a rhythm with a coin against a ribbed credit card.

“Not sure,” Robby said. He listened a moment, then said, “Actually, I think he’s rapping now.”

Just then, the tasters huddled around his counter began clapping. And Vail caught sight of Redmond Brix. And Brix caught sight of Vail.

He stopped clapping and pushed past the customers to meet Vail and Robby. Poking a thumb over his shoulder, Brix said, “Guy’s a trip, isn’t he?”

Robby glanced back at the happy guests, who had pulled out their credit cards to buy wine. “Customers seem to enjoy his show.”

“They make some damn fine wine here, too. Now, what is it you want?”

Direct, Vail thought. Good. I like direct. But I’m not going to play that hand. She got her first look at him in the light. His face was leathery and lined from too many years spent in the sun. From policework? Possibly, but not likely. “Your name,” she said. “Brix. We passed a restaurant a few miles back called Brix. You own it?”

“Brix is a wine term. A measure of sugar content in the grape.”

Vail stifled a laugh. “So your ancestors named themselves after sweet grapes?”

Brix fixed his jaw. “Name used to be Broxton. My great grandparents, Abner and Bella, lived in the old Chianti area of Tuscany and grew grapes for a living. Bella thought they were working too hard for too little and heard about a wine region in California. She wanted to move, but Abner resisted. She finally convinced him to go, and they sold their land and came here and bought a vineyard. They planted Sangiovese and Chianti vines they’d brought from Italy, and hit it big. Bella disappeared five years later. Never found her. Abner changed the family name from Broxton to Brix to honor Bella, since she was the reason they moved to Napa. And she was a very sweet woman.”

“So I guess you don’t own that restaurant,” Robby said.

“No, I don’t own that restaurant.”

Vail tilted her head. “That’s a very . . . sweet story.”

“Yeah, I think so. Now, you didn’t come over here to ask me about my name. What is it you really want?”

“Answers,” Vail said. “About the murder.”

“Why did I know I hadn’t seen the last of you two?” He turned and pushed through the large light-ash doors a dozen feet to his right. They exited the copper-topped building onto a wide footbridge that spanned the man-made pond, then stopped a few feet away, where the sun was breaking through the clouds.

Brix folded his thick, hairy arms across his chest. “Talk.”

“Your reaction to what you saw in the cave—”

“You mean the dead body?”

“The dead body,” Vail said.

“And just what reaction would you be talking about?”

I hate playing games. “You tell me. Seemed to affect you.”

“Yeah, it affected me. It was brutal. It just got to me.”

Vail said, “Bullshit. You’re a homicide detective. You’ve seen bad shit before.” Vail decided to venture forward with what she really wanted to know. “I had a hard time sleeping last night. I kept replaying what happened in the cave, and I kept coming back to your body language, the look on your face when you saw the woman, the severed breasts—”

“I’m sorry my reaction bothered you. I hope you’ll sleep better tonight. Now, is that it?”

“I’m curious—did you find the breasts at the crime scene?”

“No.”

“Do you know what the killer did with them—and why? Because I do.”

Brix’s facial muscles tightened. “We’ll figure it out, thank you very much.”

“I sure hope so, because knowing what that means is important. Here’s another important question: Have there been any other murders like this one?”

Brix snorted. “If there were, you’d know about it. A murder in the Napa Valley—with the woman’s breasts cut off? Jesus H., it’d make national news.”

Vail’s eyebrows rose. “National news, really?”

“You know anything about this region, Agent Vail?”

“About as much as the average FBI profiler from Virginia visiting the area for the first time.”

“Yeah,” Brix said with a chuckle. “I’ll translate that into ‘not much.’ So here’s the deal. Napa’s economy is a huge revenue generator for the state. Heck, even for the country as a whole. Aside from Disneyland and Disneyworld, Napa is the third most visited place in the country. See where I’m going with this? If anything happened to jeopardize that kind of tourism, that kind of money—you tell me: Would there be a lot of media coverage? Would all the stops be pulled out—at the state or federal level to investigate and figure out what the hell’s going on?”

Vail chewed on that one.

Robby said, “I see your point.”

“That’s assuming,” Vail said, “that the good people of Napa want the media crawling around here. The national headlines. Would put a huge dent in the local trade to have a serial killer plying his trade in town. I did a little reading on the plane. You’ve still got some mom and pops here, but you’ve also got a lot of multinational corporations that have been buying up wineries. Billions of dollars at stake. See where I’m going with this?”

Brix’s eyes narrowed. He stared long and hard at Vail, then said, “Always good to visit with colleagues from outta town. Remember, drinking and driving is against the law ’round here. And the California Highway Patrol ain’t as friendly as I am.”

With that, he stepped around them and headed into the parking lot.

SEVEN

Vail pulled out her BlackBerry and started playing with it. They were still standing at Peju, Redmond Brix having disappeared into the parking lot.

“What are you doing?” Robby asked.

“Finding out where the local morgue is.”

Robby placed both hands on his hips and craned his head around. “Karen, we’re here on vacation, remember? In fact,” he said as he consulted his watch, “you have a mud bath and massage in Calistoga in a couple hours. Paid in advance. You don’t want to miss that. If nothing else, after Dead Eyes and Yates, you need it.”

Vail glanced up at Robby. “We should be fine. Plenty of time.” She turned and headed off toward the parking lot. “Let’s go.”

They arrived at the Napa County morgue on Airport Boulevard about twenty minutes later. The morgue was located on the ground floor of the Napa County Sheriff’s Department, a recently constructed state-of-the-art building built of stucco and stone. With a round, windowed rotunda projecting up like a sentry over the complex, it had the majestic feel of a high-end winery, not unlike the architecture of the structure that housed Peju Province’s tasting room. But the triad of American, state, and sheriff’s department flags flapping out front set the record straight on the building’s true purpose.

Through the front door, a cylindrical lobby sported butterscotch walls with strategic lighting every few feet. On the floor, tan tile surrounded inner concentric circles of dark chocolates and gray greens, moving centrally toward a star emblazoned with the words “Napa County Sheriff’s Dept.” Directly above was an atrium that rose the equivalent of another story, with skylights along its periphery.

Vail glanced to her right, where there were two marble-topped oak counters with tri-panes of bullet-resistant glass.

Robby followed her gaze. “You don’t expect them to look at your creds and take us back to the body, do you?”

“Couldn’t hurt to try.” Before Robby could protest—and no doubt point out that it could, in fact, hurt to try—Vail walked up to the counter and engaged the clerk behind the glass.

“I’m Special Agent Karen Vail with the FBI,” she said, holding up her credentials. She could see the reflection of her brass badge in the glass. “This is Detective Roberto Hernandez. We need to take a look at the body that was found last night at the Silver Ridge wine cave.”

The woman squinted, then said, “I didn’t realize the FBI is involved.”

“We’re the ones who found the body.” Not entirely true, but it sounded good.

“You—uh—I thought—”

“I’ve got this,” a graying, buzz-cut military-looking man in the background said. He stepped to the glass, dressed in a green uniform and tie and a taupe shirt. A brass star was pinned over his left breast. And bars on his shoulder. A person of authority. Uh oh, Vail thought. Now I’ve done it.

“What did you say your name was?”

She told him. “I’m a profiler—”

“I know who you are,” the man said.

Vail glanced at Robby, who didn’t look pleased. He no doubt sensed trouble, and was watching his vacation slip away into a morass of politics and hard-headed cop testosterone.

“Yeah, that’s good,” Vail stammered. “So, like I was saying, we’d like to take a look at the body, if that’s—”

“You taught that class at the Academy, didn’t you?”

Vail felt herself take a step backward. “I teach at the Academy, that’s right.” Then she grabbed a peek at his name tag and put it all together. This guy was the sheriff and he must’ve gone through the FBI’s National Academy, a program run by the Bureau to educate law enforcement leaders from all over the world on ways to raise their department’s standards, knowledge, and interagency cooperation. The highly respected eleven-week course has graduated over thirty-six thousand law enforcement professionals in its seventy-five-year existence.

“You were in one of my classes, at the National Academy,” Vail said. A statement, not a question . . . feigning recognition. Who doesn’t like to be remembered?

“Yeah, couple years ago. Damn good program, I gotta say. Your class on behavioral analysis was one of the more intriguing.”

Vail smiled and turned to Robby, who looked like a guy who found himself the butt of a joke. He was not enjoying this.

“Thank you, thank you very much. That means a great deal to me. I like to think that being a profiler is one of the best jobs at the Bureau.” That is, when serial killers aren’t trying to kill me. “It’s very rewarding, particularly when we can help catch an UNSUB who—”

Robby cleared his throat.

“Right—well, in any case, Detective Hernandez and I would really appreciate if we could see the body of the woman who was brought in last night. Sheriff—”

“Owens. Stan Owens. Call me Stan.”

“Right. Sheriff—Stan—if we could have a few minutes, we won’t bother you about this again.” A promise she might not be able to keep, but again, it sounded good—and judging by the look on Owens’s face, he seemed to like the idea, too.

“I don’t suppose it’d hurt anything,” he said, then nodded to the legal clerk beside him to make it happen.

Owens swiped his electronic proximity card over the sensor, then led Vail and Robby downstairs and into the morgue conference room on the first floor. There was an ovoid conference table surrounded by high-backed, burgundy office chairs. There was a periodic table hanging in the corner of one of the long walls, a TV/VCR setup mounted on the wall, and a large whiteboard.

Owens walked over to the whiteboard and slid it to the left, revealing a window into the morgue. Behind the glass and to their right stood two lab-coated technicians in front of a gurney that was parked by a stainless steel dissection table, above which was suspended a large scale for weighing resected organs. The sheriff pressed a wall-mounted intercom, and the woman behind the glass looked at him.

“Dr. Abbott, we’re here to see the murder victim brought in last night. This is Special Agent Vail and Detective Hernandez.” Owens turned to Vail and said, “Dr. Brooke Abbott.”

Brooke Abbott wore a clear face shield, a Tyvek biohazard suit, disposable booties, and latex gloves, and was up to her elbows in—well, she was in the middle of an autopsy. But it was the body on the adjacent table that Vail and Robby had come to see.

Abbott handed the scalpel to the technician. “Continue just like I showed you. I’m going back to Jane.” Abbott shuffled to her left, to the adjacent table, and, with the movement of a gloved hand, indicated the corpse. “Meet Jane Doe.”

Owens moved his hands to a small remote control box to his left. He shifted the levers and the image on the closed circuit monitor above his head zoomed and rotated. “No ID yet?” Owens asked.

Abbott turned to the window. “Should have something soon.”

Vail stepped closer. They hadn’t gotten too far into the procedure, because the Y incision had not yet been made. That was good—she’d wanted a look at the body under better conditions—on a table, in an optimally lit environment.

“What can you tell me about her?” Vail asked. She craned her head toward the monitor and tried to orient herself.

Abbott tilted her head. “From the cursory exam, I’d say late forties, but fit and with good muscle tone. Well maintained teeth, evidence of facial makeup.”

“So she cared about her appearance and was not a vagrant or high-risk victim.”

“Fair assessment.” Abbott nodded at the body. “But there is something a bit bizarre, right up your alley, I’d imagine. Look at the feet.” Abbott angled her headlamp and brought up a magnifying lens. “Second toe, right foot. Nail’s been ripped off the bed.” She pointed with a probe.

Vail moved closer to the screen as Owens maneuvered the lever. “Are those tissue tags on the nail bed?”

“Yes.”

“Definitely ripped off postmortem.”

“Exactly.”

Vail moved away from the monitor, trying to get a better view. “Can we come in? It’s really difficult doing it this way.”

“For evidence control—”

“I understand, Doctor. But I need to see nuances that might not be picked up by the camera.”

Owens nodded. “Fine with me.”

Abbott shrugged. “Send her in. Just her.”

Robby waited in the conference room while Owens took Vail into the corridor, out through a door into another hallway that opened to where the bodies were off-loaded into refrigeration units, and then into the Clean Room. Vail slipped into a Tyvek suit, then donned a face shield and gloves.

Owens pointed the way into the Dirty Room. “Go past the scrub sink and around the bend. That’ll take you directly into the morgue.” Owens left her to return to the conference room, and Vail followed his instructions.

Morgues all have a familiar look and smell. They’re never cheery, sometimes downright depressing, always chilly, and often utilitarian. In keeping with the overall building, however, this morgue was the most spacious and technologically advanced facility Vail had seen.

She walked into the large room and crossed the shiny taupe floor toward the far wall, where the gurneys were docked. To her right, on the other side of the window, stood Robby.

Robby leaned close to the glass. In a filtered voice, through the intercom, he said, “So we’ve got severed breasts and a torn-off toenail.”

“You’re looking for the behaviors,” Owens said, standing to his right. “What’s it called?”

Vail leaned back from the body. “Ritual behavior. The things the killer does with the body that aren’t necessary for the successful commission of his crime. They’re unique to each particular offender. He does them repetitively, and he doesn’t change them—so you’ll see them in every one of his kills.” She looked to Owens. “If this UNSUB has struck before, it’s likely these ritual behaviors will help us link his victims.”

Owens was nodding. “Hate that. If you don’t use this stuff regularly, you forget it.”

“There’s a lot to it,” Vail said. “And we’re always learning more, expanding our knowledge base.” She nodded at Abbott. “Anything you can tell us?”

“I haven’t gotten too far into it—uh, I mean her—but both wrists were sliced. Very sharp utensil, which is . . .” She reached beneath the stainless autopsy table to a lower shelf and lifted a plastic-wrapped and evidence-labeled knife. “This.”

Vail didn’t take it, but she visually inspected it.

“Must’ve brought it with him,” Vail said. “Not the kind of thing you find in a wine cave.”

“Definitely not,” Owens said through the intercom.

Vail turned back to the body. “Anything else?”

“Knife was found beneath the lower back. He wanted us to find it.”

“Apparently. COD?”

“Asphyxiation, actually.” She moved the light to the woman’s neck. “See?” Abbott pointed with a gloved index finger. “Hallmark injuries to the lower jaw. Man strangs. The victim was moving her head back and forth, producing those abrasions. If I had to guess, he used a blunt object, possibly even a forearm, like a bar arm, to crush her trachea.”

Vail looked over at Robby, who was craning his neck to look at the monitor. “Crush her trachea?” he asked.

Vail leaned in for a look. “That’s a new one. I don’t think I’ve seen that before. Usually the offender uses manual strangulation, or a ligature. But crushing the trachea . . . that’d take an awful lot of force. I mean, there’s a lot of tissue there. You’ve got the thyroid and cricoid cartilage in front of it and the spinal column behind it. And the trachea itself is pretty tough cartilage.”

Abbott was nodding. “It was a very violent act.”

“Was a device of some sort used—a bar or pipe?”

Abbott looked down at the body, considering the question. “I’m not sure. There are no tool marks. I’ll look to see if there are any traces of metal or paint embedded in the skin, but I didn’t find anything unusual during the initial exam. Then again, I couldn’t guarantee you’d find anything. Especially if it’s wrapped in something.”

Vail leaned forward and looked at the eyes. “Petechial hemorrhages?”

“Yes.”

Vail nodded. Makes sense. “Any scrape marks on her back?”

Abbott stepped back, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, there are. Upper back and the parietal region of the skull. Pretty deep, actually.”

“He pushed her against the cave wall as he cut off her air supply. And the lips—inside, indentation marks?”

“You mean from cupping her mouth?” Robby asked.

“Exactly.”

“Let’s check.” Abbott gently parted the lips and rolled the upper portion into position. Shined her light. “Yup.”

“Okay, so he confronts her face on,” Vail said.

“So he might’ve known her,” Robby said, “or sweet-talked her, to get close enough.”

Vail nodded. “Reasonable conclusion.”

“So what do you think is going on?” Owens asked.

“Hard to say,” Vail said. “Not enough information to formulate an opinion.”

“Best guess?”

Vail looked back at the body. She understood the desire of cops to know what she was thinking, but she also hated being pressured into drawing conclusions before there was enough information to make an accurate assessment.

But it did give her the opportunity to ask a question for which she still wanted an answer. “Have there been other murders like this one?”

“If there was a woman murdered with her breasts cut off, even you would probably have heard about it, all the way at Quantico. You gotta realize we don’t have many murders here. About two a year. That’s it. Been that way far back as I can remember.”

Vail looked over at Robby through the window. “And you think Vienna is quiet.” To Owens: “Sheriff, right now, all I can say is the guy is likely intelligent, organized, and confident. More than that will have to wait.” Vail turned to Abbott. “Thanks for the look. Technically, I guess, I wasn’t here.”

She found her way back down the hall to the conference room and pushed through the door. She pulled a card from her pocket and handed it to Owens. “If you find anything else we should know about, would you give me a call?”

Owens took the card. “Sure thing. But . . . and I probably should’ve asked this up front . . . how are you involved with this case?”

Robby cleared his throat. “We’re not.”

“But we found the body in the cave,” Vail said. “We secured the scene until Lieutenant Brix could get there.”

“Redd Brix?”

Robby said, “Yeah, know him?”

“Not many people in this town don’t know Redd.”

“He doesn’t seem to be too cooperative,” Robby said.

“He doesn’t like outsiders looking over his shoulder. Can’t say I blame him.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Vail said, “but a killing like this could be a big problem. And with only two murders a year, you guys may not be . . . equipped to handle this type of thing. Nothing to be ashamed about, it’s just a matter of getting some help from someone who’s been down this path before.”

“Tell you the truth, if it was up to me, I’d give your ASAC a ring and get you hooked up here. But I have to tread carefully. Don’t wanna step on toes. You know what I’m saying.”

“I do, but—”

Owens held up a hand. “Let me do my thing behind the scenes. Be patient. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.”

EIGHT

With nothing to do but wait, Vail and Robby headed to Calistoga Day Spa, where Vail would take in a mud bath, hot springs, and hour massage. It was a pampering to which she was unaccustomed—in fact, had never had, in her life.

Robby dropped her at the spa and had the next few hours to himself. When he returned to pick up Vail, she walked into the glass enclosed lobby by the front desk with her hair back in a headband and a smile on her face.

“Good time?”

“If I closed my eyes, I could sleep for hours.”

He carried her duffle to the car and tossed it into the back seat. “So how was the mud bath?”

“Interesting. I mean, I’m lying there, totally relaxed, then I realized that I’m lying in a pile of warm cow shit. And I paid a lot of money for it.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Once I got the thought out of my mind, it was very soothing. Not as relaxing as the massage. I had this hunk named Pedro, and he had these really strong hands—”

“Do I want to hear this?” Robby asked.

“Apparently not.” She looked over at him and grinned. “Jealous?”

Before Robby could answer, Vail’s phone started ringing. She reached into the rear seat and fished it out of the duffel. “Karen Vail.”

“Yeah, this is Stan, Stan Owens.”

“Stan . . . you got something for us?”

“Sort of. I had a chat with Redd Brix. I think you should go and talk to him, see if you can get him to request the BAU’s involvement.”

“You think he’ll go for it?”

“I softened him up for you, told him about my experience with the National Academy. He did a lot of listening, didn’t say much. Thanked me for the call.”

“Well, thanks, Stan. We’ll go chat with him right now. Any idea where he is?”

“Matter of fact, yes. It’s his day off. He’s at a buddy’s house digging out an old wine cave.”

“Digging out an old wine cave? Is that like spelunking?”

“Not sure what that is, but that cave is legendary stuff here in the valley. A hundred years ago there was an earthquake that caused a cave-in at one of the premiere wineries in the region. Black Knoll Vineyards, been around since 1861. Legend is that there were some special bottles in that cave, and when the earthquake hit, they were buried alive, so to speak. Some old geezer convinced his neighbor he knew where the cave was located, and it happens to be on land belonging to Brix’s friend.”

Vail took down the address, thanked him, and plugged it into their GPS.

“You don’t really want to go there now,” Robby said. “You’re oiled, massaged, and relaxed. Let’s go shower, get dressed, have a nice dinner—”

“Proceed to the highlighted route,” Stella’s GPS voice announced.

Vail shrugged. “You heard the lady.”

NINE

“You have arrived at your destination, on the left,” Stella said.

Vail compared the address to her notes and said, “Indeed we have.”

Robby nodded at the portable electronic device in Vail’s hands. “You like that thing, don’t you?”

“She’s grown on me.” Seeing Robby’s twisted mouth, she said, “What, don’t tell me you’re intimidated by a female voice telling you where to go.”

“You tell me where to go all the time.”

“Exactly. Turn right.” Vail thumbed a hand at the signpost. The numbers were lettered in block gold leaf on the label of a magnum wine bottle in the hands of a large statue of a waiter dressed in a tuxedo.

“Something tells me this is going to be interesting,” Robby said as he swung the Murano onto the driveway.

They drove a hundred feet before they came to an electric gate, which sat splayed open. To the right was a well-maintained mushroom-colored guard shack, which stood empty.

“Guess we just let ourselves in,” Vail said.

Just past the small security shed was a cutout in the fine gravel and compacted dirt that lined the paved roadway. A silver Ford sat parked parallel to the path in one of the available slots.

“Wanna walk?” Robby asked. “We don’t know where Brix is on the property, might as well explore.” He slid the Murano into the spot in front of the Ford and they hiked along the asphalt toward the house, which sat thirty yards ahead.

“Gorgeous property,” Vail said. Exquisitely maintained vineyards, arranged in precise rows, lined the land to the north and south. “My feeling is that if we go to the front door, good chance they’ll tell us to go home.”

“But if we wander around, we’re just a couple of bumbling idiots looking for Brix.”

“Exactly.”

The house was a gray, four-story, stone-faced structure with mature palms fanning out from either side of the entrance. A six-car garage sat to the left of the main building, attached by a covered walkway with vine-covered columns. Vail and Robby hung a left by the palms and moved down a graveled path for about fifty paces.

They stopped and surveyed the landscape. Ahead of them lay closely cropped grass-covered rolling hills, with a sharp drop-off slightly to their right. Robby pointed in the direction he felt they should proceed, and they made their way down the sharp grade, moving sideways to control their descent.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Knee’s a little sore, but no problem.”

The land flattened out, and further right, behind the house now and a hundred yards away, was a group of nine men holding shovels, perched beside a rectangular thirty-foot hole in the ground. A conical mound of overturned dirt sat along the far edge of the pit. A large, covered, blue-and-white wheeled cooler reclined at an angle on a secondary pile of dry soil.

As Robby and Vail neared, Vail made out Redmond Brix, beer in one hand and the handle of a shovel in the other, the tip stuck into the grass.

“Can I help you?” asked a man in a security uniform standing beside Brix, a two-way fastened to his belt. “This is private property.”

“Front gate was open.”

Brix turned. His face drooped as he caught sight of Vail. He frowned, then motioned to a man in jeans, leather gloves, and designer sunglasses. “This is one of my closest friends, Al Toland. He owns this property. Al, this is FBI Agent Vail and Detective Hernandez, from Virginia.” Brix introduced the rest of the men, other friends and hired workers, who dipped their chins and tipped their hats in acknowledgment.

One of them had a high-end digital SLR camera around his neck, Nikon D700 embroidered into the strap.

“Good to meet all of you,” Robby said. “Sorry to intrude.”

“Goddamn right,” Brix said. “It’s my day off. Can’t a guy get a break?”

“Hey, this is our vacation,” Vail said.

Brix cocked his head. “No one’s asking you to keep sticking your nose in places you don’t belong.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Robby said.

Vail threw him a look.

“Javi,” Toland said to the uniformed security guard, “go shut the front gate, please.”

The security guard immediately headed off in the direction from which Vail and Robby had come. Brix stuck his shovel deeper into the dirt and trudged toward them, then motioned them to an area a few yards from the other men.

Vail faced Brix and said, “Look, we’re just trying to help, that’s it. If there’s some information we can offer to help catch the guy who filleted that woman, then we’ve done our job.”

“Your job? You have no job here. Do us all a favor, Agent Vail, go and visit some wineries, enjoy your time in the wine country with Detective Hernandez. Once you get home, it’s back to the grind.”

Vail couldn’t help but think that this could’ve been Robby uttering those same words. And in another sense, Brix was right. What the hell was she doing here? She was on vacation. She should’ve been enjoying the beauty of the Napa Valley, tasting some of the world’s best wine, decompressing, letting her knee heal. That was the plan. But some killer with a sharp knife had shredded those plans.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with here, Lieutenant. If this guy has killed before, and I think that’s very likely, this is something you don’t want to fool around with. You need to get out in front of it now, before it’s too late. Ask Sheriff Owens. He’s been through the FBI’s National Academy program. He’s been exposed to this type of killer.”

“Then I’ll know who to ask if we find another body.”

“The woman from Silver Ridge Estates had a missing toenail. Second digit, forcibly removed.”

“Yeah, I heard all about it. Stan called me. You were at the morgue. Those are some balls you got there, Agent Vail. You sure know how to endear yourself with the locals.”

“We’ve offered our help, but you haven’t exactly been open to what we have to offer.”

“We’re not small-town cops. We can do our job just fine without the FBI’s help. Thanks for your concern.” He took a quick pull from his beer, then pointed the mouth of the bottle to a spot behind them. “Why don’t you two run along now and have a nice day.” He turned away, then walked back to his shovel and pulled it from the ground. “Let’s get back to it, guys, we’re losing light.”

Vail sucked on her lip but didn’t move.

“Come on, Karen,” Robby said, gently taking her hand and leading her away.

“WE’VE DONE EVERYTHING WE CAN,” Robby said, as they hiked past the six-car garage, headed toward the Murano.

“He doesn’t know what he’s dealing with. And that means more women are going to be killed because he can’t put his ego aside.”

“Sheriff Owens understands. Let him do his thing, maybe he can talk Brix into asking the BAU for help.”

Vail sighed. “Fine. We’ve done everything we can, right?”

“Right.”

She squeezed his hand. “So there’s nothing left for us to do but enjoy our time together.”

“Right again.”

As they neared their car, the gate at the end of the road was closed. And Javi was by the guard shack reaching for his two-way.

“Gate is closed, yes sir.”

“Don’t let anyone in,” the filtered voice of Redmond Brix said. “We’ve found a body buried down here. At least, part of a body. I’m gonna call in CSI. His name’s Matthew Aaron. Let him through when he gets here.”

“Roger,” Javi said. “Uh, that FBI agent and detective are here. You want me to send them back?”

There was a long silence. Robby and Vail exchanged a glance.

Robby was holding Vail’s hand tightly; she was sure he was keeping her from turning around and running back to where they’d come from.

“Send them back,” Brix’s filtered voice finally said.

Vail detected a note of dejection in his tone. But it didn’t matter. She was already en route.

TEN

When they arrived, the men were ringing the large pit, kneeling and staring at something at the far end. Brix was blocking their view, but judging from his body language, he was not pleased. He was on one knee and his head was bowed. The guy with the camera was snapping away, his flash bursting like lightning in a night sky.

As Vail moved closer to the hole’s boundary, two of the men stood and moved out of her way. That’s when she saw it: Two dirt-crusted feet were protruding from the edge of the opening, the flesh partially decomposed.

“Hey,” Vail said to the man with the Nikon. “What are you doing? Why are you taking pictures?”

“I’m with the Napa Valley Press. I was covering the excavation of the cave. It’s historic. I didn’t think we’d find a—a dead body.”

Yeah, dipshit. I’m sure no one here expected that. Vail thought of telling him to shove his lens where the light doesn’t shine, but then figured the photos could be useful to their investigation. Besides, she had no right to tell him not to take photos. That was Brix’s job.

Robby joined Vail and got down on his stomach to get as close a look at the feet as possible. Brix rose and moved back, then wiped at his sweat-pimpled forehead with the back of his leather work glove.

“Karen,” Robby said. “Come closer. Take a look at this.”

In the burst of light from the flash, she saw what drew Robby’s attention. The second toenail of the right foot was missing.

THEY WERE ALL SILENT A MOMENT before Vail said, “Lieutenant, can you get these men out of here?”

Brix complied without comment, giving head signals to the workers. Toland followed. “I’m gonna have to ask you not to go public with those photos, Randy.”

The Press photographer chortled as his gaze flicked between Brix and Vail. “We can discuss that later.”

“Nothing to discuss,” Brix said. “I invited you here as a guest because I thought you’d appreciate the exclusive on the cave. If you want to come back when we finish this thing, you’ll honor my request.”

Randy gave him a hard look, but nodded.

Brix extended a hand. “The memory card.”

Vail could see Randy’s facial muscles contracting as he flipped open the side compartment and withdrew the compact flash card.

Brix took it from him. “I’ll make sure you get this back.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Randy said, then walked off.

When he was out of earshot, Vail said, “Well, guess that answers our question. This guy has killed before.”

Brix’s shoulders were rolled forward and his gloved hands hung at his sides. He spoke without meeting her eyes. “What’s the procedure for bringing the profiling unit on board?”

“It’s a pretty informal process. If an agency wants help from the BAU, they’d either call the unit and talk with an agent, or contact their local FBI office. Since I’m already here, all you had to do was ask. I’ll call my supervisor for approval. Be a good idea to write me a formal request on letterhead for the file. But that’s all just a red-tape formality. I’m here, and I want to help. Let’s not waste any time.”

“We’ve got a major crimes task force. Obviously, this is top priority. We’ll start in the morning. I’ve got your number, I’ll text you the info.”

ELEVEN

John Wayne Mayfield sat in his idling white Jeep in the parking lot of Dean & Deluca, munching on a veggie sandwich. Country music was pouring from the dash speakers, the vocals pining about hating his job but not having a choice because he needed the money for alimony.

Mayfield didn’t have the alimony problem, but it made him think of his job, and how he always strived to do it the best he could—but was it too much to ask that he wanted to enjoy himself, too? Sometimes he did, but oftentimes he did not—the reasons were obvious, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was given a task to complete and if he didn’t complete it successfully, he didn’t get paid. Simple as that.

It was a common dilemma with workers all over the world, he imagined: the desire to do something you enjoyed doing, but still earn a living doing it. In his case, it was not always possible to accomplish both.

But his hobbies, those were where he was able to feed his hunger, where he satisfied his desires.

As he bit into his sandwich, he saw a blonde exit the store, a white bag hanging from her hand. Diamond ring on her finger, but no male companion in sight. Was he waiting for her in their car? Mayfield watched her as she traversed the parking lot, passing right in front of his truck. His eyes were riveted to the sway of her hips, the slink of her thighs as they rhythmically moved through space. She stopped at a dark blue Mercedes and got into the passenger seat.

Mayfield swallowed, then took another bite of his sandwich. All in all, it wasn’t a bad existence. And to be able to live in the area where he lived, in the house that he owned, that had to be factored into the equation. Some people killed for the sport, some killed over drugs, or money, or sex, or anger. Those were largely unfulfilling, without any of the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment he sought when he stalked his victims, and then ended their lives.

Unfulfilling, but necessary. Some things just had to be done, whether you liked it or not. For John Wayne Mayfield, this was both fulfilling and enjoyable. He crumpled the paper wrapping of his sandwich and shoved his truck into gear.

There was work to be done.

TWELVE

They ate dinner at Angèle, which abutted the recently refurbished Napa River embankment. The food was exquisitely tasteful. But Robby was unusually quiet. Vail sensed he was frustrated that she had pushed so hard to be included in the investigation, and now the task force.

“I ruined our vacation,” she said over a sip of Duckhorn Merlot.

Robby put down his fork and sat back. “No, the UNSUB ruined it. Wrong place, wrong time.” He chewed a moment, then added, “But that doesn’t mean you had to pursue it so aggressively.”

“I had to.”

“Karen, there are murders all across the country—hell, all across the world—and you can’t be at every crime scene. You can’t draw up a profile on every UNSUB. You can’t help catch every psychosexual offender who’s on the loose.”

“I know that.”

He splayed out his large hands. “So then what gives?”

Vail took another sip of wine. She put it down, studied the glass, then said, “I don’t know. I saw that body, the—well, the behaviors—and my mind switched into work mode. I—this is what I do, and I’ve got very specialized knowledge that can help apprehend this guy before more women are killed. Am I wrong to want to help prevent that?”

Robby looked to his left, out the window at the Napa River. The sun had set and a blue-orange blush reflected off the water. The lights along the river’s edge began glowing.

“No. I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, you have to be allowed to have a life.”

“Things would’ve been fine if we hadn’t gone to Silver Ridge. We wouldn’t have heard anything about it and we would’ve gone about our vacation.”

Robby looked at her. “Are you saying this whole thing is my fault because I hooked you up with my friend to get us those wine-pairing tickets?”

“Of course not. I’m just saying that maybe this was meant to be. Maybe some higher power put us there at that time, same time as the killer, so we could do our thing and help catch this guy.”

Robby furrowed his brow. “Wow, you’re getting religious on me. I’m surprised.”

“I don’t know what to make of it, Robby. But we’re here for a reason. Maybe that reason is to help put this guy away before he kills someone else.”

The waitress appeared and leaned across the table to clear the used dishes.

Robby swirled his glass of Patz and Hall Pinot Noir, then lifted it and watched the liquid spin. As it came to rest, he said, “Basically, our vacation is over. You’re now working this case. And that’s fine, I guess. Maybe you can get Gifford to jigger your vacation time so you don’t lose it. You can take another trip when you get back.”

Vail finished off her wine. “So that means my vacation time won’t correspond with yours because yours is now, and there’s no reason for you to be working this case.”

“Exactly. So I guess we’ll have to enjoy whatever time we have when you’re not working the case.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. But we’ll make the best of what we do have. Deal?”

Robby nodded slowly. “Deal.”

“How about we start with tonight?” she said, leaning forward and planting a soft kiss on his lips.

THIRTEEN

Vail and Robby ate breakfast with their B&B mates—plus another couple who’d arrived last night—and after putting down their forks and draining their coffee, were the first to leave. Vail had to be at the task force at 9 a.m., and she didn’t want to be late.

While en route to the sheriff’s department, Vail thought about asking Robby to call the Vienna police chief to ask permission for him to participate on the task force. But Robby, being a Virginia state law enforcement officer, had no jurisdiction in California. His chief would never go for it: He would say that the locals had plenty of homicide investigators to work the case—and he would be correct. Vail, however, was a different situation. She had a unique skill set the police here didn’t have.

When they arrived at the sheriff’s department, Robby pulled to the curb by the front of the building. “Call me when you’re done.”

Vail’s door was open, the car audibly purring. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s Napa.” He held up a Wine Country News magazine. “No shortage of places to explore. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

VAIL WALKED INTO the conference room used by the Napa County Major Crimes Task Force. Located on the second floor of the sheriff’s department, it was a well-appointed meeting space with a generous oak chair rail lining the walls and numerous gray ergonomic stenographer seats surrounding a sectional faux-marble taupe-and-gray table. A laptop sat in the middle of the table beside a few stacks of printed pages and a plastic container of muffins. County map posters hung beside an expansive pane of one-way glass. A large-format printer sat in the corner beside a wall-sized whiteboard.

Not surprisingly, Vail was the only woman in the room. All heads swiveled in her direction as she strode to a vacant seat. As she sat down, everyone resumed their conversations. Redmond Brix was standing at the whiteboard chatting with a young male in uniform.

“You must be Karen Vail.”

Vail turned to see a man in his late twenties or early thirties, styled hair and thumbs hooked through the loops in his belt . . . wearing polished chestnut boots.

She extended a hand. “Yeah, that’s me. Don’t tell me I forgot to take off my name tag again.” She smiled sheepishly and feigned a look at her shirt.

“Sheriff Owens mentioned you’d be here. I’m Scott Fuller. Detective Scott Fuller, Napa County SD.”

“Sheriff’s a good man. Small world, actually. He took my class on Behavioral Science at the FBI’s National Academy—”

“I know all about it. I’m enrolled to start the program in a couple months.”

“I’ll see you back in Virginia, then.”

“Do you know anyone else on the task force?”

“Just walked in a minute ago.”

“Well, then let me do the intros.” He turned, stuck his fingers in his lips and whistled. Everyone turned. “This is Special Agent Karen Vail, from the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico,” Fuller said. “She’s here to help us with the wine cave murder.”

“Glad to meet all of you,” Vail said. “Actually, I’m with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, and we’re a few minutes down the road from Quantico, in Aquia. We moved out of Quantico a little over ten years ago. But Scott’s right, I’m here to help. If there’s anything I can contribute, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“That’s Sergeant Ray Lugo, with St. Helena PD,” Fuller said, indicating a Hispanic male as wide in the shoulders as he was in the gut—a refrigerator came to mind.

Vail nodded acknowledgment.

“And you already know Detective Lieutenant Brix,” Fuller said. “He’s the Incident Commander for this . . . uh . . .”

“Incident?”

Fuller frowned. “For this murder.”

The door swung open hard and in walked a petite blonde in a tightly cut short-sleeve blouse and professional knee-length skirt. She strode to the front of the room and took a seat near the head of the oval conference table. Every male head followed her movement, and she behaved as if she knew it.

“And that’s Roxxann Dixon,” Fuller said.

Dixon tossed a thick binder on the table and looked up at Vail. “And you are?”

“Karen Vail, FBI.”

Dixon looked around at the attentive male faces. “And why is the Bureau here?” she asked.

Vail waited for someone else to answer. Meanwhile, she was sizing up Dixon. Was she being antagonistic because she enjoyed being the only female on the task force, or was she merely the inquisitive, controlling type? Light blue eyes with unusually muscular arms and legs for a female, so she hit the weights regularly, and her short sleeves in the cooler weather meant she liked to let everyone know it. She was either into health and fitness and working out, compensating for something, or she felt she needed the bulk to compete with the men in her department. I can relate to that, Vail thought.

“Agent Vail is here on my request,” Brix said. “This case has some unusual elements to it and I think she can help. She’s out here on vacation and was . . . in the vicinity when the body was discovered.”

Dixon nodded slowly. Vail could tell she was doing what Vail had done to her: sizing her up, measuring her potential adversary, determining whether she’d truly be an asset, competition for male attention on the task force, or an extreme annoyance with some political heft and an attitude. I’m probably all of the above.

“Which agency are you with?” Vail asked.

“I’m an investigator with the Napa County District Attorney’s office.”

“I’m actually a profiler with Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Vail said.

“Oh,” Dixon said.

‘Oh?’ What does that mean?

“Okay,” Brix said, “let’s get started.” He took a step forward and handed Vail a thick card. “Electronic key. The proximity card will give you admittance to the building and restricted areas. Feel free to use it while you’re here, but we’ll need the prox card back when you leave.”

Vail took it and shoved it into her purse.

“I’ve sent all of you the email with what we had as of last night,” Brix said, passing a stapled sheaf of papers to Vail. The others had official county binders in front of them with requisite materials fastened and punched. “I’ve got a few updates, and some pictures of the victim.” He nodded to Fuller, who took a seat at the conference table in front of the laptop.

Fuller reached around his binder and fingered the touchpad. The screen awoke and displayed photos of the Silver Ridge Estates wine cave interior. Fuller hit a button on a nearby remote. A screen unfurled from the ceiling and the blue light from a projector splashed across it. Fuller pressed a couple of keys and the enlarged image appeared for all to see.

Brix took the group through the crime scene, describing what they were seeing as a supplement to the email he had sent them. Vail studied the photos. They were no doubt taken a short time after she and Robby had left the Silver Ridge wine cave. “Coroner says both wrists were sliced deeply. She bled out fairly slowly because it was done postmortem. Looks like she was strangled.” He nodded to Fuller, who pressed a button on his remote. The slide changed to a close-up of the woman’s neck. Bruising was evident across the skin. “A knife was found beneath the woman’s lower back. Scott.”

Fuller advanced to the next slide. A glistening stainless steel blade filled the screen. “Coroner said it was incredibly sharp, like it had never been used. Problem is, it’s a pretty common kitchen knife made by Henckels.” Nodded to Fuller. Next slide. “And something of interest to Agent Vail . . . the victim’s second toenail on the right foot was torn from the nail bed. Agent Vail?”

Vail leaned forward. “Yes. Well, the fact that the killer did this means that it had some significance to him. What that is, we don’t know yet. But briefly, this is what we call—”

“Signature,” Fuller said.

“Well, we used to call it signature,” Vail corrected. “But we now refer to it as ritual, or ritual behavior. That means it’s something the Unknown Subject, or UNSUB, does with the body that’s superfluous to his primary goal, which is killing his victim. In other words, it doesn’t result in the victim’s death, and it doesn’t help him avoid being caught. So it really has no relevance to anything—except that it’s deeply significant, and symbolic, for the killer. It feeds a deep-seated psychosexual need.”

She glanced over at Fuller, whose mouth was twisted and his gaze elsewhere—in his binder, to be exact. Maybe he didn’t like being corrected in front of the team. Great, more group dynamics to have to deal with.

“What I can tell you,” Vail said, “is that it’s my strong opinion this UNSUB has killed before.”

“How do you get that?” Dixon asked.

“Forget, for a moment, the other body we unearthed. If we just look at the wine cave kill, there were no hesitation marks with the blade. He strangled the vic, then sliced her wrists to allow the blood to drain. He then severed the breasts and removed the toenail. Very organized, efficient approach.” Vail curled some red hair behind her ear. “Something I think we all need to consider is that the key to this case could be access.”

“Access?” Brix asked.

“When you’re dealing with a murdered prostitute or druggie, you’re generally talking about publicly accessible places. But this is a cave, a wine cave that costs money—a lot of money—to get into. So we can narrow our offender pool of suspects by looking at who has access to the cave. This is an isolated location with a limited list of potential suspects.

“What’s more, statistically speaking, we can eliminate women, because with extremely rare exceptions, they’re not serial killers.” She paused a moment to gather herself; painful memories bubbled to the surface, but she forced them down. “And our killer is probably in his twenties or early thirties. Again, that’s going with percentages.” Vail looked around. She had everyone’s attention. “Another way we can narrow the offender’s age range is to assume this offender is physically fit. He’s able to efficiently subdue his victim, without her making much, if any, noise. And then crush her windpipe. So, again, we’re looking at a younger person.”

“Ray,” Brix said to Sergeant Lugo, “get with the Silver Ridge admin people and get their guest list. The people who go on those tours, whether it’s daytime or nighttime, pay a fair amount, so they’ll have used credit cards. Roxxi, make sure Ray has the search warrant he’ll need for that list. And their employee roster, past and present. Then narrow it down using Vail’s parameters.”

They both nodded. Brix made a note of their assignments on the whiteboard. “And, as Incident Commander, I’m naming you lead investigator. That good with you?”

Dixon looked up, appearing both surprised and pleased. “Yeah, I’m good with that.”

Fuller leaned back in his seat, his mouth making contorting movements. Vail didn’t think he was particularly thrilled with Dixon’s assignment.

Brix wrote it on the board.

“Something else to keep in mind,” Vail said. She waited a beat for Brix to turn around. “It’s likely the offender knows the cave and has been there before.”

“How can you make that assumption?” Fuller asked.

“It’s a much higher risk for him to take a victim somewhere without knowing what—or who—he’s going to find there. It’s reasonable to assume, for now, that he had intel on the location, so that suggests some connection to the winery. If he knew anything about that place, he knew they conducted nighttime wine cave tours. He wanted that body found, he wanted maximum impact and shock when that tour came through. That suggests he was familiar with the winery. He’d either been there before or worked there in some capacity. So first order of business would be to look at the workers they have on staff.”

Lugo spoke up. “That’s a minefield if we go down that road.”

“How so?”

“Migrant workers make up a significant percentage of the Napa Valley work force—they tend the vineyards, pick the grapes. A lot of them are illegal, and they move around. And they’re undocumented.”

“That makes our job a bit harder,” Vail said. They mulled Lugo’s comment a moment before she continued. “There is one caveat I should point out.”

“‘Caveat’? As in a ‘save my ass’ exception?” Fuller asked with a chuckle.

“This isn’t about my ass and it’s not about me,” Vail said. “I’m just telling you there’s a potential exception to consider. Nothing is foolproof, especially behavioral analysis.” She stared down Fuller, then continued. “So as I was saying. There are some killers who engage in high-risk kills because it’s all about the thrills. So they partake in high-risk behavior—which goes against what I just said about him having prior knowledge, or intel, about the cave.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Brix said.

Vail nodded in conciliation. “One thing that may help is that serial killers don’t wake up one day and start killing. They learn, through trial and error, what works and what doesn’t. What feeds their inner fantasies best. They experiment, learn how to stalk, how to kill. During this time, the killer is developing his interest in killing.”

“How does this help us?” Dixon asked.

“His early killing career will likely comprise failures, victims that fought back and required either more force or greater resourcefulness on his part to be successful. So his early murders will be unsolved crimes; we can look for unsolved murders in the region. But they’ll be tough to link to our UNSUB because his MO won’t look like it does now, because he wasn’t the same killer he eventually became. He may even move to another community, once he’s learned what he needs to learn to kill efficiently. We’d need to know particulars of the case, especially behaviors he engaged in with the body. Those behaviors, the ritual behaviors I mentioned a few minutes ago, don’t change whether it’s his first kill or, God forbid, his fiftieth.”

“So are you saying we expand our search?” Brix asked.

“We should contact all local police and sheriff departments within a reasonable radius to find out what unsolved female murders they’ve had in, say, the past twenty years, with ritual behaviors like the ones we’ve found here. The severed breasts, the toenail, and the slicing of the wrists.”

“Only female?”

“As I said, almost every serial killer is male,” Vail said. “Most victims are female. But not always. Some serial killers, if they’re gay, will kill other males. And some will kill males because they’re in the house and they’re obstacles to getting to the chosen prize. So they blitz-kill the male, get him out of the way, then have their way with the woman.”

“I think we’re gonna need some help if we’re expanding our potential suspect pool,” Lugo said.

“We can use the resources of the Bureau to help in this search. It’s not a panacea, but it’ll give us a good head start. It’s called VICAP, Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.”

“Robert Ressler,” Fuller said. “He started VICAP.”

“Correct,” Vail said. “Anyone here know what VICAP is?”

Only Fuller and Brix raised their hands.

“It’s a central databank maintained by the FBI. Police departments send in reports on crimes in their jurisdictions, and we can sort and search the data based on unique qualifiers. So we can plug in certain parameters involving a crime and see if the same characteristics have been found in other murders in other states. Like the toenail. That’s an unusual characteristic of this killer. If we also find it in the VICAP database regarding a case down in Los Angeles, we might be able to link that murder with the ones up here.”

“Great,” Brix said. “You’ll take care of that?”

“Today. But understand its limitations. The database is only as good as the info it gets from PDs across the country. If they don’t take the time to fill out the form and submit it to us, VICAP will never know about it.”

“We’ll take what we can get,” Brix said. He turned to the board and wrote “VICAP: Vail.” Over his shoulder, while writing, he said, “If we start to zero in on a suspect or suspects and we need help, we can tap the NSIB—that’s Napa Special Investigations Bureau,” he said to Vail. “They’ll help us out with surveillance. They’re part of the standing task force, and they’ll do their part when needed.”

“Something else, before I forget.” Vail looked at the photo of the victim on the screen. “Can you advance it to the autopsy photos? A close-up of the neck.”

Fuller pressed the remote and found the picture Vail wanted.

“There. See the marks on the neck? Your coroner, Abbott, she said the UNSUB used an object, like his forearm, across the neck to choke the victim. Sergeant,” Vail said to Fuller, “can you stand for a minute?”

Fuller smiled sheepishly, slid back his chair, then rose. Vail led him over to the nearby wall and spoke to Fuller, though she was addressing all in the room. “Watch this,” she said. “I’m the UNSUB, Fuller is the victim.”

Lugo laughed. Fuller shaded red.

“This is not funny, guys. Now, watch.” She took her left forearm and shoved it into Fuller’s neck, while pushing him up and back with the side of her hip. Fuller’s torso slammed into the wall and his head not-so-gently snapped back. They stood face-to-face, her eyes two inches from his.

Fuller did not look happy.

“I’m face-to-face with my victim,” Vail said, maintaining eye contact with Fuller. “She’s looking into my eyes. And I’m looking into hers.” Vail kept her gaze on Fuller, then suddenly moved back and spun to face the others. Fuller swallowed hard and whipped his neck from side to side, but didn’t dare rub it in front of his peers.

“Do you see where I’m headed with this?”

Dixon leaned back in her chair. “You’re trying to embarrass Scott?”

Vail looked around. They all looked a tad miffed at her demonstration. “No. No, nothing like that. Think about the killer. Think about the victim. What’s our UNSUB doing?” She waited, but there were no answers. “He’s up close and personal. Confident. Controlling her. He’s killing her, taking her life, while she stares into his eyes. While she watches. For killers like this, it’s the ultimate in superiority. Complete arrogance. He’s drinking it in, watching the life drain out of her eyes.” Vail stopped, looked around. They were all looking intently at her, processing what she was saying. “Here’s something else. He could’ve chosen a lower risk victim and confronted her somewhere else, where he’d have multiple escape routes. But he didn’t. There are killers who get off on the thrill of the kill, because engaging in these kinds of high-risk stakes is part of the thrill. All that tells me we may—and I emphasize may—be dealing with a narcissistic killer.”

They all took a moment to digest that.

“So he’s in love with himself,” Brix said. “How does that help us?”

Vail, then Fuller, returned to their seats.

“Everything we learn about this guy helps. When we catch him, if he is a narcissist, it’ll require a special kind of interview technique to get him to confess. But if we do it right, he will confess. Because he wants to take credit for what he’s done. That’s what I think the toenail is about. If I had to guess—and that’s all I’m doing now—the toenail could be his calling card, his way of telling us, ‘This is my kill. Give me credit.’”

“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Dixon said.

“BTK Strangler, remember him? A few years ago the trail went cold, but he contacted police when someone was ready to publish a book. He was basically saying, Hey, I’m still here. All those kills were mine. I’m the guy you want. Again, all this goes to understanding who we’re dealing with. The more we know, the more likely we’ll be able to narrow our suspect pool and get closer to identifying who this asshole is.”

“Any ideas on how to catch him?” Brix asked.

“She can’t help us catch him,” Fuller said. “She can only help us to eliminate suspects once we have some.”

“That’s true—sort of.” Vail leaned forward in her chair. She was sure what she was about to suggest would go over as well as suggesting they pair a fine Cabernet with a fast food burger. “If I’m right, if this guy is a narcissist, then we can draw him out.”

“You got my attention,” Lugo said. “How?”

“Narcissists think they’re superior to everyone else, and they want to be acknowledged for their work. They seek attention, and because of that, they’re more risky in their behaviors and actions. By keeping a lid on this murder, you may even be facilitating his need to kill more. He may keep killing till you publicly acknowledge his work, stroke his ego.”

They all laughed. One chuckled. Brix was shaking his head.

“I understand that going public with this has other implications for your community—”

Brix stepped forward. “Ain’t gonna happen, Agent Vail. I told you what’s at stake, both locally, at the state and federal levels—”

Vail held up a hand. “It’s my job to give you information. What you do with the information is your decision.”

“We could be destroying, or at least crippling, an entire industry,” Dixon said. “We have to weigh our actions extremely carefully. There’s gotta be another way to get to this guy.”

“Then you have to look at victimology. Who your victims are, then try to figure out why these two women fell into this man’s crosshairs.”

“Any idea when we’ll get an ID on the vics?” Lugo asked.

Brix walked over to the wall phone and punched in an extension. “It’s Brix,” he said into the handset. “Brooke, any chance you can get us an ID on the wine cave woman brought in last night in the—you do?” Brix listened a moment, then his eyes widened. “You sure about that?” He glanced at the faces in the room. “Keep that to yourself, Brooke. Very important. I don’t want to see that name on any paperwork.” He listened a second, then said, “As long as possible. Delay it. Lose it. We have to deal with this the right way.” He said thank you, then hung up.

Brix turned, picked up a marker, touched it to the whiteboard, then stopped and recapped the marker. He said, “It’s Victoria Cameron.”

Vail watched the reaction of those in the room. Clearly, Victoria Cameron was someone they were acquainted with. “Obviously, this means something,” Vail said.

“Yeah,” Dixon said. “Bad news for us, is what it means. Victoria Cameron is—was—the daughter of one of the most influential wine-makers in the valley. Frederick Montalvo.”

“She’s married,” Vail said.

“She is,” Fuller said, “to . . . what’s that guy’s name?”

“Kevin Cameron,” Lugo said.

Brix sighed heavily. “Okay.” He sucked on his upper lip, then leaned on the conference table with both hands. “We gotta do our jobs real well, because there’s gonna be some heat no matter what happens. If we fuck up . . . well, I don’t even want to think about it. But we need to control this information as best we can, so effective immediately, I’m putting a gag order on this building. We also need to inform next of kin. I’ve never met the lady or her family. Anyone want to handle that?”

“I got it,” Lugo said. “I went to school with one of the Montalvo brothers. I knew Victoria. I know Kevin. I know the whole family.”

Brix wrote the assignment on the board beside Lugo’s name. “Roxxi, you’re already getting the Silver Ridge warrant drawn. Why don’t you pick up their guest list, too?”

“Will do.”

Brix moved the task to Dixon’s column. “One other thing. We’ve canvassed the area around the cave, and no one saw anything unusual. Of course, that would’ve been too easy.” He tossed the marker onto the table. “Let’s meet back here at four o’clock.” He grabbed a piece of paper from his binder and passed it to Fuller. “Write down all your contact info. I’ll run copies for all of you before you leave. Anything comes up, call me and I’ll make sure everyone knows.”

Vail signed the sheet, passed it on, then stepped over to Brix. “I’m gonna need to ride with someone. Or I can do my thing with Detective Hernandez, if you don’t mind.”

Brix chuckled. “As long as you don’t tell him who the vic is, I don’t care what you do.”

“You still don’t want me here, do you?”

“What I want doesn’t really matter, does it? I think you’ve got some valuable insight we could use. Is it gonna catch us a killer? I have no fucking idea.”

“Profiling isn’t gonna catch us a killer, Brix. It’s just another weapon at our disposal.”

He closed his binder and slung it under his wrist. “Let’s hope that weapon is locked and loaded. We may very well need to use it.”

FOURTEEN

Vail walked outside into the cool air and took a deep breath. The scent of American oak barrels filled with fermenting Cabernet grapes floated on the air like the background perfume of an expensive day spa in Calistoga, miles down the road.

Then again, maybe she was just imagining it. She gave Robby a call to see where he was, but he didn’t answer his cell. She left a message, then called her ASAC, Thomas Gifford.

A moment later, she was put through to his desk. “So how’s your vacation? How’s the weather out there? Been raining nonstop here since you left. I think you should come home, give us a break.” He chortled a bit, in surprisingly good spirits.

She hesitated. “Weather’s been good. Vacation was good, too. But . . .”

“I don’t think I like the sound of this, Karen. But what?”

She and Gifford didn’t agree on much, and they’d had their share of arguments, but this was not likely to sit well with him, given what had happened with Yates, and, of course, Dead Eyes. Given the work the profilers did, the mental health of those in his units was a top priority. “Well, we kind of stumbled onto something here.”

“What kind of ‘something’?”

“Something like a dead body. Both breasts severed and removed from the scene—”

“Ah, Jesus Christ, Karen. What are you, a serial killer magnet?”

“Yeah, that’s a good one, boss. Remind me to put that on my new personalized license plate.”

“Serious, Karen. I sent you away to get away, get your mind off this shit.”

“Believe me, I wasn’t looking for it. It was a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ kind of thing.” Maybe I am some sort of psychosexual offender magnet.

“So let me guess. You told the detective assigned to the case that you should help out, because you’re the great Karen Vail, super agent who thinks she can absorb all sorts of psychological trauma and keep on ticking.”

“Not in so many words.”

“So now he wants BAU support.”

“Right again, sir. Did you eat your Wheaties this morning? You’re on a roll.”

Silence. Ooops. I must’ve gone a tad too far. Why do I always do that?

Finally, Gifford said, “So you think this is a serial offender?”

“I do. Not his first kill. Pretty brazen, possibly narcissistic.”

“Fine, you’re there, you take the case. But I don’t want you staying longer than your vacation. And when you get back, I want you to take a real vacation. Maybe we’ll put you in a cement overcoat, suspend you by crane over the Potomac, where you can’t get into trouble.”

“If you think it’ll help.”

“Honestly, I don’t. Somehow trouble will find you.”

“I’ll have the Incident Commander send you a formal note on letterhead. And hey, the sheriff here went to the National Academy.”

“Well, hey, that really makes my day, Karen. That makes me so happy. Glad to hear it. Just . . . just keep me up to date on what’s going on.”

Before she could reply, she realized the line was dead. But she still needed the VICAP run, so she called back. Asked for a colleague of hers, Frank Del Monaco. He answered on the third ring.

“Frank, it’s Karen.” She heard an audible sigh. “Something wrong?”

“I was having such a nice day before you called, is all.”

“And now?”

“Not so much. Wait—aren’t you in California on vacation?”

“Well, you got the first part right. Listen, I need you to run something through VICAP.”

“What do I look like, your servant?”

“Frank, I’m three thousand miles away. If I could do it myself, and not have to ask you for anything, I’d do it. Now, I need you to run the following parameters. The UNSUB we’re looking for—”

“You’re on vacation and you’re working a case?”

“Yes, Frank. And I don’t need any shit from you. Just run this or I’ll call Rooney or Hutchings.”

“Rooney’s in California, too. But, fine, whatever.”

Vail gave him the details of the behaviors she had observed. Del Monaco said he would run the report when he was done with his meetings and get back to her when he had the results.

She hung up and tried Robby again. Voice mail. She went back into the sheriff’s department and tracked down Brix. “I need a car or I need to ride with someone.”

“What about Hernandez?”

“He’s off doing his own thing. He’s not answering his phone.”

“Smart guy, probably tasting wine and enjoying himself.”

She ignored his swipe. “So—car or not?”

“Not. You can ride with Dixon.” He told Vail to wait there, then disappeared back into the task force conference room, down the hall. He emerged a moment later with a reluctant Dixon. Vail couldn’t hear what was being said, but from Dixon’s hand movements, it appeared she was asking, “Why me?”

After her apparently futile argument, Dixon moved back into the room while Brix held open the door. Dixon appeared seconds later with her binder clutched in her left hand. She made her way down the corridor to Vail. Her body was stiff, her face tight.

“Guess I’m chauffeuring you around today,” Dixon said.

“Just for a bit, till my friend gets my voice mail, then you can be rid of me.”

They walked outside to Dixon’s county-issued vehicle, a Ford Crown Victoria. She got in and unlocked the doors.

As Vail sorted herself out, Dixon snapped her seat belt and said, “Now what?”

“This is your investigation,” Vail said. “I’m here to help, that’s it. If there’s some insight I can offer that’ll help narrow our pool of suspects, that’s my specialty.”

Dixon put the car in drive and headed out of the lot. “Problem is, we have no pool of suspects.”

“At this point, we don’t even have a pond.”

Dixon stifled a laugh. “Yeah, no pond.”

“I put in a call to Quantico and we should have a report on the VICAP results later. Meanwhile, let’s make use of our time.”

“How about we start where all crimes start? Motive.”

Vail knew that motive for a serial killer was a much different animal from that which a traditional criminal exhibits. But she decided to go with Dixon, see where it would lead. “Keep in mind that most murders are between individuals who know each other. Serial offenders are traditionally stranger on stranger crimes, which makes it harder. Motive isn’t always visible to us.”

“Noted,” Dixon said. “But we have one thing going for us.

Victimology—in this case Victoria Cameron and the Jane Doe. Start with basic investigative policework: Who would want her dead? Had she had any arguments with anyone? What was her relationship with her husband like? Do any of these things have to do with the Jane Doe lying in the morgue?”

“All good stuff,” Vail said. “We may want to extend that to looking into where Victoria shopped, places she frequented on a regular basis, people she did business with, and so on. Once we get an ID on the corpse Brix unearthed, we’ll do the same for her. That’ll generate a suspect pool and then I can be a little more helpful.”

“I thought your info was pretty helpful.”

Vail tried not to let the surprise show on her face. “Thanks, Roxxann. I appreciate that.”

WHILE DRIVING, Dixon activated her visor-mounted Bluetooth and called her office. She spoke with the deputy district attorney and explained why they needed a search warrant drawn for Silver Ridge Estates, and told her that Brix would be drafting the probable cause statement. She was promised an executed warrant within the hour.

“So what’s the scoop on the guys on the task force?”

Dixon chuckled. “What am I, the school gossip queen?”

“It’s best to know who I’m dealing with so I don’t put my foot in my mouth.” Vail threw up a hand. “Scratch that. I’m gonna put my foot in my mouth anyway. But I’d still like to know who these people are.”

“Haven’t you profiled everyone in that room already?”

Vail couldn’t help but let a smile tilt her lips. “I try not to do that. Makes it hard to get along with people.” She shook her head. “Scratch that, too. Guess it doesn’t help. But to answer your question, yeah, I can’t help but do it. Like Scott Fuller. He seems like a know-it-all.”

“Oh, yeah. Boy Wonder, everything handed to him on a gold platter. He’s read all the books, can probably even recite what chapters that shit comes from. But he’s light on experience.”

“Book smarts, not street smarts. He’s certainly got the profiling stuff down—but it’s textbook stuff, dated info, like he read all the Underwood, Douglas, and Ressler books and committed them to memory.”

Dixon nodded. “But here’s the wrinkle. He’s the stepson of Stan Owens.”

Vail tilted her head. “Really. See, now that’s good to know.”

“Which is how he’s ascended the ranks so quickly.”

“And one to be careful around,” Vail said.

“But Ray Lugo’s a good guy. Been here all his life, started out as an underage migrant field worker picking grapes. Parents were illegal, but he was born here, so he’s a U.S. citizen. He worked hard, did well in school, and went to the Academy, became a cop.”

“And here he is, a sergeant. Very impressive.”

“Whereas Fuller had it handed to him, Ray’s earned it.”

“And you?” Vail asked.

“Me? I don’t like to talk about myself.”

“Neither do I. But—”

“But if you had to draw conclusions about me—”

“I’d say you’re intuitive. You’re diligent, detail oriented. You’ve been doing this job awhile but you’re not bored with it. And . . .”

Dixon slowed for a stopped truck in front of her. “And what?”

“And you’re intimidated by being a woman in a male-dominated profession.”

“Is that some sort of . . . what do they call it, projection?”

Vail laughed. “Maybe.”

“But you’re right. Sort of. Still, I have no trouble putting one of these guys in their place if they get out of line. But it really hasn’t been a problem.”

“But it was, once.”

“Once.”

That’s all she said, and Vail let it drop. She watched more vineyards roll by, then asked, “So how long have you been with the DA’s office?”

“A few months.”

Vail lifted an eyebrow. “I take it you were in law enforcement before that.”

Dixon glanced at Vail.

Vail knew the look: Dixon was measuring her answer. There was a story behind this, and she was deciding how fine a filter to use . . . how much she would share and how much she would hold back.

“In a nutshell,” Dixon finally said, “I was born and raised here, in the valley. I was with the sheriff’s department for five years, then took a job with Vallejo PD. I was promoted to detective and a few years later I transferred to the DA’s office. So there you go. My law enforcement pedigree.”

Vail figured she had Dixon’s reaction pegged correctly: A detective did not usually transfer out of her department to become an investigator for the district attorney unless she was retiring from that agency, or injured, or in search of a quieter, safer existence. There was definitely more to her transfer than she was relating.

But Vail didn’t want to press it, since it was their first time having a conversation—and because Dixon was turning right at Montalvo Villa Estate Wines, a large winery set back from Highway 29, majestic in its pristine setting and architecture. Its landmark sign established its founding in 1931.

Vail and Dixon drove down the long, paved roadway lined by impeccably maintained vineyards. Placards mounted on a wood fence that ran the length of the road labeled the vineyards with what Vail assumed were family names: Genevieve’s Family Vineyard, and, fifty yards further, Mona’s Estate Vineyard.

“Anything I need to know about the family?”

“They’ve got three residences on-site. The parents, Frederick and Mona, have the main house. The two smaller houses, if you can even use the word ‘small’ in this setting, belong to their daughter Genevieve and her husband, and their son Phillip and his wife. The other son lives off-site, as did Victoria and her husband, Kevin.”

“Any reason why two siblings get to live on the family estate and two don’t?”

“No idea. They’re private people, for the most part. But Victoria and her husband purchased their own winery, so maybe that ruffled some family feathers. Frederick has been around in the region a lot longer than someone like Robert Mondavi, but he never got the attention or the respect Mondavi got. I’m not singing the blues for Frederick, though. He’s done just fine lurking in the shadows, so to speak.”

“If he values his privacy and shrouds himself in mystery, he can’t take on the persona of a colorful, influential personality. Sounds like that isn’t what he wants.”

Dixon pulled the car into a spot and shoved the gearshift forward. “Oh, he wants it. But he wants it to come to him. The attention, that is. But he won’t go in search of it. I guess it’s a different way of going about getting attention: His behavior, the mystery and privacy, has promoted some of the attention he claims to want to avoid. People wonder. The lack of access produces greater interest.”

They got out of the car, walked to the winery’s administrative offices, identified themselves, and asked to see Frederick Montalvo. The office manager raised an eyebrow as she perused Vail’s credentials, then was on the phone to her boss. A moment later, she said, “I’ll take you back.”

They were led through strategically lit, walnut-paneled, high-ceilinged corridors. The woman stopped at a room at the far end of the hall, rapped the wooden door three times, then opened it. Vail stepped in after Dixon, and the scene before her stopped her short. The entire far wall consisted of what appeared to be one expansive glass pane—possibly twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high. Beyond the window stood the vines of an endless vineyard, stretching back and ending at a steep climbing hill, itself covered with neat rows of grapevines. Vail thought she was looking at a three-dimensional painting of unrivaled beauty.

Dixon reached out and shook the hand of a thin, silver-haired man seated at a desk that was half the size of the window, impressive in its own right: hand-carved legs with a front that was, in relief, a depiction of a group of men tending to vines on rolling hills. She quickly realized she was looking at a carpenter’s representation of the view beyond the glass.

At first glance, the man looked to be about seventy, but something about the way he moved made Vail think he might’ve been older, or stricken with a muscle-wasting disease. He leveraged himself with both hands on his desk to rise slowly from his leather chair. “Any news on my daughter?”

Dixon stepped forward. She was the local cop here; she would be the one to deliver the news.

But before she could speak, the phone buzzed. Montalvo looked down at the desk, thought about whether to answer it, then lifted the receiver. “Yes.”

He listened a moment—Vail could hear a loud, distressed male voice at the other end of the line—and she realized what must be happening. Lugo had just informed Kevin Cameron of his wife’s death. Frederick Montalvo, family patriarch and the woman’s father, got the first call.

Montalvo’s face drained of color, his left hand slipped from the desktop, and the phone dropped from his grip as his legs gave out. He hit the carpeted floor with a thud—with Dixon and Vail quickly at his side.

Vail tossed down her purse, then checked Montalvo’s pulse while Dixon lifted his legs. His skin was clammy, but judging by his slow and regular pulse, Vail felt he had fainted rather than had a heart attack. He opened his eyes, blinked, and stared at Vail, who was hovering over his face.

“Mr. Montalvo, are you okay?” she asked.

“I—my daughter. Is she—is she? . . .”

“Yes. We’re deeply sorry.” She cradled the back of his neck. “Come on, let’s sit up. Slowly.”

Montalvo, with Vail’s help, moved into a seated position, still on the floor. He put his head between his knees while Vail supported his back. And then he began to weep.

Vail and Dixon shared a look. Vail could tell that Dixon hated this as much as she did. There was just no good way to deliver this kind of news. The reaction often ranged from outright disbelief to massive heart attacks, and everything in between.

Dixon lifted the fallen receiver from the desk. She had apparently surmised what had happened as well, because she said, “Mr. Cameron, are you there?” She waited, then said, “No, he’s fine. He’ll be fine. I’m sorry for your loss.” She listened a moment, then said, “Of course we will,” then hung up.

“How did it happen?”

Montalvo’s voice was weak, frail.

“I think all we should say at this point is that she crossed paths with a killer and we’re doing our best to track him down. We have a task force already set up—”

“You’re not answering my question,” he said, more forcefully. He turned away from Vail’s supportive hold, rolled to his right side, and struggled to get to his feet. He swayed a second, then found his chair and sat down heavily.

“She was murdered,” Vail said. “That’s all you need to know. The details are unimportant. And you have to trust me on that. I help track these killers for a living. And I can tell you that we’re doing everything we can to find this guy. That’s a promise.”

“Where? Where did you find her?”

“In the wine cave at Silver Ridge Estates.”

Montalvo sighed, then shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Vail bent down, retrieved her purse, then slung it over her shoulder. “Why’s that?”

“They’re a competitor, of sorts. Worse than that, perhaps. We’ve had some difficulty with the family.”

Dixon moved closer. “What kind of difficulty? Which members of the family?”

“The disagreement goes back a very, very long time. I doubt it’s related. It wasn’t violent. Just business.”

“How long is a very, very long time?”

“Decades. About forty years.”

Dixon looked at Vail, then at Montalvo. “Tell us more about—”

“It’s got nothing to do with anything, Ms. Dixon. And no, I don’t care to discuss it. It’s family business, that’s all.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Vail said, “that’s for us to determine. You can’t possibly know what’s related and what’s not. That’s our job.”

Montalvo sat there, the fire gone from his eyes, his shoulders slumped forward, his gaze downcast. “I’ve said all I’m going to say. Now . . . please, leave me alone. I have to go tell my wife that her daughter . . . that her daughter . . .” His bloodshot eyes started to tear up. “I’ll call you if I come across anything you need to know.”

Vail doubted they would hear again from Frederick Montalvo, but there was nothing more they were going to get from him at present. At least they had something to dig into.

They again offered their condolences, then left the way they came in.

FIFTEEN

John Wayne Mayfield stood beside his vehicle, peering intently at the entrance to the administration building of Montalvo Villa Estates Winery. No one would question his presence, yet because of who he was, he was as conspicuous as a pus pimple on the tip of a nose.

Didn’t matter, though. He could easily deflect anyone who came his way and asked why he was there. His job gave him that power and authority.

Less than twenty minutes after arriving, the two women left the building; a looker redhead and a well-put-together blond. Mayfield didn’t know who they were, but he would make it a point to find out. They looked official, but he hadn’t seen them around—he most certainly would’ve remembered them.

He should have expected this. But this was where it got interesting—which was good; this was something he’d never had to deal with, and he welcomed a challenge.

Mayfield reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a notepad, and began writing. A moment later, he watched as the women settled themselves into their Ford. They remained there a few minutes, talking and making a phone call. He walked to his vehicle and then followed them down the road, off the property, and onto 29, keeping a discreet distance.

The duties of his real occupation would have to wait. For the rest of the day, he had a new job.

VAIL CLOSED HER DOOR and turned to Dixon, who was staring through the windshield. She made no effort to insert the key into the ignition.

“So what do you make of that?” Vail asked.

“Hard to say. There are a lot of families who’ve been here decades. Bragging rights, competitive posturing—even among family members. There are rifts, feuds, politics . . . so this disagreement Montalvo talked about, it’s nothing to write home about.” She raked her hair back off her face. “But it could be motive.”

Vail wasn’t sure about that, but said, “We should at least check it out.”

Dixon pulled out her phone, and dialed Lugo. It rang through her car’s hands-free speaker. He answered on the second ring. “Ray, we’re on our way over to Kevin Cameron’s place. You still there?”

“Yeah, why?”

“We’ve got some questions for him.” Dixon turned over the engine and drew back the gearshift. “Give me the address. We’ll be there in ten.”

Dixon turned onto 29 and took the nearest cross street that went through to Silverado Trail, a gently winding picturesque road that was largely untouched by tourist spoils, restaurants, and city buildings: only vineyards, smaller production wineries, scenic foothills, and the occasional well-financed home set back on a hillside perch.

They turned left and headed down a private road that snaked uphill into the drive of a generously sized Tudor home. It wasn’t as pretentious as Montalvo Villa Estates, but it was, nevertheless, a multimillion-dollar structure.

Vail followed Dixon to the front door, where Dixon pressed the chime. It sounded large and cavernous inside, and when the wooden entry door swung open, it didn’t disappoint. A spacious great room stood before them, with a wall-sized stained glass window, similar in style to the one at Peju—only larger—directly ahead.

Ray Lugo stood grasping the highly polished brass knob. His face was long and he looked like he had been crying.

“You okay?” Dixon asked.

“Kevin took it hard.”

You don’t look so good yourself. Vail stepped in and Lugo closed the door behind them. In a low voice, Vail said, “Frederick Montalvo mentioned some kind of disagreement they’ve had with the family that owns Silver Ridge Estates. Supposedly goes back four decades.”

Lugo straightened, moving from family friend back to detective. “You’re thinking motive?”

“Doesn’t really fit what we saw at the crime scene,” Vail said. “Still, worth checking out.”

Dixon matched Vail’s low volume. “We need to ask Kevin if he knows anything about this feud.”

Lugo looked over his shoulder nervously, then turned back to Dixon. “He’s kind of in a bad way. Later may be better.”

“If this is a straight murder, then any delay could compromise our ability to close the case,” Vail said. “If it’s a serial, like I think it is, and this feud is unrelated, then it’s better we get out in front of it ASAP.” Sensing Lugo’s persisting hesitation, she said, “Don’t worry, we’ll go easy on him.”

Lugo turned and led them left, down a hall that fed into an expansive, tiled family room. “Kevin,” Lugo said to the man sitting stone-faced on a desk chair. Kevin didn’t appear to be aware of their presence. He was staring ahead, shoulders slumped and jaw hanging slack.

Depression, shock, disbelief.

Vail had seen the look many times before. She moved in front of Kevin Cameron and sat down. “Mr. Cameron, I’m Special Agent Karen Vail with the FBI and this is Investigator Dixon. You spoke to her on the phone a little while ago.” She leaned forward slightly. “I’m sorry about Victoria’s death. But we need your help if we’re going to catch the guy who . . . took her life. Will you help us?”

Kevin’s eyes, glazed and red, canted upward to Vail. He examined her face, then his gaze moved to Dixon, and he did the same with her. “Yes,” he finally said in a near whisper.

“We know about the feud your wife’s family’s had with the family that owns Silver Ridge Estates. Can you tell us who your disagreement is with, and what it was all about?”

He stared ahead for a long moment, then refocused his eyes. “It goes back to the parents, Harold and Anna. That’s when the whole thing started. It all had to do with typical wine industry stuff. Frederick was just taking over the business from his father, Gerard, and he was aggressive coming out of the gate. He wanted to really inject some energy into the brand, which he felt was stale, not growing, and maybe losing market share.” Kevin stopped, shuddered as he took an uneven breath.

“Silver Ridge had won a lot of wine competitions, and they were kind of full of themselves. Frederick wanted to make a splash, so he set his sights on Silver Ridge’s up and coming star winemaker. He spent a year trying to lure him away but the guy was loyal to Harold and Anna. Fifteen years later, Silver Ridge hit a tough spot. Harold had a stroke and Anna had some health problems, too. The sons, who didn’t get along too well to begin with, took over day-to-day operation of the winery. So with all that uncertainty, and with Montalvo doing better but still not reaching its potential, Frederick swooped in and snagged the winemaker.”

Vail added all this up to motive. But there were still disconnects. “The family feud is obvious. But how malignant did it get—how bad were the feelings between the families?”

Kevin shrugged. “I’m relaying all this as it was told to me. I wasn’t around, so I can’t really judge. But from what Victoria said, and from what Frederick told me once, it was pretty poisonous stuff. They had some arguments over the years that the AVA board had to step in to resolve.”

“AVA?” Vail asked.

“American Viticultural Area. It’s a designation determined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to specify where a wine is grown and made. Think of it like a branding. When it says Napa Valley on the label, you know that at least 75 percent of the grapes used in that wine are from the Napa Valley.”

“Why wouldn’t all the grapes come from the valley?”

Dixon chuckled. “Sticky question. Grape prices are lower, as you’d imagine, in other regions of California that don’t have the cachet of Napa. Some would say the quality of Napa. So it’s okay to mix some grapes from, say, the Central Valley, provided 75 percent of the grapes used are from Napa. It protects their brand.”

“How many AVAs are there?”

Dixon deferred to Kevin, who shrugged. “Well over a hundred,” he said. “Probably closer to a hundred twenty-five, hundred thirty. The better known ones are Stags Leap District, Russian River Valley, Anderson Valley, and so on.”

Vail looked at Dixon, who indicated she had all she needed. Vail placed a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “Thanks for all your help. I know this wasn’t easy. If you think of anything that might help us find . . . the person we’re looking for, would you give Investigator Dixon or Sergeant Lugo a call?”

Dixon handed him her card. Lugo made no such move. He and Kevin were friends, and Kevin undoubtedly had Lugo’s number. In fact, without question, Kevin’s call—should he make one—would go to his buddy.

Lugo led them to the front door. Out of earshot of Kevin, he said, “I don’t think this feud is related to the murder.”

“Too soon to say for sure,” Vail said. “But the odds are strongly against it.”

Dixon held out a hand. “I wouldn’t discount it just yet. The body was found at their winery. But we don’t have enough info yet. We need to dig more before we make any decisions.”

BACK AT THEIR CAR, Dixon stood at the driver’s door and looked across the vehicle at Vail. “The things that were done to the body could be taken as being a personal attack. Severing the breasts, for one.”

Vail shook her head. “Severing the breasts is probably not personal.”

“Overkill, right? Excessive violence shows a relationship between the offender and the victim.”

“Up until very recently, that was our operating theory. We automatically considered overkill to be rooted in anger, and then we extrapolated that into a personal relationship. If the offender’s angry, he had to have something against that person. Bingo. He knew the vic, hated her or was pissed at her for something. But the new thinking is that psychopaths, who don’t feel any anger at all, are not necessarily angry at the victim. They’re angry at someone else and projecting onto the victim.

“Even more significant is that we’ve found that some psychopaths enjoy inflicting damage and injury—for them, there’s no anger or projection involved. So we have to be careful with calling severe violence ‘overkill.’ It could be a sign of anger, but not always. The other thing to consider,” Vail continued, “is that serial killers target strangers. There’s no relationship with the victim. It’s not personal because they don’t know the victim personally.”

“So you’re not buying this feud as a motive.”

“First of all, anger is not a motive. Revenge is, but anger is an affect, not a motive.” Vail looked over at the house. “The feud was a disagreement between the patriarchs, right? It’s what, forty years old? There’s just no energy left in the feud. So if we’re looking at revenge as the motive, and not anger, why wait all these decades to act? Montalvo’s an old guy. Unless we’re missing something, it doesn’t look like it filtered down to the kids. It might have to some degree—but at the same intensity? They’re aware of it, of the history, but it’s not really their battle—certainly not enough to kill over.”

“We need to dig deeper,” Dixon said. “Make sure you’re right.”

“Here’s something else to consider. There were no defensive injuries on the vic; at the same time, there was a lot of control involved in her capture, and the killing, as well as the postmortem mutilation of the body. The UNSUB was very much in control of Victoria and of himself. He was methodical and careful. He didn’t hack at the breasts with a machete, but he excised them neatly. That reinforces my feeling that there’s no anger in the crime scene. And the killer’s definitely satisfied with what he did there.”

“So if Victoria was killed because of a personal feud, you’re saying we’d see more damage, more anger, possibly even rage. But what if the killer got interrupted and had to leave?”

Vail smiled. “I had a case like that very recently. Dead Eyes. You hear of it?”

“I read some stuff about it. Several women killed. Virginia, right? A couple months ago?”

“Yeah.” Doesn’t come close to summing it up, but that’s good enough for now.

“That was you?” Dixon snapped her fingers. “With the state senator—”

“Yes again.” Vail waved her hand. She wasn’t sure if she was waving it to get off the topic or to . . . get off the topic. “So yeah, it’s possible the UNSUB heard something and freaked, like you said. But there’s the issue of the other body we dug out of that collapsed wine cave that was missing the toenail. So I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at here.”

“The choking, crushing injury is pretty violent. That could be a sign of anger.”

Vail considered that. “True. Let’s wait and see what your coroner tells us about the other body. Then we can make some additional judgments, build on our profile. Right now, with just two vics, it’s hard to be accurate in our conclusions. I can only tell you what it looks like, but the odds of me being wrong are higher with so few bodies. We need more bodies, more behavior, to evaluate.” Vail shook her head. “That didn’t come out right. I’m not wishing we had more bodies—”

“I know what you meant,” Dixon said.

“I can draw one conclusion with reasonable certainty. We’re dealing with an organized offender. Intelligent and potentially socially adept. Since there were no defensive wounds, it appears he was able to co-opt his victim in such a way that she doesn’t see him as a threat. In other words, he was capable of emotionally disarming her so she’d go along with him until he could strike. If she had any objections, he successfully neutralized them.”

Dixon’s phone began vibrating on her belt. She flipped it open and listened a moment. “Okay, meet me over there.”

She closed the phone and turned to Vail. “Warrant’s ready. Clerk is delivering it to Silver Ridge.”

VAIL AND DIXON arrived at the winery a moment ahead of the law clerk, who handed over the warrant in the parking lot.

“You sure we’re going to need that?” Vail asked. “We’re not talking about protected information.”

“Not personally. But it’s proprietary information important to Silver Ridge’s business. A place like this is going to want to protect its guest list. Eventually, they’d turn it over. But this makes it a whole lot faster and easier.”

As they got out of the car, Vail sighed and shook her head. “This is where my vacation started. And ended.”

“How so?”

“We were first on the scene, so to speak. We were on the tour and pairings dinner.”

“How’d you score a Silver Ridge tour? Pretty exclusive. And expensive.”

“It’s both. Robby’s got a friend here who’s got connections.”

“Nice friend to have.”

They took the warrant into the main building, walked through the large, windowed tasting room with low-hanging fiber-optic lights, and asked for the administration office. After Dixon badged the secretary, they were handed off to the wine sales manager.

A tall woman with chic black-rimmed glasses, she leaned back in her chair and appraised Vail and Dixon.

“I take it you’re not here to join our wine club.”

Vail glanced at the placard on the woman’s desk. “Thanks, Catherine. Perhaps another time. We would, however, like a copy of your guest list, specifically those people who’ve purchased tickets for wine cave tours or the wine-pairing dinners during the past five years.”

Catherine removed her glasses and studied Vail’s face. “You were here the other night, when Miguel found—”

“The dead body, yes,” Vail said. “I don’t know why, but wherever I go, violence seems to follow me. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself.”

Catherine gave her a look Vail took to be somewhat hostile.

“So,” Dixon said. “Your guest list. We’ll also need a list of all your employees going back ten years.”

Catherine thinned her lips into a tense smile. “That’s not going to happen. I’m sure our customers don’t want their names ending up in some police file associated with a murder investigation—”

“I thought you might say that,” Dixon said. “So I had this prepared. Just for you.” Dixon grinned politely, then handed over the warrant as if it was a gift certificate.

But, of course, it wasn’t. The woman perused the document, then gave Dixon the same look she’d previously reserved for Vail. It didn’t look any better the second time around.

Catherine leaned forward, pressed two buttons on her phone, then lifted the receiver. “I need you to do something for me.” She proceeded to give the person instructions on what to print and where to find it. She tossed the warrant back at Dixon, who fumbled it before getting it in her grasp. To Dixon’s credit, she merely refolded the document and placed it on the desk. “No, no,” she said. “This is yours, for you to keep. Our gift to you.”

“Thanks so much for your cooperation,” Vail said. “It’s people like you that make our job just a tad bit tougher.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, lists in hand, they started back toward their car. Vail shoved the paperwork in her purse, then stopped as they passed through the tasting room. She went over to a sommelier who was handing a customer his just-purchased case of wine.

“Would you like a tasting?” the man asked.

I sure would. That’s one reason I came to Napa. That and a vacation with Robby—who, come to think of it, still hasn’t returned my call.

“I’d love one,” Vail said.

Dixon joined her at the counter and gave her a questioning look.

The sommelier—whose name tag read Claude, turned to the wall of wine bottles behind him. Vail leaned closer to Dixon. “Go with me on this,” she said.

“Oh,” Claude said, now facing them. “I’m sorry, will that be two tastings?”

“Just the one,” Vail said. “My partner doesn’t drink.”

Dixon cleared her throat.

Claude lifted a bottle and cradled it in two hands so they could view the label. “I’m starting you off with our Pinot Noir, from our vineyard in the Carneros region.”

Claude poured it. Vail lifted the glass to her lips.

“No, no,” Dixon said. “I may not drink,” she said, eyeing Vail with a sharp look, “but I sure know how to taste wine.” She took the glass from Vail, placed it on the countertop, then swirled it rapidly. The red liquid shot centrifugally around the edges before coming to rest. “Aerates it,” Dixon said. “Releases the nose.” She handed the glass back to Vail.

“The nose?” Vail asked.

“The scent,” Claude said.

Come to think of it, Claude’s nose was a bit outstanding as well. Large and bulbous.

Vail took a sip. It slid across her tongue and down her throat effortlessly. “Very nice. Strawberries and . . . peach?”

“Yes, yes,” the man said. “Very good.”

Vail flared her nostrils. “A big, broad nose, too.”

Dixon rolled her eyes.

“Go ahead and take another sip. This time let it flow over the palate, see how the taste buds on different areas of your tongue pick up different flavors.”

Vail brought the glass to her mouth. Stopped, sniffed the wine. “So tell me a little about the winery,” Vail said. “Who owns it?”

“Oh,” Claude said, his face brightening. “It’s owned by two brothers and their sister, but Gray is the main one. He’s here every day—in fact, he was in here not five minutes before you came in.”

“Does Gray have a last name?”

“He’s always gone by Gray, or Grayson. He’s very friendly with all the staff. Good man, I’ve known him about eleven years now.”

Vail lifted the glass again to her lips. “Good to know. And Grayson’s last name?” She tilted the glass and took a mouthful, as Claude instructed. Concentrated on tasting it—couldn’t really see a difference—then swallowed.

“Oh, sorry,” Claude said. “Brix. Grayson Brix.”

Vail started coughing. Violent hacking, struggling to take a breath. She put her hand out and grabbed the counter, then bent forward to steady herself as she fought to keep her throat from closing from the burn of alcohol.

Dixon took the wineglass from her, then said to the sommelier, “Did you say Grayson Brix?”

“Is there a problem?” Claude asked.

Vail cleared her throat. In a raspy voice, she asked, “Any relation to Redmond Brix?”

“Anilise is their sister. Redd is the other brother, the silent partner. He’s also a lieutenant at the Napa County Sheriff’s Department—”

“Yeah, we got that part,” Vail said. She turned to Dixon and, still trying to get the burning edge off her throat, said, “I think we’d better get back.”

They turned and started to leave. Claude called after them. “The tasting fee is ten dollars—”

“Yeah, about that,” Vail said as she neared the doorway. “Tell Lieutenant Brix it’s on him.”

THEY WALKED IN SILENCE to the car. Vail’s hands were clenched and she was walking briskly through the parking lot.

As they approached the vehicle, Dixon said, “Well that’s kind of disturbing.”

“How could he keep that from us? He’s a cop, doesn’t he realize he has an obligation to be straight with us?”

They got into the Ford and Dixon started the engine. “I assume we’re headed back to the sheriff’s department?”

“Oh, yeah,” Vail said. The twenty minute ride would do her good. Right now she felt a pulsing in her temples. That meant her blood pressure was high. And that meant she needed some cooling off time before she confronted Brix. It was likely going to be somewhat contentious.

SIXTEEN

As they drove down Highway 29, the wineries of Niebaum-Coppola on her right and Opus One flying by to her left, Vail turned to Dixon. “How solid is Brix?”

“You mean, can he be mixed up in this somehow? A serial killer?”

“No,” Vail said, “that makes no sense.”

“He doesn’t seem like the serial killer type.”

Vail hiked her brow. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Still, he may have a motive.”

“How well do you know him?”

Dixon shrugged. “Had a case with him a couple years ago. Since then, I’ve seen him around town from time to time. I like the guy. We shoot the breeze, bullshit. Cop talk. Nothing deep.”

They drove on another mile. “Are those railroad tracks?” Vail said, craning her neck to the right.

“Napa Valley Wine Train. It’s an old restored train that goes up and down the tracks, maybe an hour and a half each way, while people eat lunch or dinner. I did it once.”

“Looks like fun.” Vail reached for her phone to check for missed calls. None. “It’s not likely Brix is involved,” she said, “but it’s our job to consider him a potential suspect. Keep an eye on him.”

Vail removed the employee and guest lists, then shoved her purse beneath the seat. “You mind?”

Dixon shook her head. “I keep the car locked. Mine’s in the glovebox. Just push it all the way under.”

She drove on another minute, then Vail said, “You know, Brix really should recuse himself from the investigation.”

Dixon chuckled. “Good luck with that. Still, it might be better keeping him close, where we can keep half an eye on him.”

VAIL WAS THE FIRST through the front doors. She walked up to the desk, as she had the day earlier, only this time the clerk knew who she was. Nevertheless, the woman took a few seconds to acknowledge her.

When she finally came over to the desk, Vail asked, “Where’s Lieutenant Brix?”

“Would you like me to page him for you?”

Dixon came up behind Vail. “Come on, I know where he is.” She held up her cell phone. “Just spoke to him.” Dixon swiped her prox card and proceeded down the hall.

“You didn’t say anything about—”

“I told him we were in the building and we had something to discuss with him.”

They walked into the Major Crimes Task Force room. Redmond Brix was seated at the head of the conference table, a file splayed open in front of him. Beside him was a uniformed officer.

“Give us a moment,” Vail said to the cop.

The man looked at Vail, then Dixon, before coming to rest on Brix, who made the same rounds with his gaze. Brix nodded and the officer left.

Brix leaned back in his seat. “What’s up?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Vail said. “How about you own the winery where the vic was murdered, a winery that’s been locked in a decades-long family feud with Frederick Montalvo? And how about you . . . uh . . . forgot to mention any of this?”

“First of all, I’m more of an investor—”

“Bullshit,” Vail said. She placed both palms on the desk in front of her and peered at Brix. “You and your brother own it. True or false?”

“It’s not black and white—”

“Answer my question. Please,” she added.

“True.”

“Did you have anything to do with the murder of Victoria Cameron? Anything at all, ordering or facilitating a contract hit, killing her yourself, assisting your brother or anyone else—”

Brix rose from his seat. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I’m part of a task force investigating the murder of a young woman. And you, a Lieutenant and the senior cop heading the investigation, decided to willfully hide facts from the rest of us.”

“I didn’t hide anything,” Brix said. “It’s just not relevant.”

“Redd,” Dixon said softly, “that’s for all of us to decide.”

“Scott knows. Stan knows. It’s not a secret.”

“Look,” Dixon said, “as soon as we discovered the vic was Victoria Cameron, you should’ve disclosed your ownership of the rival winery to everyone on the task force.”

“And you should recuse yourself from the investigation,” Vail said.

“Bull-shit,” he sang, drawing out the word.

Vail rested her hands on her hips. “How could you stay on, given what—”

“It’s not our call,” Dixon said. “If he wants to stay on the investigation, it’s not our decision.”

Vail had to concede that point. She had no authority here, other than to help and advise. But Dixon, as lead investigator, could have pressed the issue. Dixon had apparently decided not to pursue it—so Vail let it drop. “Fine,” she said. “Whatever. Any other secrets half the task force knows and the other half doesn’t?”

Brix ground his molars, perhaps waiting for his anger to fade. He turned to Vail with a heavy stare. “I’ve never had my integrity questioned. Never. And I’m not about to allow a Fibbie to dictate to me, or anyone else—”

“That’s enough.”

They all turned to the door, where Sheriff Stan Owens was standing.

“I don’t want to hear any more of that derogatory bullshit. I know the FBI doesn’t always get along with cops, and vice versa. But I respect both state and federal law enforcement. We’re all in it together. Learn to play on the same field.” He surveyed their faces. “Now, is there something you want to share with me?”

Vail looked at Brix. She wanted to disclose Brix’s conflict of interest.

But she didn’t want to be seen in the wrong light, particularly after Owens’s admonishment. Besides, this was Dixon’s fight, if she chose to take it on.

Dixon said nothing. Brix said nothing.

Owens nodded slowly. “Fine.” He disappeared out the door.

“Anything else worth reporting?” Brix asked.

Vail dropped the guest and employee list printouts on the table. “We’ll fill you in at four,” she said. “That way everyone knows what’s going on. For a change.” She walked out of the room, leaving Dixon behind.

SEVENTEEN

John Wayne Mayfield pulled into the Napa County Sheriff’s Department parking lot and backed into a spot opposite the morgue’s access gate. A moment later, the two foxes got out of their Ford and walked toward the building’s entrance.

The redhead was moving faster. Urgent. Angry.

Interesting. She’d looked angry when they left Silver Ridge. What had gotten under her skin so deeply that it was still bothering her? He’d have to find out, take a look around tonight, when no one was on duty.

He pulled the pad from his breast pocket and opened it to the next page. Clicked his pen and began making notes. He needed to find out who they were, but he was almost sure they were working on the Victoria Cameron murder. Which meant they were looking for him.

“Right here,” he said under his breath. “Better come get me before I come get you-ou,” he sang.

VAIL LEFT THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT and stood outside, waiting for Dixon. A few minutes later, Dixon walked through the front doors carrying a small brown bag. She tossed it to Vail, then got in the car.

“Late lunch,” Dixon said. “There’s turkey and veggie.”

Vail opened the bag, peered in. “Either’s fine.”

“I’ll take turkey. I need the protein for my workouts.” She took the sandwich from Vail and put the Ford in gear. Peeled back the wrapping, took a bite.

Their phones rang simultaneously. Vail pulled her BlackBerry—a text message from Ray Lugo:

Another vic. Meet me.

It was followed by the address.

“You know where that is?” Vail asked.

Dixon nodded, then depressed the gas pedal, sandwich in one hand and steering wheel in the other.

VALLEJO, CALIFORNIA, was a straight shot south down Highway 29, a fifteen-minute ride under normal circumstances. But with her lightcube flashing, Dixon downed her sandwich in four minutes and arrived at the Vallejo Police Department seven minutes after that.

Vallejo is part of the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the more expensive regions in the country in which to live. But Vallejo, at the lower end of the income spectrum, provided affordable housing for those not able to purchase the more ritzy addresses of a Silicon Valley or North Bay neighborhood. Still, its location, on San Pablo Bay and within a short drive of the Napa Valley as well as the greater Bay Area, provided picturesque views and prime weather patterns.

Home to the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, the decommissioned Mare Island Naval Shipyard, and the third largest Filipino American population in the United States, the city has the little-known distinction of briefly serving as California’s state capital from 1852 to 1853.

“You’re very quiet,” Dixon said.

“Just thinking.”

“You clammed up soon as I told you we were headed to Vallejo. I’m betting you’re dialed into the Zodiac. Concerned our case is related.”

Vallejo was the site, four decades ago, of two victims of the Zodiac killer. The Zodiac was never apprehended, and the investigation, which was mothballed in 2004, was reopened in 2007. In 2009, a woman came forward claiming her deceased father had been the killer and that she had been present during some of the murders.

“Regardless of his true identity,” Vail said, “he’s either dead or incarcerated. He’s been inactive for forty years. Besides, MO’s different. Ritual’s all wrong.” She unbuckled as Dixon parked. “But yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking about.”

They walked into the police department and headed to the Detective Division. “Still, there are similarities,” Vail said. “Zodiac was a narcissist, just like our UNSUB. He contacted the police after his kills, claiming credit. Mailed cryptograms to the newspapers.”

“I’ve heard the stories,” Dixon said. “Before my time.”

As they walked into the Detective Division, Ray Lugo caught their attention from across the room. Vail and Dixon headed toward him.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dixon said under her breath.

Vail looked at her, but before she could inquire about the remark, another man, seated behind Lugo, rose from his chair. Dark complected, possibly Asian, maybe Filipino.

“Well, well, well,” the man said. “If it isn’t Buff Barbie.”

“Eddie,” Dixon said, a surprisingly measured and civil response. “Should’ve known you’d be here.”

Vail sensed a failed relationship. She watched them staring at one another, that awkward look pregnant with transparent communication.

“Well,” she finally said, “I’m Special Agent Karen Vail. FBI. I take it you’re Eddie.”

He kept his eyes on Dixon but extended his hand in Vail’s direction. “Detective Eddie Agbayani.” He finally pulled his gaze over to Vail as they shook. “Good to meet you.”

“So where’s this new vic?” Vail asked.

Lugo held up a case file. “Probable new victim.” He handed Vail the manila folder. “Before I went over to Kevin Cameron’s, I sent out a text blast to all my LEO buddies,” he said, using the acronym for Law Enforcement Officer. “I’ve lived here all my life, I’ve got a fair number of law enforcement contacts. I figured you never know, something may turn up.”

“And it did,” Agbayani said. “Almost three years ago we found a DB in South Vallejo, in a tony neighborhood. It was a body dump. The area’s got the most expensive real estate in the city, so it scared the crap out of them. We never solved it.”

“And what ties it to our UNSUB?” Vail asked.

“Severed breasts and missing toenail,” Lugo said. “That’s what I put in the text message. I thought, of all things that’s unique about this killer, that sums it up.”

Vail opened the case file. “Good thinking, Ray. Exactly right.” She backed off to a nearby chair while the other three talked. Vail heard snippets like “So how’ve you been?” that came from Agbayani, followed by Dixon’s response, then his comment: “I’ve missed you.” Vail tuned it out and focused on the reports in front of her.

Coroner’s report: “. . . thirty-five-year-old woman, brunette, 157.5 cm. Apparent homicide victim. COD looks to be crushing wound to the trachea; fractured hyoid bone. Bilateral breast tissue excision, with well-defined margins suggesting a sharp knife or scalpel . . .” Vail skipped a bit but came across the item that brought her here: “the toenail of victim’s right second digit is missing, apparently forcibly removed due to . . .”

Vail thumbed through the rest of the file. No known suspects identified. No witnesses to the murder. No forensics other than tire tracks lifted nearby that might or might not have been from the assailant’s vehicle. The pattern matched that of a mass produced tire from a major brand manufacturer. Over a million of these tires were sold in the Bay Area proper during the previous three years. Victim ID was Maryanne Bernal. Served for three years on a nonprofit board. Executive director of Falling Leaf Winery in the Georges Valley District. Employees all cleared. Not married, no known enemies, no disgruntled boyfriends.

Vail closed the folder.

“Not much help,” Lugo said.

“Actually, that’s not entirely true.” Vail joined the three of them by Agbayani’s desk. “This is further proof this offender has killed before. It allows us to begin creating a geographic kill zone, a geoprofile.”

“That helps us how?” Dixon asked.

“Well, right now, it doesn’t help us at all because our sampling size is too small.”

“The more victims the better,” Lugo said.

“In a warped sense,” Vail said, “yes. So . . . Maryanne Bernal. What do we know about her?”

“Last seen leaving a house she was renting in Northgate—”

“Northgate? Where’s that?”

“In Vallejo.”

“She worked at a winery in Napa and lived in Vallejo?”

“Not unusual,” Agbayani said. “Relatively quick off-hours commute. Prices are better. She may’ve had the house before getting the Napa job.”

“Okay,” Vail said, accepting that explanation. “What else?”

Agbayani continued: “We don’t know where she went after. Far as we could tell, she didn’t visit or talk to any of her friends after leaving home. She more or less disappeared from the living. At some point, her path crossed with the killer’s, and that was it. We were never able to establish any kind of suspect list based on where she worked or people she knew. She didn’t date much and didn’t have any arguments with anyone.”

“We now know this is a serial offender case,” Vail said. “They’re almost always stranger-on-stranger crimes, so Maryanne probably didn’t know the killer, not well. She may’ve met him somewhere, someplace meaningless to her . . . standing in line in the bank, at work in passing. Meant nothing to her, but she was suddenly on his radar. He either took her soon after or followed and tracked her for awhile. Given that this guy appears to be an organized offender, he probably planned his attack on her.”

Agbayani sat down heavily. His chair creaked. “Well, I’m glad we’ve got some activity to work with on this. Maybe we’ll catch this fucker.”

Vail’s phone rang. She pulled it from her belt and checked the display: Robby. “Excuse me, I’ve gotta take this.”

VAIL ANSWERED THE CALL as she headed back out to the parking lot the way she’d come. “Hey, stranger.”

“How’s your day been?”

Vail sighed. “I’m working. Learned some stuff about the wine industry you’re not likely to get from one of the tastings we had planned.”

“Yeah?”

“And you?”

“Oh, been tooling around, visited a few wineries. Took a tour of this castle winery, pretty cool actually.”

“Tell me about it over dinner. Wanna meet around six?”

“I can do that. Want me to pick you up?”

“I can get someone to drop me off. Where do you want to meet?”

“Back at the B&B. We’ll go from there.”

There was a noise over her shoulder. Dixon and Lugo walking toward her.

“Gotta go. See you later. Miss you.” She ended the call and reholstered her phone. “So, good work, Ray. This is an important discovery.”

“I’d much rather find already dead bodies from this killer than fresh ones.”

Vail shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun, which was breaking through the clouds. “I have a feeling there are more. Looks like this guy’s been operating in the area for a while. That means he’s comfortable here. Knows his way around, works here, lives here.”

“So the question is,” Dixon said, “where’s his base of operation?”

“That’s a loaded question. We’d need at least an hour to answer it in theory, and a few more victims to answer it in practice.”

Dixon pulled out her car keys. “So for now, we just keep adding to the profile.”

Vail nodded. “Exactly.”

Their phones buzzed simultaneously. Vail pulled her BlackBerry: a text from Brix. They were to report back now to the task force op center.

Lugo turned toward his vehicle. “See you two in fifteen.”

EIGHTEEN

Vail followed Dixon and Lugo into the conference room the Major Crimes task force was currently occupying. A number of suited guests were standing in front of the whiteboard. Redmond Brix was conducting class, gesturing to the group of bureaucrat-looking officials.

“Who are these people?” Vail whispered to Dixon.

Dixon turned her back to Brix and said, “Let’s put it this way. They’re not friendlies.”

Brix looked past the shoulder of one of his guests and locked on Vail and Dixon. Lugo had already taken his seat.

Vail felt the coolness of Brix’s look, even across the room. She and Dixon made their way to the front of the room. Each of the guests turned to face Vail. The men glanced at Dixon—men could never help but look at a beautiful woman—but their gazes returned to Vail. She felt as if she had done something wrong and was facing her accusers.

“This is Roxxann Dixon, investigator with the DA’s office, and Special Agent Karen Vail, FBI,” Brix said. He gestured to the suits and said, “And this is Mayor Prisco, Board of Supervisors president Zimbrowski, and Timothy Nance, District Director for Congressman Emmanuel Church.”

Vail absorbed this information, hoping she hadn’t contorted her face too badly; she wasn’t one to effectively mask her emotions, particularly when it came to bureaucrats and politicians. Trying to behave, she shook each of their hands with a firm greeting.

“This is a pretty impressive showing,” Vail said.

“This is a pretty important case,” Timothy Nance said.

Politically, Vail mused. This is a pretty important case politically.

Brix consulted his watch, then spread both hands. “Why don’t we take our seats, get started.” He held up a sheaf of papers. “I had our names and contact numbers typed up and hole punched. I also had copies made of the autopsy report on Victoria Cameron. Take one of each and pass it on.”

The politicos sat in chairs placed in the front of the room, off to the side. Sheriff Stan Owens walked in, clapped hands with the mayor, said something to Zimbrowski and Nance, then took a seat beside them. Vail sat where she had earlier, at the midpoint of the oblong table, to Brix’s right, who stood at the head. Dixon was beside Vail, followed by Lugo at the far end, facing Brix. Scott Fuller perched himself on the other side, opposite Vail and slightly to her left.

“Everyone’s been introduced to our guests,” Brix said, “so let’s move on. We have a number of follow-ups to cover, but first, let’s hear about this new vic.”

“That’s mine,” Lugo said. He took the papers making the rounds and peeled off a copy of each document as he spoke. “Lived and worked in Vallejo, killed three years ago. Body dumped in an upper class South Vallejo neighborhood. Nothing to go on, case unsolved.”

“Severed breasts and second right toenail removed postmortem,” Vail said. “That provides us with linkage to Victoria Cameron and the unidentified vic from the excavation site. So that gives him three victims that we know of, and there are going to be more.”

“You know that how?” This from the board of supervisors president, Zimbrowski.

“From my years of experience studying serial killers,” Vail said firmly.

“Whoa,” Nance said, leaning forward in his seat. He looked at the room’s door, as if to make sure it was closed. In a lowered voice, he said, “Let’s not throw around terms like ‘serial killer.’ That’s volatile stuff. We don’t know that’s what we’re dealing with here.”

“I’m with the Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Vail said. “A profiler.”

“Profiling. I’ve always wondered about that,” Nance said. “Is there any validity to that stuff?”

Vail chuckled. “You know, you bring up a valid point, Mr. Nance. I’ve had the same doubts. I’ve always thought my career was a waste of time and taxpayer money.”

The room was silent. Nance dropped his head and leaned back in embarrassment, clearly realizing how stupid his question was. At least, that was Vail’s initial interpretation of his reaction. Now that she thought about it, however, he could’ve been thinking, Who’s this bitch and how can I get rid of her?

“Agent Vail has a way with words,” Brix said, breaking the odd quiet that had draped the room like dense smoke.

“I’ve found her analysis useful so far,” Dixon said.

Lugo nodded. “Because of her input, I was able to find that Vallejo vic.”

“That’s dandy,” Nance said, a bit louder. “Has it caught us a killer?”

“Look,” Vail said, “I’m not here to debate the merits of profiling. But I’m here. And to answer your question, yes, there’s validity to it.”

“Why are you here?”

“I wasn’t—”

“I asked for her help,” Brix said.

Vail looked at him, and again, tried to disguise her facial expression, which probably bordered on wide-mouthed shock.

“This is something beyond our knowledge base,” Brix said. “We probably could’ve done a decent job, muddled through it, missed some important nuances about this killer, and eventually caught the guy. But in my estimation, we’ve got a volatile situation here. And since we’re dealing with the lives of young women, I felt it was best to bring in the FBI. Before we had more victims, new victims, to deal with.”

Nance started to object. Brix held up a hand. “I don’t like Agent Vail’s methods, but she knows her shit. So unless Sheriff Owens has a problem, Vail stays and we move on. Sheriff?” Brix turned to Owens.

“I’ve been to the National Academy at Quantico,” he said, speaking ahead, not looking at the dignitaries. “Agent Vail was one of my instructors. She’s got my vote.”

Brix’s eyes scanned his guests’ faces. Hearing no objection, he said, “Okay, then. Let’s follow up on our assignments.”

“One observation,” Vail said, “before we go any further. This new victim helps us build on that ‘access concept’ I mentioned after we found Victoria Cameron. We now have three likely vics of the same offender. They were each found in different locations. That means we have three different access lists to evaluate. Access population A, the Silver Ridge wine cave; population B, the excavated Black Knoll cave; and population C, Vallejo. Unfortunately, because Vallejo was a body dump, we don’t know where she was killed. If we can reopen that investigation and determine where she was murdered, we can look for overlap on who’d have access to these three crime scenes. That’d help narrow the suspect pool.”

“Interesting,” Nance said.

Dixon nodded. “We can start with population A. Karen and I obtained the guest lists from Silver Ridge.”

Vail locked eyes with Brix, waiting for him to disclose to the group his ownership interest. He met her stare and held it until she looked away. Then he said, “The guest lists are being cross-referenced by officers I’ve got working the case behind the scenes. So far, nothing unusual has shown up. Only a handful of locals, half of them women. The others are being looked at. They’ll be interviewed to see if they’ve got alibis for the time in question. I’ll let you know if we get anything interesting.”

Fuller said, “Population B, the excavated cave, is a problem. There’s a gate on the property, but anyone could realistically bypass it. But if we’re assuming it’s not leaky, you’re looking at a lot of potential people, from housecleaners to caterers, to gardeners, to maintenance people. All will be granted access without much resistance. I don’t think your access theory is going to get us anywhere.”

Vail entertained thoughts of responding, but before she could speak, Lugo said, “I met with Kevin Cameron. Karen and Roxxann joined me and we asked him all the standard questions. He didn’t know anyone who’d want to harm Victoria. There was something about a family disagreement going back forty years or so between the owners of Silver Ridge and the Montalvo family.”

“And we spoke with Frederick Montalvo,” Dixon said. “We delivered the news, and he was pretty broken up, as you’d imagine. Karen and I didn’t feel there’s much to this disagreement—”

“Hold on a second,” Mayor Prisco said. “The Montalvos and the owners of Silver Ridge have had a long-running feud and you don’t think it’s relevant?”

“We’re looking into everything,” Vail said. “But since we’re dealing with a serial killer, and since these types of things—bad blood between families—don’t fit with the psychopathy seen in the behaviors at the crime scene, it’s unlikely there’s a relationship. But as I said, we’re looking into it.” She again glanced at Brix.

Brix cleared his throat. “Just . . . have confidence that we know how to run an investigation. We’re good at this type of thing, Mayor.”

Prisco’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I’m sorry. I’ll—I’m just concerned, is all.”

“We’re all concerned,” Owens said. “That’s why we’re taking this very seriously.”

“And it’s why I think we need to take the next step,” Vail said. “If we want to accelerate this investigation, we want to push this killer into the open. We want to play to his weaknesses.”

Zimbrowski pushed his glasses up on his nose. “What weaknesses?”

“He’s a narcissist,” Vail said.

Fuller sat forward. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“I think we do. At least from what we’ve seen, there’s a good chance that’s what we’re dealing with.”

“And how does this impact your investigation?” Prisco asked.

“Narcissists feel they’re superior to everyone else. They recognize that what they’re doing is wrong, but they just don’t care. And they want credit for what they’ve done. One such case you may be familiar with is the Zodiac Killer from nineteen—”

“Don’t even say it,” Zimbrowski said.

“That case is still unsolved,” Prisco said. “If you start talking like that around here, people will absolutely freak out—”

“I don’t want to hear those words again,” Nance said. “In this room or outside it.”

Vail looked around the room, waiting for someone to object. All the cops were looking down at the table or stimming with pens or the edge of their binders.

Finally, Vail said, “No disrespect, but I’m giving you advice on how to catch this killer. I can’t be swayed by your sensibilities about—whatever it is you’re worried about. Because this killer, if we can get him to communicate with us, will reveal information about himself we can use to catch him. And that’s vital, because right now, we’ve got shit. And that’s something to be worried about.”

There was quiet before the mayor asked, “How do we get him to communicate with us if we don’t know who he is?”

“We go public with this, we go on TV, the newspapers—”

“Are you out of your mind?” Fuller asked. “We’ll have widespread panic.”

Vail crossed her arms. “Sounds to me like you’ve read all of the Douglas and Ressler and Underwood books on profiling, Scott. You know what I’m saying is right.”

“I don’t know that. Those books don’t talk much about narcissism. Besides, you don’t know for sure this guy is a narcissist, so going public now is the wrong thing to do. Let’s get more evidence first, see more behaviors before we can determine if he’s really got Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”

Fuller, in throwing around medical terms, sounded authoritative and, judging by the way the suits were looking at him, had captured their attention. He also appeared to be saying what they wanted to hear.

“More behavior,” Vail said, “means more bodies. How long do you think you can keep this under wraps? And how upset are people going to be when they find out you knew you had a serial killer loose and you failed to warn them?”

“I challenge your theory of a serial killer,” Nance said.

Vail shook her head. “I’m not a politician, okay? I’m a cop. But I see what’s going on here. Understand this: I’m not worried about tourism levels or income to the state, or the federal government. I’m concerned with catching this guy before he kills again.”