The 7th Victim

“I’ll give you the name and you go out and grab the guy up. Things check out, the deal goes through. It’s the wrong guy, I get the needle. You can’t lose.”

“He’s got it all figured out,” Bledsoe said in the adjacent room.

“He was an organized offender,” Vail explained. “High IQ. Preyed on college girls living off-campus. He followed them to a supermarket, then lured them away by wearing a fake cast, claiming he’d broken his arm. He told them he needed help loading groceries into his van. As soon as he got them out of sight, he cracked them over the head with the cast and threw them into the van.” Vail turned back to the mirror. “You bet he’s got this all figured out. Which is why I find it hard to trust him.”

“We’ll see what take Underwood has, maybe he’s got a feel for the guy,” Bledsoe said. “He knows him better than anyone.”

Vail folded her arms. “For what we’re paying him, he’d better come up with something.”

“I thought the Bureau just paid his expenses,” Bledsoe said.

“He’s an international consultant,” Vail said. “World renowned. Expenses and a hefty fee, I’m sure.”

Del Monaco nodded. “Gifford was against it, but they worked something out. I think Underwood saw it as an opportunity for another book, or at least a chapter in his next one.”

“. . . So give me something,” Underwood was saying to Singletary. “Something I can take to them to prove your info is good. They won’t want to cause a big media stir, then find it’s the wrong guy. And even with a name, it could take a while to find him. Once they agree to the deal, your execution is off. And if your info turns out bad, and they have to ramp up again and set a date for you to leave this planet, it’s damn messy. You see the problem we have here, Ray?”

Singletary squirmed a bit in his seat. He had no response.

“We’ve got some other problems, too, Ray. Like they think maybe this is a hoax and it’s just your way of playing with us, watching us go off on a wild goose chase. Your way of getting even.”

“Could be, but not likely. Even your psychobabble analysis of me could tell them that’s not what I’m about.”

“They’re also thinking it’s your way of getting your fifteen minutes.”

“I got my fifteen minutes. I got my fifteen years of attention, Thomas, some of it because of you. My name is forever engraved in the crime journals. And in your books.”

Underwood shook his head. “You’re missing a huge opportunity here, Ray. Every bit of publicity you’ve gotten since your arrest has been negative. But ‘Convicted killer gives police identity of Dead Eyes killer’ makes you look good. Big headlines.”

“What good is that gonna do me after they inject poison into my body?”

“I could debate that with you philosophically. Give you the Zen explanation. The concept of redemption. But I know you pretty well, so I know that’s pointless.” Underwood tapped his fingers on the table in front of him. “Why do you think Dead Eyes sent you this letter? My friends at the Bureau who asked me to come, they kept asking me, ‘Why Singletary?’” He turned his hands palm up. “What should I tell them?”

“I tell you that, and you’ll figure out who he is without me.”

“You have to know they’re doing that right now. Running lists of inmates who did time with you. Guys you were friends with, roomed with, played ball with, protected. Pretty soon, they’re going to come across some names and start investigating. Once they do that, your negotiating power goes away.”

“Then fuck them. Could be somebody I know from the outside. They think they’re so smart, let them run their lists. They’ve got 159 hours, maybe they can figure it out themselves.” The anger melted from his face, and he forced a smile. “Then again, maybe not.”

“Let me at least get you something. Governor won’t give you the commuted sentence. But he may give you something else.”

“What else is there? What else could a guy want who’s going to die in a matter of hours?”

Underwood rose from his chair. “I don’t know, Ray. That’s something you have to think about. But I wouldn’t wait too long.”

Vail pried her eyes away from Singletary and looked at Del Monaco. “Why did Dead Eyes feel the need to send that letter?”

Del Monaco stifled a yawn, then ran a couple of pudgy fingers through his eyes. “I don’t know, Karen. Assuming it’s someone he did time with, maybe he was coding a message in the prose. Maybe it’s as simple as he knew he was about to die and wanted to say good-bye. Or maybe he knew it’d drive us nuts.”

She looked down at the letter again. “Let this be a time where we conclude our daily activities, where we look inward and consider what’s come before us,” she read aloud. “That could be a send-off, I guess.”

“Or is it code? Or the ramblings of a deranged mind?”

Bledsoe snapped his cell phone shut. “Hernandez has eight thousand names on his inmate list. He’s comparing it to the other lists he’s been compiling to see if there are any matches. Then we’ll whittle from there.”

Vail said, “Problem is, Singletary’s right. There isn’t enough time to parse these lists. I wonder if he’d go for a ‘maybe.’ You know, if we can locate Dead Eyes and prove he’s our UNSUB before he gets the needle, his sentence is commuted. If not . . .” She shrugged. “He gets the juice.”

Del Monaco watched through the mirror as Underwood patted Singletary on the back. “No way they’re going to commute his sentence,” Del Monaco said. “I hope this whole exercise wasn’t for nothing.”

“Won’t be for nothing,” Bledsoe said. “Underwood gets a chapter for his next book.”

Del Monaco walked out into the corridor to greet Underwood. Vail was left alone with Bledsoe, finally able to talk freely with him. “We know it’s him, Bledsoe. The letter is from Dead Eyes. We know that.”

He held up a hand. “Hold it, we don’t know anything.”

“‘I know what they know.’ He’s telling us he knows what we know because he has the profile, he’s seen the file.”

Bledsoe shrugged. “It could mean a lot of things. Whoever wrote this letter ain’t exactly firing on all thrusters. I don’t think you can take anything at face value.”

Vail sighed. “I know that. Just seems to fit, like he’s trying to throw it in our faces. He knows. We know.”

“Which brings me back to the same question: why did he send the letter in the first place? I don’t get it. Why not send you another email if he wanted us to see it? Why communicate with Singletary?” He turned from her, kicked his shoe against the wall. “Damn it. I hate this case. Usually you get a skel who commits a crime, leaves some evidence, and all you gotta do is track the leads. Half the time it’s a relative or acquaintance. But this guy seems to leave nothing behind that can be traced to him. And he’s hit unrelated victims. He’s playing with us. Leaving us fucking riddles.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and started pacing. “I don’t know how you do it, dealing with these fucking serials. I did it full time, I’d have a bleeding ulcer.”

The door swung open and in walked Underwood and Del Monaco. Underwood’s tie was askew and his usual cheerful face looked taut and hard. “I couldn’t turn him,” he said. “Ray’s desperate. He’s got one bargaining chip, and he’s not willing to give it up. It’s literally life or death to him.”

“Is he telling the truth?” Vail asked.

Underwood sighed, leaned both palms against the surface of the mirror, and bowed his head. “I think so. I think he really believes he knows who wrote that letter. And if Dead Eyes wrote that letter, and if his beliefs are on the money, you’d have made a big step toward solving this case.”

“Too many damn ‘ifs,’” Bledsoe said.

Underwood pushed away from the mirror. “That’s the nature of our business, Detective. Educated guesses about what these people are thinking, about who and what they are, based on what we’ve seen before. There may be a lot of ifs, but a lot of the ifs have been proven right over the years. Sometimes it’s all we’ve had to go on.” Underwood grabbed the doorknob. “Agent Vail,” he said without facing her. “Just wanted you to know that’s a damn good profile you drew up. And I like your work on finding signature within MO. It’s got a lot of promise.” He turned his head and winked at her. “Keep up the good work.”

With that, he pulled the door open, then walked out of the room.

fifty-nine

The intervening five days passed with a flurry of strategy sessions that included Bledsoe, Del Monaco, the district attorney, Thomas Gifford, the governors of the states of Virginia and New York, Lee Thurston, and the speaker of the Virginia state legislature. The posturing was intense, the political threats at times implied, at other times plainly stated.

The issues were debated, but in the end, the district attorney felt that setting aside a jury’s decision to invoke the death penalty under any circumstances devalued the very heart of the American judicial system. When the governor commuted a sentence, it was within his power to do so according to the Constitution. Though an uncommon occurrence, it was almost always a defensible decision. Making deals with killers due to die could be defended as well—if nothing else, to potentially prevent other women from being killed—but it was no guarantee they would find the offender even if they were given his identity. And if the whole exercise turned out to be a wild goose chase, both the district attorney and the governor would come out damaged, perhaps permanently, and lose reelection. No one would want to vote for law enforcement leaders who had been bilked by a convicted killer.

And so the argument went.

The search for an inmate who had served with Singletary was a more daunting task than they had anticipated. He had not only been a resident of North Carolina’s Rockridge institution, but he also spent time at Virginia’s Greensville Correctional Facility. With the number of potential suspects with a violent background numbering in the thousands, Robby and Sinclair headed a subgroup of law enforcement staff whose sole task was to pare the list to a reasonable number of men who could be questioned individually. But progress was akin to watching honey dissolve in iced tea. Erroneously eliminate one inmate on the list and the entire process would be for nothing. So they had to be methodical and cross-check one another’s work.

With the hours dwindling, and with the Singletary decision having been made, Vail, Bledsoe, Del Monaco, the district attorney, and Thomas Underwood were invited to witness the execution. They were flown by private charter and then ushered by limousine to the prison. They were quiet, having little to say to each other. It had all been said during their earlier deliberations.

Vail had tossed and turned the past four nights, getting little sleep—and what rest she did get occurred in disturbed, nightmare-filled fits. She spent time with Jonathan each day, but there was little news to report.

It was agreed that prior to Singletary’s death walk, Underwood and Vail would make one last attempt to obtain the name locked away in his brain. Upon arrival, they were led to the prison’s death-watch area, where they found Richard Ray Singletary in a cell, sitting on the edge of a cot. He was dressed in a thin, short-sleeved blue cotton shirt and a fresh pair of pants, his head bowed and forearms resting on his thighs. The warden was standing outside, his face tight and drawn. There was no chaplain present.

The door to Singletary’s cell was open, and three large guards stood with their hands on their belts. They were there to prevent him from harming himself, and to ensure he did not explode in one last rampage of death before he left this world.

Singletary’s ankles and wrists were shackled in preparation for transport to the lethal injection chamber. Though he had been given steak dinners each night as compensation for having turned over the alleged Dead Eyes letter, his face was drawn and he looked as if he had dropped several pounds since their last visit. His head lifted upon their arrival, hope spilling from his eyes. He undoubtedly thought they might have brought news the governor had spared him.

“Thomas.”

“Ray.”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, then Singletary looked away, apparently realizing they were there not to deliver good news, but to try one last time to wrest information from him.

“We need the name, Ray. I know you’re disappointed we weren’t able to make the deal. No, check that. Disappointed is a bullshit word. Devastated. But I tried, you know I tried.”

Vail stood to Underwood’s left, arms folded, trying to will the prisoner to give up the name.

Singletary nodded.

“I’m sorry I failed.” He stepped inside the open door and knelt in front of Singletary, within reach of the man’s legs.

One of the guards stepped forward. “Sir, I would be more comfortable—”

Underwood held up a hand. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Ray won’t hurt me.” He looked up at Singletary and met his eyes. “Ray, I’m going to make you one last offer. I have the power to let the world know that your last act on this Earth was one of mercy. You once told me you felt sorry for the victims’ families. You have a chance to make a difference, to give them a little bit of something to make them feel good. To alleviate their hate.”

“Their hate is misdirected. Tell them to hate my father, who beat me every day, tell them to hate the two women who raped me when I was thirteen.” A tear streamed down his cheek. “Tell them to hate the people who made me who I am.”

Underwood’s lips twisted into a frown. “Ray, don’t do this. Don’t make excuses. You are who you are, you did what you did. You’re going to face your maker very soon. Wouldn’t you rather face him knowing you did at least one good deed in your lifetime? Show him you made an attempt to atone for the pain you’ve caused.”

Vail did not fault Underwood for his efforts but was sickened by the fact they had been reduced to begging for the information. Singletary deserved to rot in hell; he deserved to be tortured the way he had tortured his victims. The way he had brought them to the brink of death, only to revive them over and over so he could torture them some more.

“This man deserves to die,” Vail said matter-of-factly. “He’s not going to give us the name, Agent Underwood.” She was turning the screw, driving it in, bringing Singletary to the point of no return. “We’ve offered him what we could. The man has no desire to save himself.”

Underwood sighed, then rose to his feet. “Richard Ray, you disappoint me. There’s nothing to be gained by protecting this man, by taking his name to your grave.” He waited a moment, and for a brief second it appeared as if Singletary’s mouth wavered. “We’re going to be in the chamber, in the viewing area. If you change your mind, Ray, just say the name. Before you lose consciousness, say the name. Save your soul.”

Underwood turned and left, Vail on his heels. They did not look back.

sixty

The execution chamber was a clean, well-lighted circular area surrounded by a glass viewing enclosure and a witness room sporting sixteen blue plastic institutional-style chairs. Already seated were relatives of both the victims and prisoner, state-selected witnesses, and media representatives. Vail and Underwood took their places beside Bledsoe and Del Monaco, who were sitting behind the government officials also in attendance.

Vail shook her head at Bledsoe, but he already knew by their demeanor that Singletary had not cooperated. Bledsoe, desperate to clear the Dead Eyes case, had quietly lobbied the governor and district attorney one last time upon arrival at the correctional facility. But they would have nothing of it.

The families of the seven women Richard Ray Singletary had killed sat rigidly in their seats. Their faces were, for the most part, stiff and angry, an occasional tissue being dabbed at the face. No doubt reliving excruciating memories a parent should never experience. Their daughters brutally murdered, the case file reports clearly outlining the torturous last hours of their children’s lives.

The door to the execution chamber swung open and Richard Ray Singletary was rolled into the room strapped to a gurney. ECG cardiac monitor leads and a stethoscope were affixed to his chest, and two IV lines, one in each arm, had been inserted in the adjacent preparation room. The black-and-white clock mounted above the doorway to the chamber read 11:49.

Vail uncrossed her legs and leaned forward on her thighs, hands covering her mouth, hoping for one last utterance from the monster who lay strapped before them.

The IV lines were connected to the wall, where they threaded through an opening into a puke-green anteroom, where the hooded execution team stood amongst their drugs, a clock, and a bank of telephones—should the governor call with a last-minute stay. In this case, the governor was in attendance. Vail glanced over at the man. Judging by his rigid posture and stern face, this was not going to be Richard Ray Singletary’s lucky day.

Vail knew multiple executioners were set to inject drugs into the IV tubes, but only one of them would actually supply the lethal dose. No one would know—not even the executioners—who delivered the toxic cocktail into the inmate’s bloodstream and who had injected their drugs into a secondary reservoir.

At eleven fifty-five, the executioners shoved their syringes into the IV ampules, then awaited word to proceed.

The warden leaned close to the prisoner. “Richard Ray Singletary, do you have any last remarks?”

Vail closed her eyes, her heart pounding so hard she felt the pressure beating against her ear drums.

“Rot in hell, all of you,” Singletary yelled.

“Thank you, sir,” the warden said. “And may the same fate befall you, as I’m sure it will.” He turned to the executioners and said, “Proceed.”

Vail pictured them depressing their plungers, injecting a massive dose of the barbiturate sodium pentothal, the first step in Richard Ray Singletary’s death. In a matter of seconds, he would be unconscious.

After flushing the line with saline, a paralyzing agent, pancuronium bromide, was then injected to deaden nerve signals to the cardiac muscle and disable the diaphragm and lungs.

Bledsoe sighed deeply, his eyes focused on the second hand as it swept around the clock face. At two minutes past midnight, with the ECG monitor registering an unending flat line, the warden pronounced Richard Ray Singletary dead.

“Shit,” Bledsoe muttered under his breath.

Vail nodded. “Shit.”

sixty-one

The flight back on the governor’s private charter was quiet. No one spoke. Vail could not help thinking they were back to square one. As much as they knew, as much information they had garnered from the various crime scenes, they still had no clue as to who Dead Eyes was. No suspects. Just pages and pages of information, gruesome photos, and for all they knew, useless analyses.

Vail stretched out her legs, and a sudden spark of pain in her left knee took her breath. She pulled out a small bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol and popped two caplets. She realized she had almost finished the thirty-count bottle in less than three days. She promised herself that the next time she saw Dr. Altman she would ask him to look at the knee and give her something stronger for the pain. Even if it required treatment, she had no time. She needed to stay on top of things until they caught Dead Eyes. Along with Jonathan’s condition, the case had become the focus, dare she think it, obsession, of her life.

She reclined her seat and thought of Robby. She missed his touch, his warmth, his scent. It was a strange feeling, losing oneself so totally in another’s person. Had she not had everything else hanging over her head, she might have been able to revel in falling in love. It had been so long. She had only experienced it twice, the first time in junior high school, and then again with Deacon. Deacon happened fast, and then she quickly became pregnant with Jonathan. She didn’t think Deacon was a mistake at the time, but history was not as kind in retrospect.

The Lear jet banked left and the lights of the small private landing strip came into view. She tightened her belt and turned to face Thomas Underwood, who was sitting to her right. “I enjoyed working with you.”

“I wish the end result could’ve been better.”

“Me, too.”

“If there’s anything more I can do, please don’t hesitate.”

Vail let a small smile escape the right side of her mouth. “I could use your help writing a paper on the identification of signature within MO. Would you consider coauthoring it with me?”

“Absolutely. Of course, that’s assuming you’re not really the Dead Eyes killer.”

“Of course.” She rested her head against the seatback and closed her eyes as the plane hovered above the landing strip. The wheels caught with a slight screech, and she was home.

She knew Robby would be waiting up for her.

sixty-two

Turning points. Turning points seem to remain with you after other memories have long since faded, like a lone flower that remains in bloom amongst a basket of dried leaves. As he sat pecking away, he tapped into the emotions that led to his establishing his independence so many years ago. For him, a turning point like this was not just a thriving blossom but an entire bouquet.

I got tired of the beatings, of the prick doing things to me I didn’t want him to do. But I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off. I thought if I showed him I could fight back at least once or twice, he’d get the message to stay away. But it didn’t work, because he keeps coming for me. Still, I’ve been able to protect what’s important. He’ll never find the secret place. No one will ever find it.

But I realized that there were things I could do to control my own life. Like at the slaughterhouse, they use meat hooks to hang the carcasses. And I got to thinking . . . the slabs of meat are real heavy. So I asked my boss if I could work in the meat prep area. He looked me up and down and saw that I’m pretty tall for my age, but scrawny. He said he didn’t think I could handle it, but I just started doing it on my own time. He saw I was determined to do it, and he finally said okay.

I’ve also been spending an extra half hour doing exercises with the carcasses at the end of my shift. It’s as good as lifting weights, maybe even better. I’ve been able to lift the larger, heavier ones. So that’s where I’ve been working the last couple of months. And I feel like I’m now ready to take on the prick. . . .

A turning point indeed. He’d gained confidence in himself, a confidence that would lead to him gaining control over his life, perhaps for the first time. He realized that if there was something that needed to be done, he merely had to find a way to do it. It wasn’t a matter of if it could be done, but how. He’d always felt that way, from the time he found a way to haul the plywood from the store to his house a few miles away. But the stakes were higher then and he needed to know he could do the dirty work, confront the devil, and get the job done. Because there would be no turning back. Once he confronted the prick, it was do or die. And he wasn’t planning on dying.

Now, decades later, he was facing the same demons again. Funny how life comes full circle. But he was wiser and ready for what was to come. No one would ever be able to tell him no again. Not anyone.

He made sure of that.

sixty-three

The next morning, after lying awake most of the night, Vail quickly showered and dressed, then rushed to the hospital to be near Jonathan. There were times when she needed to hold his hand, stroke his cheek, pull him into her arms. It was a longing, whenever she was away from him, that she could only liken to being without food and water. After a time of doing without them, she had to find some to keep herself going. Seeing Jonathan, even in his current state, gave her the strength to go on. As Emma used to say when Jonathan was young, seeing him “recharged her batteries.” Though Vail found the analogy endearing, she now fully understood the reference.

NEARLY THREE HOURS after arriving at the hospital, Vail checked in at the op center. The lists were being crunched, but thus far there were no obvious hits. Just a few possibles, on which Robby and Manette were following up.

Vail left the op center and headed to the assisted care facility to finalize the paperwork. While en route, Vail called her Aunt Faye, who told her everything was ready for Emma’s move. Though Emma’s belongings were packed, there were many drawers and boxes that still needed to be sifted through, as Faye didn’t know what Vail wanted to dispose of and what she wanted to keep. “Then there’s your doll collection.”

Vail sighed. “There’s so much to take care of.”

“Don’t worry about the house,” Faye said. “Take care of Jonathan and your mom. I’ll make sure things are looked after until you’re ready to put the place up for sale.”

Vail thanked her and told her how much she appreciated the help.

“I’m bringing some boxes for you to look through when you have time,” Faye added. “At least that’ll be a few less for you to deal with when the time comes.”

They confirmed their plans to meet at the assisted care facility around three o’clock, then said good-bye.

After meeting briefly with the Silver Meadows facility manager, Vail fought back tears as she signed the papers. The contract was finalized. Emma’s room was now waiting for her.

VAIL’S PHONE RANG as she stepped into the parking lot. She wiped her eyes, cleared her throat, and answered the call. It was Jackson Parker, keeping her up-to-date on the status of her case. One remark he made that she found particularly intriguing was whether she had given thought to the possibility that Deacon could have murdered Linwood. The remainder of her drive back to the op center was consumed with thoughts regarding this possibility: The focus of the offender’s attention seemed to be around her; the personal connection would fit. And the killings began right around the time Vail had filed for divorce.

But how would Deacon have found out about Linwood’s relationship to her? More importantly, did Deacon fit her profile? In many respects, he did. She had to look at it objectively, removing all emotion. It was a very difficult thing for a profiler to do. Often, any personal involvement ruined his or her ability to keep a distance, to evaluate and analyze without bias.

She called Del Monaco, ran the scenario by him, and he agreed it was worth looking into. She closed her phone and shook her head. Once again, she had overlooked a most obvious lead, one right in front of her face. Regardless of whether it led somewhere, it was something she had not thought of. She would have to remember to thank Parker for the heads-up.

When she arrived at the op center, she told Bledsoe of the Deacon connection and then asked about Hancock.

“We’ve got a guy on him and he hasn’t been out of our sight. So far, nothing.”

“And the killer’s been dormant ever since you put the tail on him.”

“Coincidence?”

“Guess we’ll find out. Lab get anything on the stuff taken from his place?”

Bledsoe sat down heavily. “Nothing.”

“I was hoping we’d find something. Lot of times the killer keeps the trophies he takes from the vics in his place, so he can play with them when the urge hits him. But sometimes they have other places, just in case their houses are searched.”

Bledsoe said, “Hancock knows what we’d be looking for. And as arrogant as he is, if he is Dead Eyes, he’d be smart enough not to keep his trophies in a place we’d think to look.”

“Besides,” Vail said, “the vics are all killed in their own homes, so the dirt and blood are all offsite. If he changes clothes and dumps them en route, they’re long gone. Which leaves us nowhere.”

He wished her luck on getting her mother settled into the care facility.

“Sorry for the distraction, but there’s a lot of things I’ve got to take care of before she gets here,” she said.

“Hey, it’s your mother. Get her settled in, then get back on track. I need you.”

FAYE AND EMMA ARRIVED a few minutes before three. They checked in Emma, unloaded her suitcases, and helped the staff orient her to her new surroundings. While Faye went to freshen up, Vail sat and tried to talk with her mother to ensure she understood what was happening and why. But Emma’s lapses in and out of lucidity saddened and frustrated her.

When Faye returned half an hour later, Emma was asleep. Faye planned to stay the night on a cot in Emma’s room, then drive home tomorrow. They unloaded the boxes Faye had brought from Emma’s basement and bedroom closet and placed them in the backseat of Vail’s car.

Vail hugged her aunt, thanked her for all her help, then drove to Fairfax hospital to visit Jonathan. She ate dinner in his room, talked to him for a while, and told him they had moved grandma to Virginia. And like every time before this one, she told him how much she loved him.

VAIL ARRIVED AT ROBBY’S just after 8 P.M. He wasn’t home, and the house was quiet. She carried in the boxes from her car and set them down in the family room. She changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then made herself a cup of hot chocolate. She knelt on the floor in front of the boxes and sliced them open with a pair of scissors.

Inside the first box was Lily, an old doll she had played with as a child. She leaned her back against the couch and smiled. Emma was good with a sewing machine, and had spent countless hours crafting an entire wardrobe of custom clothing for her. Vail fished around the box and found that many of the outfits were still in good condition. She thought of her friend Andrea, and the hours they spent in her room, playing house with their dolls.

The electronic beep of one of Robby’s wristwatches plucked her from the daydream. Holding Lily brought back many memories of her childhood and only intensified her indecision about what to do with Emma’s house. She would have preferred not to sell it. With the only expenses being property taxes, insurance, and occasional maintenance, it made sense to hold onto it. But Old Westbury, while charming and serene, was five hours away, and not what she considered a vacation destination.

She put Lily aside and dove into the next box. She tried to be as selective as possible in terms of what she would keep, as her house’s space was limited and she despised clutter. She put on her crime scene hat, sifting through the keepsakes and papers as if they belonged to a victim. If she did any more reminiscing, it might open the emotional floodgates—and bring on the guilt she was suppressing for removing her mother from her home and putting her in a facility . . . even though, logically, she knew it was the correct decision.

In the fourth carton, she found a locked metal cash box. She shook it, but it was heavy and she could feel the contents shifting against the interior. Her curiosity piqued, she went to the kitchen, found a pair of scissors, and pried open the cheap latch.

Inside, papers were piled atop each other. She dug in and found old photos of her parents when they were young—group shots, posed photos, and a few from what appeared to be a family trip. She set the pictures aside and saw a small, cloth-wrapped object jammed against the side of the box. She picked it up, spread the wrapping, and uncovered what was inside.

Her mouth dropped open. She sat there staring at it, her mind instantly numb. “Oh, my god” escaped her lips before she realized her cell phone was ringing. Another mystery. What does it mean?

She flashed on all the evidence they had thus far gathered from each of the crime scenes, each piece a part of the puzzle she was attempting to assemble. But there was no guide. No framework. And therefore no reference point by which to fit the pieces.

Until now.

Phone is ringing.

She pulled the handset from her pocket and answered it, her mind still tumbling over the riddle. “Vail.”

“Karen, it’s Thomas Underwood. I hope you don’t mind me sticking my nose into your case, but I think I’ve got something.”

Her brain was still crunching data and she was only half listening. “Not a problem. . . .”

“The message left by the offender. You were right to think it means ‘It’s in the blood.’ The blood’s the key. But it’s not a blood borne disease, it’s—”

“Genes,” she said.

“That’s right,” Underwood said. “You figured it out?”

“Just now.” She sat there, phone in hand, the shock of the surprise beginning to settle in. “And I know something else, too. I think I know who our UNSUB is.”

sixty-four

Vail turned over the metal box and dumped the contents onto a clean, plastic garbage bag. She slipped her hands into a pair of latex gloves Robby had in his desk drawer and began sifting through the items one at a time, hoping to unearth something that would help her find what she was looking for.

She discovered several other dog-eared photos of Emma and Nellie, most of which contained images of people she did not know. But on one of the pictures there was a small object hanging from both Emma’s and Nellie’s necklaces.

Vail picked up the gold locket she had found in the metal box and stared at it, hoping to find an inscription. There was nothing. But with the lab’s color enlargement now sitting beside her, there was no doubt this locket was an identical match for the one found shoved into Linwood’s rectum . . . and possibly for the objects dangling from the necklaces in the old photo, as well.

Had Vail been wearing spurs, and had she been able to kick herself, she would have done so. She had been virtually blind to something so obvious. That she hadn’t seen it ate at her and ran contrary to what she prided herself on: that she knew the human psyche, could read it and evaluate it and predict certain things about it. But in this case she had been no better than a blind person who couldn’t read Braille. Because like all cases, there was a key that unlocked the killer’s secrets. She’d held the key—the locket—but had not realized it.

Vail put the photo aside, then continued to thumb through the spilled contents of the metal box. Something grabbed her attention: an envelope containing a scrawled note to Emma from Nellie: “Here’s the photo Patrick took of us. See you soon. Love, Nell.” Vail felt excitement well up in her chest. Pay dirt! Maybe. She thought of all the potential forensics arrayed in front of her: a first name. Fingerprints, possibly saliva . . . and DNA.

She found a box of plastic bags in the kitchen and slipped the photo and envelope in their own Ziploc containers. She taped the metal box closed, then dialed Bledsoe and asked if he was seated.

“I’m in my car, I better be seated.”

“Then pull over.”

“Pull over? That good, huh?”

“How much do you want to break Dead Eyes?”

“More than any other case I’ve ever had. Why, you got something?”

“I got the killer, Bledsoe. At least, I got a first name and possibly a whole lot more.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Would I shit you on something like this?”

“Don’t hold out on me, Karen. Who is it?”

Vail closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and told him.

sixty-five

“No way,” Bledsoe said. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure. I connected the dots. And he fits my profile. It all makes sense, which it should, whenever you look at the suspect in retrospect, right?”

“Karen, I’m sorry.”

“I never met the man, Bledsoe. It is what it is. I have no feelings either way. Let’s just bag him before he kills again.”

“You said you had a name.”

“First name is Patrick. If he was the same age as Linwood at the time, my guess is he was born in the mid-nineteen-forties.”

“That’s a big assumption, but it’s a start. I’ll get everyone on it, see how many Patricks born in the mid-nineteen-forties show up on any of our lists. You said you’ve got other stuff, too?”

“I’ve got an envelope and a photo he may’ve handled. Might get some latents, possibly DNA.”

“Latents would be great. I’ve got a feeling this guy’s been in the system. If I’m right, the prints’ll get us his last name, then we’re off to the races. Where are you?”

“I’m at Robby’s. I’ve gotta go by the lab to drop off the evidence. I should be back here around eleven thirty.”

“Don’t go home. Meet us at the op center.”

“Oh, my other home.”

“And Karen . . . good work.”

VAIL ARRIVED AT THE OP CENTER at a quarter to twelve, having been awake for nearly eighteen hours. But she did not feel fatigued. She had been running scenarios and trying to match her profile to what she knew about her father—which was nothing. She had called Tim Meadows and told him she had crucial evidence in the Dead Eyes case that needed to be analyzed immediately.

“Judging by what you’re bringing me, we’ll need a latent person, an image enhancer, somebody in Questioned Documents . . . I’ll have to get three people on this if you want it done yesterday.”

“Tell them I said thanks.”

“Oh, that’ll go real far.”

“Then tell them the faster we get these results the faster we’ll have a suspect in custody.”

“They’ve heard it a million times, Karen. But I’ll take care of it. We’ll do the latents first, see if we get any immediate hits. We’ll take good care of you,” he told her. When she arrived at headquarters, one of the lab techs met her at the front entrance, took the materials, and did not say a word. He was clearly unhappy about having to work through the night.

But her reception at the op center was vastly different. When Vail walked in, she got high fives from everyone—including Del Monaco, who, because of the late hour, was uncharacteristically dressed down in sweats. Vail didn’t think it possible, but by comparison his round physique looked better in a suit.

“Guess we can pull that tail off Hancock,” Bledsoe said, running a black magic marker through Hancock’s name, eliminating him from their suspect list. “Let’s connect some dots.”

Vail settled into an empty chair near Del Monaco. “Okay. Here’s my theory: my biological mother, Eleanor Linwood, knew my father was bad news. She told as much when I went to see her. If this Patrick was my father, and he was involved with Linwood, either through marriage or some live-in arrangement, she might have taken me from my father without his knowledge. Another if, but if that was the case, it makes sense he was pissed as hell at Linwood. It’d be something he’d never forget.”

“Maybe he spent his life looking for her,” Del Monaco said. “To track her down and kill her. That would explain the personal nature of the murder, why hers was so much more brutal than the others. Based on the old photos we have of Linwood, it’s pretty obvious each of the victims resembled her. Brunet, shoulder length hair, slim build, pretty face. They were all extensions of Linwood. The way he remembered her, when she was young.”

“A lot of time to hold onto all that anger,” Robby said.

“Too long,” Del Monaco said as he settled himself into a chair. “For someone inclined to violence, as this guy obviously was, it built to a point where he couldn’t contain it anymore.”

“So how do the messages tie in?” Manette asked. “Was Linwood a carrier of something wicked?”

Vail shook her head. “It wasn’t that at all. Blood, yes, but not a viral infection. ‘It’s in the blood’ refers to a genetic link. Blood relative. Or maybe it refers to me working the case. And then there’s the gold locket. I’ve got an old photo of Emma and Linwood wearing what looks like identical necklaces. Photo’s at the lab now being enhanced. We found one of the lockets shoved up Linwood’s rectum, and the other one was buried in Emma’s keepsakes. Obviously, the killer knew about the lockets. He must’ve gotten hold of Linwood’s and held onto it all these years.”

Bledsoe lifted the telephone handset. “I’ll get a uniform posted outside Emma’s door at the assisted care facility until we get this guy in custody. What was the name of that place?”

Vail told him, and he began to dial.

“Where do we stand with your list?” Del Monaco asked.

Robby, who was sitting on the edge of his desk, reached behind him for his yellow pad. “Fifty-two Patricks. One of them, a Patrick Farwell, did show up on a roster from Velandia Correctional Facility from 1977. Did a deuce for rape, then paroled. Kind of fell off the radar sometime in the early eighties.”

“This guy is how old?” Manette asked. Like Del Monaco, she was in sweats and tennis shoes, but on her slender frame, they fit well and looked cozy.

Robby flipped a few pages. “According to what we’ve got here, looks like we got a DOB of August 9, 1947.”

Sinclair straightened. “Bingo.”

Bledsoe hung up the phone and announced, “Okay, uniform is on its way to Silver Meadows.”

“Hold on a minute,” Manette said. “That doesn’t fit your profile, does it?” She was looking at Vail, arms spread, as if she were enjoying that the profile was flawed.

Vail cocked her head. “The age difference is irrelevant—”

“Oh, here it comes. You give us an age range of thirty to forty years old, and when he turns out to be sixty-one, you say it doesn’t mean nothing?”

“If you’d let me finish, I’ll explain,” Vail said calmly. “We know Farwell did time for rape. If he is our guy, I’ll bet he also did time somewhere else, maybe under an alias or in a different state, for similar sexually related crimes. If that’s the case, and he was in the slammer for a while, that would explain the age difference.”

“How so?” Bledsoe asked.

“We’ve found that when a sexual predator is incarcerated, he doesn’t mature emotionally, even though he ages chronologically. So even though we’re looking for a forty year old, and he’s really sixty, if he’s done twenty years somewhere, emotionally he’s still forty when he gets out. Since we’re analyzing behavior, and behavior is a function of our emotions, he actually does fit the profile.”

Manette waved a hand. “Mumbo jumbo hocus pocus crap. You got an excuse for everything, don’t you? Can’t you just admit you were wrong?”

“This isn’t solving anything,” Bledsoe said. “For the moment, I accept Karen’s explanation. Let’s move on.”

Sinclair’s head was resting on the Michael Jordan basketball, his eyelids at half-mast. “Did we put out an APB?”

“And a BOLO,” Del Monaco said, referring to the Bureau’s “Be On The Lookout” alert.

Sinclair pulled his head up, straightened his back, and tried to open his eyes. “Then we should be getting as much as we can on this guy, checking tax records, DMV files, utility companies—”

“Some of that’ll have to wait till morning, when we can access their databases,” Bledsoe said. “But I agree. Let’s get started now on what we can. Maybe we’ll have something by then. We’re going to need more than a locket, a profile, and some circumstantial connections to get a search warrant.”

THE SUN’S EARLY RAYS crept past the cloud cover and warmed the winter air a few degrees. Like the task force, the house’s heater had worked overtime into the cold evening, struggling to blow through clogged and aged ducts.

Using the Internet, FBI, police, and tax databases, Virginia prison records, and a few favors, they were able to sift through a fair amount of information. The one promising fact was that Patrick Farwell had a history consistent with those seen amongst serial offenders. The records they sifted painted a by-the-numbers black-and-white picture, but left a great many holes that needed plugging. In the wee hours of the morning, they began reading between the lines, substituting speculation and conjecture for facts. It was a less than accurate means of proceeding, but when they stepped back and examined it, the picture they were left with did seem to support their theory.

Vail had a problem with loading theory upon thin assumptions, but everyone was tired and strained.

“Damn,” Robby muttered. He was seated in front of the computer, logged onto a database that displayed Virginia real estate transactions over the past hundred years. Based on Vail’s analysis and Del Monaco’s theory, they had focused their attention on Virginia, hypothesizing that Dead Eyes had shown an inclination to remain within the state. They intended to look at everything but decided not to stray too far from the guidelines provided by the geoprofile as a means of narrowing their searches.

“What’s wrong?” Bledsoe asked, his eyes bloodshot and his sixth or seventh cup of coffee in hand.

“I did a search of tax records, figuring if he owned a house, or condo, or some land somewhere, I’d get a hit. Came up a big goose egg.”

The simultaneous rings of the telephone and fax machine shifted their attention. Being the closest to the kitchen, Vail grabbed the handset. She listened to the technician provide details on what they had found, then jotted down some notes. “And the other stuff?” She waited a beat, thanked the person, and hung up. She stepped back into the living room with a smile on her face. “That was the lab. They lifted several latents and ran them through AFIS. They got a hit.” She paused for emphasis, then said, “Patrick Farwell.”

“Bingo,” Bledsoe said.

Manette rocked forward in her chair, then lifted the page from the fax machine. “Patrick Farwell, that’s our dude.” She examined the mug shot the lab had faxed, then handed it to Vail. “And he looks a lot like you, Kari.”

Vail cocked her head, assessing the image, instantly noting—and regretting—the obvious likeness to herself. “Daddy,” she finally said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

sixty-six

The task force snacked on bagels, muffins, and a tank of coffee Sinclair had retrieved from the local café a short time after 7 A.M. It was only fifteen degrees when he left, and when he returned he babbled on about how growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, should have prepared him for days like this. Everyone was too tired to object to his bellyaching, and eventually he took his seat and hugged a large mug of hot coffee.

In fact, java flowed freely to anyone with a cup. They were now going on twenty-four hours without sleep, with no break in the foreseeable future. As they took in their fill of sugar and caffeine, they analyzed all the information that began rolling in shortly after the clock had struck eight.

They had learned that Patrick Farwell had also been arrested fifteen years ago for aggravated sexual assault of a minor. He had served time at Pocomona Correctional Facility before being transferred to the newer maximum security Greensville campus halfway through his sentence because he had been stabbed by an inmate who took his assault on the minor personally.

But his parole eighteen months ago only served to rid the system of the scourge that had been Patrick Farwell. He broke ties with his parole officer and was never seen again. As far as the Department of Corrections was concerned, Patrick Farwell disappeared. After an extensive search, it was theorized he had left the state and gone underground. But the warden had another theory, and that was that Patrick Farwell had taken on an alias and was still living somewhere in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was only a hunch, but the warden noted that his hunches, though based only on his limited knowledge of each particular inmate, were usually accurate.

“His pent-up anger boiled over when he got out,” Del Monaco said. “As soon as he disappeared, there were no controls on him anymore. No guards, no parole officers. The guy was unleashed, literally and figuratively.”

Robby nodded. “And his break with parole coincides with the first Dead Eyes murder. My vic, Marci Evers.”

“Any suggestion of computer skills?” Bledsoe asked.

Robby rubbed his eyes. “Like what? Classes, things like that?”

“Anything,” Bledsoe said.

“Nothing I see in the record,” Robby said. “But computer training is available lots of places, and most of it isn’t tracked or recorded anywhere.”

“And the kind of software used for the untraceable email is available online,” Vail said. “Based on what I was told, advanced training isn’t required.”

“Well,” Manette said, “I say we go for it. We’ve got the name, fingerprints, and background on this guy, and from what I’m hearing, he fits nicely. All we need is . . . him.”

Bledsoe clapped his hands together. “Then let’s get moving. Hernandez, talk with the postal inspector. Find out if there was ever a forwarding order submitted for Patrick Farwell. Sin, check with the IRS, see if any W-2’s have been filed. Then check the regional jails. Possible this guy got picked up on a traffic violation or a drunk-in-public. He could already be under lock and key.” Bledsoe looked at the fax. “And I’ll get this circulated. Have the lab send it to every PD and SO in the state.”

“Shouldn’t we go national?” Sinclair asked.

“Can’t hurt to get something out to NCIC,” Bledsoe said, referring to the National Crime Information Center.

Vail shook her head. “Farwell’s local. He’s bold, aggressive, and sure of himself. He thinks he can operate without consequence, and unfortunately we’ve only reinforced those feelings by being unable to generate any substantial leads.”

Robby held up an index finger. “Until now.”

“Until now. Point is, we’ve given him no reason to leave his comfort zone, which is outlined in the geoprofile. For now, I say we keep it statewide. And hope we get lucky.”

sixty-seven

With the investigation now focused and well on its way toward bringing in its first suspect, Vail took a break to run over to the hospital to check in on Jonathan.

She informed the nurse she wanted to talk with the doctor, then sat and held Jonathan’s hand for nearly half an hour before Altman walked in. They exchanged brief pleasantries before he said, “You remember our discussions about the importance of small steps.”

“Have there been any since you last examined him?”

“Yes. Come closer.” He removed his penlight from his jacket pocket and leaned over Jonathan’s face. He turned on the light and brought it close to the youth’s eyes.

“He blinked,” Vail said. “He did that before.”

“That’s right. Now, watch this.” Altman stepped back and grabbed a wad of Jonathan’s forearm and squeezed. Jonathan moved the limb, pulling away from Altman’s grip. “Purposeful movement in response to pinching.”

Vail moved to Jonathan’s side and instinctively rubbed his forearm where Altman had made his mark. “And that means?”

“It’s a very, very strong sign that Jonathan is coming out of the comatose state.”

“How long?”

“Before he’s completely out of it?” Altman shrugged. “There’s no timetable. Could be tomorrow, could be weeks or months. It’s impossible to say.”

While the agony of uncertainty would continue, at least she had substantial reason for hope. The odds that Jonathan would come out of the coma had just increased. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“I noticed your limp has gotten worse. Mind if I take a look at it?”

Vail smiled. “I’d meant to ask you about it. I twisted the knee a couple weeks ago. Then I slipped on the ice, and it’s been killing me ever since.”

She sat down and watched as Altman moved her leg through a normal range of motion, then gently pushed and pulled in a variety of directions. Vail grabbed the arms of the chair and tried not to scream.

“Orthopedics isn’t my specialty, but it looks like you’ve torn some ligaments. You should have an MRI and a more comprehensive exam.” He pulled out a prescription pad and jotted down the names of two physicians. “Don’t put it off too long, it’s only going to get worse.”

She took the paper and thanked him. After Altman had left the room, Vail leaned close to her son and ran the back of her index finger across his face. His left eye twitched in response. “Jonathan, sweetie, can you hear me? It’s Mom. I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. Keep fighting. You’re gonna beat this.”

She reached down and took his hand in hers. “I’m making progress, too, on my case. Tell you what. When you wake up, we’ll ditch this place and go out for milk shakes. Just the two of us, okay?”

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then kissed his forehead.

“I love you, champ.”

sixty-eight

“We’ve got Farwell’s full file from Greensville,” Bledsoe said, tossing it on the table in front of him. Robby and Vail had arrived at Izzy’s Pizza Parlor at nearly the same time. Bledsoe had already ordered, and a large pizza pie gleaming with cheese and pepperoni sat in front of him. He moved over to allow Vail into the booth beside him. Robby’s size automatically bought him the entire opposite end of the table. “Farwell was in the general population. There was a note in the file that he was particularly close with one inmate.”

“Richard Ray Singletary,” Robby said.

“The one and only.”

Vail sighed. “Well, that makes me feel a little better. That we didn’t let Singletary take the secret to hell with him. At least we found the information before anyone else died.”

“What else is in the file?” Robby asked.

“According to prison records, home address is listed as a PO Box in Dale City. Manette’s on her way over there to see if it’s still active. If it is, she’ll sit on it, see if he shows. But we also got a fifteen-year-old employment address. Timberland Custom Cabinets in Richmond.”

“A carpenter,” Robby said, eyeing the pizza.

“Yes,” Bledsoe said, lifting a large slice from the aluminum platter.

Robby followed his lead and dug in. “I take it we’re on our way there after lunch.”

“Already spoke with the guy. He’s a real by-the-numbers prick. I put a call in to the DA to get a warrant. Should be ready by the time we’re done here. Hopefully they’ll have more than just a PO Box in their file.”

Robby sprinkled red pepper flakes on his pizza. “Even if he doesn’t, it feels a whole lot better having a scent to track. Sooner or later, we’ll find him.”

TIMBERLAND CUSTOM CABINETS was a sprawling industrial complex on a potholed asphalt road that dead-ended against the back lot of an adjacent lumberyard. The main structure was a tin-roofed brick building that probably had not looked a whole lot better when it was new.

Vail took one last pull on the straw of her Big Gulp of Coke—high octane to keep her mind working and her feet moving—and followed Robby and Bledsoe into the building. Bledsoe served the search warrant and asked for the personnel records pertaining to Patrick Farwell. Ten minutes later, a heavyset black woman emerged from another wing of the office with a dog-eared manila file folder in her hand. She handed it over without a word, then returned to her desk.

They thumbed through it, the three of them huddling over the paperwork, scouring it as if it contained the highly guarded secret formula for Coca-Cola.

“Same PO Box,” Bledsoe commented.

“And nothing on the application to indicate he’d ever been in the slammer,” Robby noted.

“You didn’t really expect him to be an honest citizen when filling out his job app, did you?” Vail asked. “Would you hire a rapist who’d done time?”

“So we’re left with interviewing the employees,” Robby said. He turned to the receptionist. “Can we talk with the personnel director?”

“You’re lookin’ at her.”

“You have any employees who’ve been with the company longer than fifteen years?”

She looked at the ceiling, searching the exposed pipes and ventilation ducts. “We got four. No, three. Then there’s the owner.”

“They in?” Bledsoe asked. “We’ll need to talk to each of them.”

“They’re in. I’ll call them.”

Vail held up a hand. “Hold it. We’ll take the owner first. Then we’ll talk with the three workers.”

AL MASSIE WAS A SQUAT MAN in his early fifties. His thick, short legs rubbed together when he walked, causing a side-to-side gait that resembled a waddle. He had a flat pencil stuck behind his right ear, and frazzled gray hair interspersed with saw dust. His left thumb was missing its last joint.

“I’m Paul Bledsoe, Fairfax County Homicide. These are my associates, Special Agent Karen Vail and Detective Robby Hernandez.” Pleasantries were exchanged. “We were wondering what you could tell us about Patrick Farwell. Worked here three years, nineteen—”

“I remember Patrick. Good worker, kept to himself. Didn’t know nothing about what he was doing, though. I had nothing to do with it. I told the police everything, which wasn’t much.”

“We’re not here about that case,” Vail said. “We were just hoping you could provide some background for us on Patrick. Anything you could tell us would be helpful.”

“Don’t remember much. That was a long time ago.”

“How about friends he had?” Vail continued. “Was he close with any of the workers?”

“From what I remember, Patrick was a loner. There was one guy he used to work with a lot, Jim Gaston. Did a lot of finish work with him. Jim’s still here. You talk to him yet?”

“No, we figured we’d start with you.”

“Jimbo’s your man. If Patrick said anything to anybody, it woulda been to Jimbo.” He looked at Bledsoe and Robby, then took a step backward. “I’m in the middle of a wall unit, and yes, I may own the place but I still keep my hands in the sawdust. Don’t like running the business, that was my father’s job before he passed on. Anything else you need me for?”

Bledsoe shook his head. “That’s good for now. If something comes up, we’ll find you. Thanks for your help.”

JAMES GASTON NEEDED A DENTIST. His left front tooth was missing, and his lower teeth were crooked and caked with plaque. He had a receding forehead and a strong chin, giving him almost a prehistoric appearance. He, too, had a flat pencil tucked behind his ear, and his apron was covered with paintbrush strokes of stain.

“I remember Patrick, sure,” he said in response to Bledsoe’s question. “Strange guy. Didn’t like to talk much unless he had some beer in him. He’d sneak some during lunch, then he’d open up. Talked about these women he’d had, but I didn’t pay him much mind. Thought he was blowing his own horn, you know? Then when he got arrested I started thinkin’ maybe he wasn’t shit-tin’ me.”

“He ever say anything about where he lived, places he liked to go or hang out?” Vail asked.

“He lived on an old family ranch or something like that. Lotta land. Hunted fox in the winter, fished in the summer. ’Bout all I remember. We wasn’t friends or nothing, just worked together on cabinets. He was real good, though, had the gift.”

“The gift?”

“Good hands. Born with it, I’d say. You can just tell. Steady hand, good eye.”

Bledsoe asked, “When was the last time you saw him?”

“The day they put them cuffs on him and hauled him outta here.”

Robby blew on his hands to warm them, then asked, “You know anyone he may still be close with, someone we could talk to, maybe find out where he is, or where his ranch is?”

“Don’t know anyone. It’s not close, I can tell you that. Big drive to get here every day.”

“Hey Jimbo,” a man called from thirty yards away. “We gotta move this thing outta here!”

“I gotta go,” Gaston said.

Robby thanked him, then handed him his business card and asked him to call if he remembered anything else. Fifteen minutes after returning to the office, they had completed their interview of the remaining workers who had been at Timberland when Farwell was employed there. None of them knew much about Farwell, but all confirmed he kept to himself and did his work with extraordinary precision.

As they got back into their car, Bledsoe said, “Gaston said Farwell had a family ranch. But when you did your search, nothing came up.”

“He also said the ranch was old. If we take him at his word, then it’s possible the ranch was purchased before the cutoff date of the records I reviewed on microfiche. I think it was sometime around 1900. If they bought it in 1899, I would’ve missed it. The other records will have to be searched by hand.”

Bledsoe turned the key and started the engine. “Then I know where we’re headed.”

THEY ARRIVED at the County Department of Land Records at noon. It was a typical government building built decades ago, one story and sprawling with a sloping roof. They spoke with the clerk and half an hour later, Robby, Bledsoe, and Vail were sitting at a long wooden table with volumes of bound records dating back to the late 1800s laid out in front of them.

They each picked a volume and began searching for land owned by anyone named Farwell. The task was tedious, and as the hours passed, the combined effect of lack of sleep and stagnant blood flow began to creep into their bodies. They had each dozed off at least once, despite the cans of Coke they had bought from the lobby vending machine.

“I’d better go stretch my legs,” Vail said. “I’m not doing much good falling asleep. I think I’ve read the last entry on this page five times.” But as she stood, Robby stopped her.

“Eighteen ninety-one. Franklin Farwell purchased fifty-five acres in what looks like the southwest portion of Loudoun County.” He rotated the page and tried to get his bearings on the accompanying map. “I’d say that would qualify as a family ranch.”

Bledsoe rose from his chair with a grunt and leaned over the table to get a look at Robby’s find. “Got an address?” Bledsoe’s button-down oxford was ruffled, the sleeves rolled to the elbows. A large Coke stain adorned the front, dating back to sometime around 3 P.M., when he’d fallen asleep with the can in his hand. It had awakened him real fast.

“Got a plot number. Eighteen. Plat nine of county map four. Remember, this is from the nineteenth century.”

“We need a map,” Vail said, “one that’s up-to-date, so we can look that up.”

Bledsoe stifled a yawn as he lifted the bound volume that contained the Farwell ranch. “I’ll bring this to the clerk in there. Let her tell us where it is. She could probably locate it a hell of a lot faster than we could.”

After the records clerk spent five minutes triangulating the Farwell ranch on a current map, Bledsoe notified each of the task force members and set a meeting at the op center for one hour. His next call was to the Loudoun County Emergency Response Team, who was to prepare to mobilize in the next few hours.

The ride back to the op center was a long one, complicated by traffic caused by a motorcycle versus pedestrian accident. Ambulance and emergency response vehicles lined the shoulder, slowing the rubberneckers to a crawl.

Vail’s heart was beating harder than normal, and even though she felt herself daydreaming about her bed and getting some sleep, her energy level had risen a few notches since the discovery of the Farwell ranch. The thought occurred to her that she must have been there as an infant—and even though she would not, of course, have a memory of it, she realized how fortunate she had been that her mother had snatched her from the grasp of Patrick Farwell’s sick mind. It was the only decent thing Linwood had ever done for her.

And for the first time, it sunk in that Patrick Farwell was her biological father. Her own genes, a rapist and sadistic serial killer. She would have to spend some time chatting with Wayne Rudnick about this one: nature versus nurture . . . and how she turned out on the right side of the law, hunting down men like her father, when her own flesh and blood had gone in the opposite direction, showing a total disregard for human life. She found the thought impossible to come to grips with.

As she wrestled with that philosophical debate, she rested her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, they were parked at the curb in front of the op center and Robby was waking her.

sixty-nine

He’s here now, with one of his whores. It’s the one he likes, I can tell, because she’s here a lot. I started planning a few weeks ago, started thinking that I could do what he does, and I could do it better. I got excited thinking about it. But I’m scared. I’ve never done it before. It’s not like I don’t know what to do or how to do it. But something is holding me back. Yet there she is, lying on the bed. My chest tingles. I’m short of breath.

I have to do it! I’ll do what he does to me. Knock him out with the lead pipe. I got me one at Billy’s Hardware on the way home from work. I’m ready. I’ll beat him, I’ll beat the whore and leave. And I won’t come back—

HE SAT THERE, staring at the blank wall, thinking, remembering that time when he was finally ready to stand up for himself. But just as he was about to act, the cops came and took the prick away. They didn’t see him, hiding in his secret room. They crunched those handcuffs on his wrists and slammed his face into the wall a few feet away from his little peephole. He thought for sure they’d find him. But they didn’t care about him. They were there for the bastard, for what reason he never found out, because he never talked to him again. But the important thing was that he had the whole place to himself. The ranch, the house, everything.

At first he wondered if he was going to come back. But as the days and weeks passed, he figured the place was his, and he claimed it as his own. No one knew, no one came by. It was just him. He paid the electric bill with cash he earned from his job, and between stealing meat from work and making hot dogs, cheap spaghetti, and whatever else he could afford, he did just fine.

Couldn’t have asked for a better place, really. Plenty of land, perfect for dumping bodies, if he was into that sort of thing. But at the time he wasn’t thinking like that.

He’d heard it said that with age comes wisdom. Must be true, because he’d learned a lot over the years. And he had to say he felt pretty wise now. But one of the more important things he learned was to be able to recognize when the end had to come. He always promised himself he would be ready when the time came. And now here he was, about to confront it, wondering how it would feel. It came upon him suddenly, this need to conclude, to confront, to take the final step.

This is where it all started. Beginnings meeting endings, endings coming full circle, the circle of life.

Life as we know it, about to end.

Life about to end, a full circle.

He wondered how it would feel.

seventy

The geoprofile was right on. Vail held it in her hand and stared at the distribution, marveling at its accuracy. Though the Farwell ranch was outside the target areas, it lay on the westernmost boundary of the report’s overall geographic area.

During the past hour, Bledsoe had worked with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in obtaining a warrant for the ranch. The lieutenant had called out the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team, or SERT, and assigned the incident to tactical commander Lon Kilgore. Kilgore was in his late thirties, with a face that reminded Vail of something that had been chiseled from granite: severe, rugged features and a five o’clock shadow. His hands were wide and thick, but his fingers were long enough to palm a basketball.

Five years with the marines instilled in him a learned discipline evidenced by the way he walked, addressed his unit, and directed an assault on a violent suspect. Bledsoe told Vail that although he and Kilgore had disagreements in the past, none of the missions had gone sour. Bledsoe said he respected Kilgore’s skills and only occasionally challenged his opinions.

Due to the size of the Farwell property, Bledsoe agreed with Kilgore’s assessment that they required more accurate reconnaissance before they sent in the SERT team. They needed an aerial view of the ranch to determine what vehicles, buildings, barns, or other structures were there, and exactly where they were located. Kilgore wanted a full background on who Patrick Farwell was, and what he was capable of doing.

The task force stood around, arms crossed, tired and hungry, yet eager to help. They were at the Loudoun County Special Ops South Street office, an aging building in downtown Leesburg. A framed color photo of the sheriff, taken at the Adult Detention Center in full dress uniform, hung prominently on the wall. Vail’s unpleasant visit to the ADC surged into her thoughts. She turned away and focused on Kilgore. She needed to forget about her personal problems and exert all her remaining energies on catching Dead Eyes.

“Specifically,” Kilgore said, “I want to know if this guy is capable of planting mines and setting booby traps.” He was standing in front of a five-foot-square enlargement of a topographic area map where the ranch was situated. “He grew up there, he knows this terrain like the back of his hand. Who knows what he’s got set up there.” He took a moment to study the surrounding area, then said, while still facing the map, “We’re gonna need to hike it in to maintain a stealth approach. We go barreling in with a big old SERT assault truck on a dirt road, we’ll kick up a dust trail that could be seen for miles.”

“So we go on foot,” Bledsoe said.

Kilgore turned to face Bledsoe. “We go on foot. You and your people stay back.”

“Look, Lon, you and your men take the point, but we’re going in with you. We’ve put too much into this case to sit back and wait here for a phone call.”

“Don’t you mean you’ve put too much in to fuck it up? Because that’s what you should be thinking.”

“We’re detectives, Lon, not rookie beat cops. We’re going in behind you.” He stared the man down.

“Yes, sir,” Kilgore said with a mock salute. He picked up the phone and pressed a button. “Sally, call out the whole dog and pony show. Teams Alpha and Beta. Have them meet us at the Red Fox Inn, in the Jeb Room. I want them there in one hour. Then call the manager there, she knows me. Tell her we need the room for a few hours. Oh—and ask the Air Force for a satellite image of the property.” He listened a moment, then said, “No, no, that’s too long. We need it within the hour.” Kilgore shrugged, then said, “Fine, that’ll work. Give me some large format prints ASAP.”

He hung up, then turned back to his map. “We’re going to use something on the Internet called Virtual Earth. It’ll give us aerial and 3D views of the property. And we’ll have it in a couple minutes instead of a few hours. Soon as we have it, we can start planning for deployment.”

“We’ll be ready,” Bledsoe said.

Kilgore frowned. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”

seventy-one

While they waited for Kilgore’s staff to assemble the recon images, the task force members went to the lobby vending machines for coffee and snacks. They had not eaten much all day, and the prospect of downing solid food in the next several hours was dim at best.

Vail remained with Bledsoe, who contacted the local Middleburg police department to explain the nature of the operation to the watch commander. Kilgore anticipated a problem since the much larger Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office had coordinated the operation without consulting the Middleburg Police. Middleburg’s entire department consisted of only five men. But according to Bledsoe, the lieutenant in charge was belligerent, feeling that his territory had been trampled. He insisted his own officers be part of the action and threw a fit, claiming jurisdictional issues would be pursued with Loudoun’s police chief.

Bledsoe put the guy on hold, no doubt concerned he would lose his temper and say something that would delay the entire operation for hours. He told Vail what the problem was.

She shook her head, once again amazed at how law enforcement professionals could act so petty, losing sight of the primary goal: catching the bad guy. “Men are like dogs, Bledsoe. They like to piss all over to stake out their territory. That’s what this guy is doing. You’ve seen it a million times.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it. All it does is waste my time.”

“I doubt the Loudoun chief gives a shit about turf wars. All he wants is to be able to say his people captured the Dead Eyes killer. He doesn’t care whether the police or sheriff brings him in, right?”

“Right.”

“Then tell your Middleburg buddy, Lieutenant Doberman, or whatever the hell his name is, to go ahead and call the chief.”

Bledsoe issued the challenge and waited while the lieutenant was supposedly making the call. Ten minutes later, the receptionist handed Bledsoe the phone. After listening a moment, Bledsoe thanked the caller, then hung up. “‘Lieutenant Doberman’ said that all his investigators are busy on cases, so it’d take a while to call them in, and he didn’t want to delay our op.” Bledsoe grunted. “Truth is, if they pulled any of their guys in, half their district would go unpatrolled. Middleburg would use the Loudoun SERT unit anyway.”

“Pissing matches and big egos,” Vail said. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that you guys sit around bars comparing the size of your penises.”

“Give us some credit, Karen. We leave that talk in the locker room.”

Kilgore took the Virtual Earth images and topographical map with him in the Full Assault Vehicle and headed toward Middleburg’s Red Fox Inn. The task force followed in one of the SERT team member’s cars, which was equipped with two black tactical outfits, radios, helmets, shields, infrared goggles, and masks, since the officers often reported directly to an incident site in their own vehicles.

With Bledsoe driving and Del Monaco riding with Kilgore in the assault vehicle, Vail watched as the Red Fox Inn, a four-story field-stone Bed and Breakfast, came into view. “I’ve always wanted to stay here,” she said.

Robby craned his neck to get a look at the building. “It’s just a big old house.”

“That’s like saying the White House is ‘just a big old house.’ The Red Fox Inn has roots going back to the early 1700s. I think Washington slept here. It even played a role in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.”

“And how do you know this?” Manette asked.

“You’re always challenging me, you know that?”

“Somebody’s got to. You think you know everything about everything.”

“I was going to book a room here about six months ago. The Belmont Suite, very romantic. You have the Blue Ridge and Bull Run mountains surrounding you, lush greenery, and the rooms are furnished like they were two hundred years ago.” She gazed out the window at the passing undeveloped countryside. “Then I realized that no matter how romantic a place is, if you’ve got no one to share it with, it’s very lonely. I threw away the brochure.”

She could feel Robby’s gaze burning the back of her head. He would take her there, she had a feeling, during her self-proclaimed vacation. With Dead Eyes almost in the bag, her time off was suddenly within reach. She allowed herself a brief moment to daydream.

“In case you’re interested,” Manette said, “your romantic get-away was around when Franklin Farwell bought his ranch.”

Vail cocked her head. Manette was right. She shuddered to think how close it was, how close the young women who had gone to the inn for a special night of pampering had come to getting something they were not expecting.

A MOMENT LATER, Bledsoe followed the assault vehicle into the front lot and parked. Kilgore hopped out of the truck’s cab and led the way to the inn’s entrance.

As they entered the Jeb Room, the task force members took in the dark wood paneling, fireplace, and ceiling beams.

“I run all my tactical sessions out of here whenever we’ve got a maneuver in the area. Manager’s my aunt’s friend.” He placed the Virtual Earth images on a long table by the far wall.

“So who was Jeb?” Manette asked.

“General Jeb Stuart, Confederate Army. In fact,” Kilgore said, “General Stuart met with the Gray Ghost, Colonel John Mosby, right here in this very room, planning their strategy for the Civil War.”

Manette frowned. “That don’t make me feel at home.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Robby said.

“Political views aside,” Bledsoe said, “I hope our strategy session is more successful than theirs was.”

Kilgore stood the topographical map against the wall. “It will be, Bledsoe. It will be.”

The seven tactical team members arrived during the course of the next hour. Kilgore reviewed the map and Virtual Earth images and formulated a plan. Coffee was brought up by management, who met one of the officers at the door. With a sensitive operation being planned, no outsiders were permitted into the room.

An hour later, Kilgore began packing away the maps while the tactical team and task force members headed down to the truck to suit up.

Bledsoe stood in front of his seat, hands on his hips.

“What’s wrong?” Vail asked.

“My chair. I left it there,” he said, pointing to a spot, “and now it’s here.” He indicated a location several feet away.

“I think you need some sleep. We all do.” Vail pat him on the back, then headed out the door.

“I’m serious.”

“That’d be Monte,” Kilgore said. “Ghost from the 1700s. He moves things around, makes noises.” Kilgore craned his neck and spoke to the ceiling: “Cut it out, Monte, you’re scaring this guy.” Kilgore chuckled, then headed out the door, maps in hand.

“Ghost?” Bledsoe asked. He looked around the room, suddenly realized he was alone, and warded off a chill. Then he rushed out the closing door.

A LITTLE OVER THREE HOURS from the moment they had arrived at the Loudoun Special Ops building, the tactical assault vehicle and accompanying car pulled to a stop amongst a stand of mature oaks a half mile down the road from the perimeter of the Farwell ranch. The SERT team of eight men jumped out the rear, black-vested jackets covering their torsos and sniper rifles gripped in both hands as if they were an organic extension of their arms.

The task force members were outfitted in similar garb, most of them using vests for the first time in years. Fortunately, it was a cold afternoon, and the added weight and insulation provided warmth. They did not know how long they would be outside, exposed to the elements, without supplies from the truck to tide them over.

Several of the men tossed a tan-and-brown camouflage canvas over the truck while others collected brush from the surrounding trees and gathered it around the tires. Large branches were thrown atop the team member’s black car to prevent any reflection from the mirror or windows.

“Okay, listen up,” Kilgore said. He positioned his headset so the mouthpiece of his two-way radio was squarely in front of his mouth. “Radio communication or hand signals only from this point forward. We fan out and establish a perimeter fifty yards off the house. When all looks secure, we’ll move in and breach the place. You’ve all got your marks. Check in as each of you hit them. Remember, this guy is dangerous. Word is he used to hunt fox, so he’s obviously a good shot. Be careful, treat the situation as if he’s got an arsenal in there. We don’t know what to expect. Questions?” He waited a beat, surveyed his team, then said, “Move out.”

“Which team you want us with?” Vail asked.

Kilgore stiffened. “That’s the problem with having you here. I’ve got nowhere to put you.”

“We’ll form our own team,” Bledsoe said.

“What if I don’t have extra headsets for all of you?”

“Give us what you got. We’ll stay together, out of your way. But once you secure the place, we need to be in there right behind you.”

Kilgore stepped to the back of the truck, lifted the canvas covering, and slipped beneath it. He emerged a moment later with six spare headsets. Handing them to Bledsoe, he said, “Don’t change the frequency. And stay out of the way. Above all, don’t fuck up my operation.” Kilgore spun and ran off into the brush to catch up to his team.

“You gonna take that, Blood?” Manette asked.

“I did and I will. Remember the reason why we’re here.”

Sinclair pulled on a black ball cap to cover his shiny bald head and slipped on a headset. He motioned for Del Monaco to go first. “You gonna be able to make it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re carrying some extra tonnage and this is gonna be a long hike.”

“Extra tonnage,” Manette said. “I like that. Mind if I use it, Sin?”

“Be my guest.”

“The ‘extra tonnage’ doesn’t slow me down,” Del Monaco said. “I pass all the physical endurance tests the Bureau requires. But thanks so much for your concern.” He motioned Sinclair ahead of him, then fell into formation behind him.

THEY TREKKED through the forested stands of pine and cedar and occasional oak, emerging at a clearing and hugging the tree-lined perimeter for cover. After nearly an hour’s hike, the various SERT members were beginning to call in, stating they had reached their positions.

For the task force group, Robby led the way at the point, with Bledsoe following in the second position. Manette was third, Sinclair next, Vail, and then Del Monaco pulling up the rear. Despite his assertions about passing the endurance tests, Del Monaco had never hiked through forestland on uneven terrain after having gone thirty-five straight hours without sleep.

By the time all team members were in final position, daylight had melted to dusk. The quarter moon was hiding behind cloud cover, and the temperature had plummeted another several degrees. Their breath was vapor, a dangerous situation when involved in covert maneuvers. For the task force members, who lacked night-vision goggles, the darkness was a double-edged sword: though it provided them adequate cover, it also prevented them from seeing unknown objects in unfamiliar territory.

From what they could see in the failing light, the house appeared to be a medium-sized clapboard two-story home that looked very much its one hundred and fifteen years. The paint, or at least what was left of it, was peeling and faded. The porch decking was cracked and dry. It was for this reason that Kilgore had wanted the Virtual Earth photos: he saw what appeared to be decking and knew, from his years of experience, that wood and nails and the ravages of weather produced noises one had better not encounter when attempting to launch a surprise attack. Due to Kilgore’s diligent intel, the team members were prepared and followed a preplanned route around the deck.

Vail bent her mouthpiece away from her face and asked, “Now what?”

Bledsoe stood beside her, both of them hunched behind a largetrunked redwood. “Now I kick myself for not asking them for night-vision goggles.”

“Most important thing is that they have them.”

“How’s your knee?” Bledsoe asked.

Robby had seen her pop a couple Extra Strength Tylenol just prior to beginning the hike, but she had shrugged it off. “I’m not going to let a little pain stop me.”

“A little pain?” he had asked.

“Okay, a lot of pain.”

Now, after the long hike, she framed it with level-headed realism. “As long as I don’t run out of pain pills, I’ll be fine.”

“When this is over,” Bledsoe said, “we’ll get a chopper in, fly you out of here.”

“Not exactly how I’d pictured my own private limo.” She inched to her right and watched as the first tactical officer moved to the left of the front door frame. Though the other four team members had gone around to the back door and were engaged in similar maneuvers, they were outside Vail’s line of sight. She pressed the earpiece against her head. She didn’t want to miss this.

“Unit one in position and ready to move,” the anxious voice said over the headset.

“Unit two, three, and four ready.” Vail immediately recognized Kilgore’s voice.

Vail’s heart was slamming against her chest.

“Unit five, six, seven, and eight ready.”

“Hold all positions,” Kilgore whispered. He moved his fist in front of the door and banged it hard several times: the knock-and-notice. “Patrick Farwell, this is the sheriff,” he shouted. “We know you’re in there. We’ve got the place surrounded. Come out with your hands up.”

The house remained dark, the air still.

“Flash bang, sir?” asked one of the officers.

“No.” Kilgore’s voice was stern. “Stick to tactical.”

Another voice over the radio, probably from the back. “Unit eight reports no sign of movement.”

“Roger that,” Kilgore said. “On my mark.” After waiting a beat, he said, “Go!”

The first position moved aside and the second officer stepped up with a Stinger battering ram. “Second in position. On my mark. Go!” He swung back the thirty-five-pound steel cylinder, then arced it forward and breached the door, sending shards of splintered wood flying in all directions. The position three team member, Lon Kilgore, rushed the house.

Vail put her head down and concentrated on the voices coming through her headset:

“Entryway, clear.”

“Kitchen, clear.”

“Living room—hold it—body, I got a body. Male, looks to be in his late fifties maybe.” Pause. Then: “Dead. Rest of living room, clear.”

Vail turned to Bledsoe. “What the hell?” She bent the mike back in front of her mouth. “How long has he been dead? What’s the apparent COD?”

Kilgore’s voice crackled through her headset: “Get off the damn radio!”

“Shit,” she said, rising and moving out from behind the tree.

Bledsoe grabbed her left arm. “Wait here, Karen. Let them clear the house, then we can go in.”

She pulled herself free with a windmill of her shoulder. She yanked the Glock from her side holster and stepped toward the house. “I’m going in now.”

Robby, ten feet back behind another tree, emerged and followed her forward. “We’re coming in,” Vail announced.

“Upstairs bedroom, clear. Holy shit—”

Vail stopped, instinctively raised her weapon with both hands. “What?”

“This is one sick fuck,” the tactical officer said. “All sorts of shit hanging around up here. And I mean hanging. Five severed hands strung up from the ceiling. Holy, Jesus.”

Vail exchanged a knowing glance with Robby, then proceeded up the steps toward the fractured front door. She moved slowly into the living room, where she came upon the body.

“Upstairs bedroom two, clear,” another voice said somewhere in her ear. But she was not listening. She was staring at the face of Patrick Farwell.

Her father.

The Dead Eyes killer.

seventy-two

Frank Del Monaco knelt beside Vail and matched her gaze. “I don’t get it,” she finally said.

“He unraveled,” Del Monaco said. “Just like the others.”

“What others?” Robby asked. He was standing behind them, his hat and headset dangling from his left hand.

“All the serial killers. They reach a point where the killing gets to be too much even for them to handle. Even though they have no moral sense, deep down they know what they’re doing is wrong. It’s not enough to stop them, but the pressure builds to the point where they can’t deal with it. It’s an end game.”

“But suicide?” Robby asked.

“They get sloppy,” Vail said. “Their fantasies get more violent, their order disintegrates into disorder. Organization into disorganization. That’s how we caught Bundy. If we hadn’t caught him, he might’ve eventually done himself.”

“Linwood’s crime scene certainly was an indicator,” Del Monaco said, “though we didn’t see it that way. I think we still called it right. The personal connection, the overkill.”

“But the violence wasn’t just because of that,” Vail said. “He was coming undone at the same time. Maybe killing Linwood, the woman who took his daughter from him, was too much for him to handle.”

Del Monaco shook his head. “More like he had done what he needed to do, what he’d fantasized about doing, for the fifteen big ones he’d done in the slammer. He got out and bang, he saw women who reminded him of Linwood when she was younger, the way he remembered her the last time he’d seen her. Even though he may not have consciously been aware of it, he killed them because he was killing her, over and over again.”

“Then he somehow found her. Found Linwood. And he went after her.”

“What’s the COD?” Sinclair asked, walking into the room.

Del Monaco answered: “Gunshot wound to the forehead. Lots of stippling on the face. Close range, an old thirty-eight. Gun’s still in his hand. Looks like a suicide.”

“How long ago?”

“Just a guess, but I’d say a day, maybe a little less.”

“Let’s get a powder residue, just to be sure,” Sinclair said.

“Karen,” Bledsoe called, “you should see this.”

She rose and followed his voice up the stairs to the bedroom. Five left hands hung from the ceiling with thin fishing line. In the lighting, they appeared to be floating in mid-air. “Five . . . tell the lab we need to know which one’s missing.”

Bledsoe nodded. “Then there’s this.” He led her down the hall into the bathroom. Scrawled on the mirror in lipstick were the words “It’s in the blood.”

Vail sighed deeply. She looked around the old bathroom, the toilet the kind that had a wall-mounted water tank and a pull-chain flush mechanism.

“Looks like we got our man,” Bledsoe said.

Vail nodded. “Yeah.”

“You okay?”

She pouted her lips. “I thought I might feel something, like I’d been here before. Because I have, I must have been. I was an infant here, till Linwood had the sense to get the hell out.” Her eyes bounced around the bathroom and into the hallway. “But I don’t feel anything.”

“You were a baby. What do you expect?”

“I don’t know, Bledsoe. I just thought I’d feel something. Then again, there aren’t that many things that move me these days.”

Just then, she noticed Robby standing in the doorway. “I’ll move you,” he said, taking her hand.

She followed him out of the bathroom and whispered up toward his ear, “You already have, Robby. You already have.”

seventy-three

Gifford stood at the head of the conference room, addressing the profiling unit, Vail at his side. “I think we all owe Agent Vail sincere thanks for a damn fine job in helping break the Dead Eyes case. And for standing by her convictions. I know we all doubted her at various times in the past eighteen-plus months. I’m as guilty as anyone else, and for that I apologize.” He looked over at Vail, who felt that Gifford was genuine in his apology.

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”

Applause broke out for a brief moment but stopped at Gifford’s raised hand. “Let’s all get back to work.” He leaned over and whispered into her ear. “Meet me in my office in ten minutes.”

THE MANNER IN WHICH GIFFORD had approached this morning’s recognition of her efforts, in front of the entire unit, was completely unexpected—and was thus something Vail had been unprepared for. Though it meant a great deal to her, she could not fully appreciate it because both her body and mind were in fairly rotten shape. She felt as if she had been run over by a truck and wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and sleep for several days.

Following the episode at the Farwell ranch, Vail had been airlifted off the property by a county chopper and taken to a waiting cruiser at the Fairfax County Police Department’s Mason District Station. She then had been driven back to Robby’s house, where she took another two Tylenols and fell asleep in bed, without even changing out of her dirty clothing. She had awakened to a call at 9 A.M. from Gifford’s secretary, asking her to report to work in one hour.

Now, as she sat in Gifford’s office, the haze of the past forty-eight hours still hovered over her like a thick fog. What did he want to talk to her about? Reinstatement? Not possible with the charges still pending against her. Then what, a commendation? Not likely, for the same reasons. Commending an agent whose ass was still on the line for assault was . . . poor timing.

Gifford strode in and sat down behind his desk. He leaned back and sighed. “I know you and I have not always seen eye-to-eye, but I’m ready to move past all that. You came through big time. I know there were others on the task force, but you were a big part of the winning team. Good work, you made us proud.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“There is something I wanted to talk to you about. It’s a step toward regaining your job, assuming, of course, you’re cleared by judge and jury.” He scanned his desk, moved a file, and found the document he was looking for. “Here’s a list of three Bureau psychologists. Pick one and make an appointment.”

She took the paper. “A shrink?”

“A shrink. It’s for your own good. Anger management, for one. OPR will want to see that in order to clear you of their own investigation. Also, given all the crap you’ve just been through, and are still dealing with . . . it’s for your own good, really.”

Vail pursed her lips. She couldn’t argue with that. “Okay, sir. I’ll make an appointment.”

Gifford nodded, then his phone buzzed. “Go home and get some sleep. Get that knee of yours examined. I want you back full strength when the time comes.”

She smiled, arose gingerly from the chair, and then left.

seventy-four

Vail walked, or rather hobbled, back to her car feeling no pain. And it was not just from the Tylenol she kept popping. It was because for the first time she could remember, she had been afforded the respect she thought she had always deserved but had never received. She climbed into her car, pulling in the left knee slowly, then headed out of the commerce center’s parking lot.

She intended to heed Gifford’s advice about getting some sleep, but first she needed to make a stop. She arrived at the hospital, made her way up the elevator to Jonathan’s floor, and heard “Code Blue! Code Blue. All available personnel. . . .”

Her brain still in a stupor, her mind suddenly focused on a grouping of white lab coats at the entrance to Jonathan’s room. “Oh, my God!” she gasped, then took off down the hall, fearing the worst. Thoughts pored through her mind as she whizzed by the rooms along the long corridor: he was doing so well! Small steps, pieces to the puzzle. My son, my son. . . .

A group of hospital personnel in scrubs ran past her down the hallway. In the back of her mind, Vail realized the emergency was for another patient on the floor, not Jonathan. But she was not completely tuned into her thoughts yet, and she fought through the mass of white coats congregated in the doorway, grabbing and pushing bodies aside. The interns were huddled around Altman, who stood beside Jonathan. Her son’s eyes were open and he was smiling.

“Mom!”

“Jonathan?” She stepped forward, arms outstretched, and an instant later felt his hands on her back, patting her gently. Finally, she released him and leaned back to look at him.

“We thought you’d come sooner,” Altman said. He was standing off to Vail’s right, smiling.

“Sooner?”

“I had the nurse call you last night. When you didn’t answer, they left a message on your machine.”

“I was inaccessible,” was all Vail said. She turned back to Jonathan, who appeared thin, pale, and drawn. “You look tired.”

“I am. I’ve been sleeping but I feel exhausted.”

“I haven’t been sleeping, and I’m also exhausted.” She hugged him again. “It’s so good to have you back, sweetheart.”

“Let’s let him rest,” Altman said. He looked out amongst the medical students who were still gathered around the doorway. “Anyone have any questions?” No one spoke. “Okay, let’s find out where that code was, and see how it’s going.” The crowd began to disperse, and Altman turned to Vail. “We’ve got a few days of testing and monitoring to do, and then he should be ready to go home.” He placed a hand on her back, indicating it was time for her to leave.

“One thing—” she looked at Jonathan. “Do you remember what happened, how you ended up in the hospital?”

He bit his lip, eyes moving up, then left, then down again before landing on Vail. “Last thing I remember is going home after school. That’s it. Wait, dad was angry about something. About you, I think.” His eyes drifted back off to the right, then he shook his head. “Why can’t I remember?”

Altman patted Jonathan’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. That’s quite normal. If you’re lucky, your short-term memory will come back. Today, tomorrow, the day after, it’s hard to say. There’s also a chance it won’t come back at all.”

Altman told Jonathan he would return later, reminded Vail she need to let him rest, then left.

Vail placed a hand on her son’s. She did not say it, but she was torn. She hoped with her strongest convictions that Jonathan’s memory did return as it would validate her claim of Deacon’s abusive nature and put him behind bars for a long time. But she did not want her son to be scarred with the memory of his father pushing him down the stairs.

“Get some rest,” she said, then planted a kiss on Jonathan’s forehead. “I’ll be by a little later.”

seventy-five

Before leaving the hospital, Vail flagged down Dr. Altman and told him she wanted to take him up on his referral for a surgical evaluation of her knee. Within the hour, Vail was sitting in the orthopedist’s office. Thirty minutes later, the surgeon had examined her, walked her over to radiology, and informed the technician she was to squeeze in Vail between patients for an MRI.

Two hours later, the radiologist told her he had reviewed the images and found tears in the medial meniscus and medial collateral ligament. He informed the orthopedist of the findings and Vail was scheduled for surgery the day after next. She marveled at how quickly the medical machinery moved when one had a few inside connections.

AFTER LEAVING THE HOSPITAL, Vail returned to Robby’s place and threw her laundry and clothing in her suitcase and moved back into her house. With the Dead Eyes case solved, the thought of being back in her own home was inviting. She enjoyed the days spent at Robby’s and was confident she would be spending much of her future time there. But retaking her house, after having been driven from it, was a moral victory—even if she did not intend to sleep there until Jonathan came home.

Following dinner later that night, Vail and Robby visited Jonathan at the hospital. On the way, Robby detoured to an electronics retailer. The store was closing, but Robby told the owner he needed to buy a gift for his friend’s son who had just come out of a coma, and they made an exception. Robby knew exactly what to get.

When Vail walked into Jonathan’s hospital room, she found him asleep. But it was a different scene than when he had been lying in bed, helpless, hooked up to tubes and machines. His face was peaceful now, and he lay curled up on his side, just like when she would come home at night, plant a kiss on his little forehead, and tuck him in.

With Robby waiting down the hall giving her some one-on-one mother-son time, she gently sat down beside Jonathan’s bed. But the rustle of the shopping bag caught his attention. He stirred, then fluttered his eyes. He tried to focus on his mother but kept blinking, as if he was unsure she was really there.

“Hi, champ.”

“Mom. What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty.”

“I’m so tired.” He stretched and yawned. “I’ve been sleeping the whole day.”

“Have you eaten?”

“I think they woke me for lunch, but I’m not sure.”

“I’ll buzz the nurse, have them bring you some dinner.”

Robby walked in, carrying a small bag. “You must be Jonathan,” he said.

“This is Robby Hernandez,” Vail said. “He’s a good friend of mine. A detective in Vienna.”

“Glad you’re doing better, man. You had your mom very concerned.”

“Oh,” Vail said. “We got you something.” She reached down for the bag.

“What is it?”

“Sorry we didn’t have time to wrap it. I didn’t think you’d mind.” She pulled the box out of the bag.

“Xbox 360! Cool!”

“Have to admit, it wasn’t my idea. I had some help.”

He turned the white box round and round, looking at the circular lime-green graphics. “I’ve wanted one since before it came out.”

Vail smiled. “Well, now you’ve got one. But I don’t want you playing around with this thing and neglecting your homework.”

“Mom.” He drew the word out and glanced at her sideways, as if trying to hide his embarrassment.

“You’ll need this to play it,” Robby said, handing him the bag.

Jonathan flung the bag aside, revealing a green Rainbow Six Vegas 2 game case. “Cool!” He flipped it over and looked at the back. “This is hella tight, Robby, thanks.”

“You’re welcome, kiddo.” He nodded to Vail. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, around one-ish, okay?”

“I’ll be right back,” she said to Jonathan.

Her son was intently studying the back of the game case.

“I don’t think he’ll miss me,” Vail said.

As they strolled out into the hall, Robby took her hand. “You should probably tell Jonathan we’re more than just good friends.”

“I’ll talk to him about it later. I’m sure he won’t mind. You scored big with that Rambo game.”

“Rainbow. Rainbow Six.”

“Whatever.”

“Hey, you heard. It’s hella tight.”

They reached the elevator and Robby hit the button. “Tomorrow night is ours, okay?”

She leaned forward and gave him a kiss. “You don’t have to ask twice.”

seventy-six

It was two in the morning when Jonathan started shouting and thrashing his arms. Vail was off her adjacent cot immediately, taking hold of his hands and calming him. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s just a dream.” She thought of her own nightmares and realized how unfeeling her comment was . . . how real they feel when you’re the one going through them.

Jonathan sat up in bed and hugged her so firmly she thought he was going to squeeze the air from her lungs. Finally, his grip loosened and she pushed back to look at his face. “Are you awake?”

He nodded. “I remember what happened.”

While waiting for him to continue, she took a tissue and dabbed at his moist forehead. The door opened, letting in a slice of light from the hallway.

“Everything okay in here?” the nurse asked.

“Nightmare,” Vail said. “We’re fine.”

The door slipped closed. Jonathan wiped his eyes with the back of a hand, sniffled, then spoke. “Dad was angry, said you’d kicked him and broke his ribs. He said you were going to make the court take me away from him. I told him that’s what I wanted.”

She touched his forearm. She was proud her son had stood up to Deacon. He had intimidated Jonathan, abused him for too long.

“He didn’t say anything. But a few minutes later he told me to get a can of beans from the pantry in the basement. As I started to go down the steps I felt him push me. That’s the last thing I remember.”

Vail sat down on his bed and gathered him close. While holding him, she reached for the phone to call Bledsoe. He answered it on the fourth ring.

“Sorry to wake you, but I’m at the hospital with Jonathan. He remembers what happened. You’re going to want to hear this.”

Bledsoe arrived twenty minutes later, wearing sweats and a leather jacket. He reintroduced himself to Jonathan and listened intently to the youth’s version of events. “Are you sure this isn’t something you dreamt? I mean, not to say I don’t believe you, but you woke up screaming. Sounds like a nightmare to me.”

“I remember hitting my elbow on the metal railing.” He pushed the gown back and turned his arm to look at it. There was a large scabbed wound overlying the joint. He held it up for Bledsoe to see.

“Okay.” He pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket and dialed a number. “Hey, this is Bledsoe. I need you to find out what magistrate is on duty.” He waited a long moment, placed a reassuring hand on Vail’s shoulder, then pulled his face back to the phone. “Yeah, I’m here. Tell Benezra I need an arrest warrant drawn up.”

AN HOUR LATER, Bledsoe called Vail from his station house. “Just wanted you to know I dispatched two officers to pick up your ex. He should be in the system real soon.”

Vail was standing outside Jonathan’s hospital room. Though he had fallen back asleep, Vail remained awake—which had become a bad habit these past few days. “Bledsoe, I owe you.”

“Shit, Karen, you don’t owe me anything. It’ll be a pleasure seeing this monkey greased.”

“At least he won’t be hurting Jonathan anymore. It should solve the custody issue once and for all. And maybe even the case he’s got pending against me.”

“One thing’s for sure. A jury’s going to be a lot more inclined to believe you and piss on Deacon’s version of what happened.”

Vail thanked him, left Jonathan a note, and hobbled out to her car using the crutches the orthopedist had given her. She felt uncoordinated and looked even worse, she was sure. At least she would be rid of them soon.

She headed home to try to get some sleep so she did not fall asleep in Robby’s arms later in the evening. She wanted the date to be perfect—knee pain aside—and had gone food shopping yesterday to stock up on the items she needed to prepare a special meal she found in one of her gourmet cookbooks. She even bought a large bottle of Korbel champagne to celebrate Jonathan’s recovery and their cracking the Dead Eyes case. Now, with Deacon’s impending arrest, they had one more reason to make it a special occasion.

As she slipped beneath the covers, the morning light started slicing through her blinds. But a minute later it didn’t matter, because she was already fast asleep.

seventy-seven

“We haven’t been able to find your ex.” Bledsoe stood at Vail’s front door, leaning against the porch railing. “I don’t know if he’s just out of town, or if he somehow knew this was coming down and fled. We’ve got a guy on his place. We started pulling phone LUDs, home and cell, to see who he might’ve talked with recently. It’ll tell us when the last calls were logged, give us an idea if he’s been home lately.” He looked out at the street for a moment. “Any idea where he might have gone? Relatives? Friends?”

“Brother in Vegas. Hasn’t spoken to him in years. No friends I know of.” Vail was wearing a faded FBI sweatshirt and ragged jeans she had thrown on when the doorbell rang. Though she had napped for several hours, she felt worse now than when she had been pumping her sleep-deprived body full of caffeine. She rubbed at her burning eyes and said, “Neighbors?”

Bledsoe shook his head. “No one’s seen anything. Him, his car, others around the house, nothing. For days.”

“I wish I could tell you where to look.”

“We’ll find him,” Bledsoe said. “When we pick him up, I’ll let you know.” He smiled. “Must be my breath or something. First Hancock disappears, then your ex. Still can’t find Hancock, either.”

“Turn over some rocks. They’ll both probably be crawling in the muck like slugs. What do you want with Hancock?”

“With Farwell in the bag—literally—he’s obviously off the Dead Eyes suspect list, but I wanted to make sure he was clear for Linwood. Del Monaco thinks I’m wasting my time. He said everything fits and I shouldn’t beat a dead horse. Actually, I think he said a dead corpse.”

“The locket sealed the linkage.”

“Maybe I just want to get in the prick’s face again. Stir him up. Gotta get my kicks somehow. You were right from the get-go. Guy’s a first class asshole.”

Vail winced. “I’ve gotta get off my feet. Knee’s killing me. Surgeon gave me Tylenol with codeine, but I hate the thought of taking narcotics. Goes back to my beat days.”

“Hey, the Tylenol’s legal. If the doc gave ’em to you, use ’em. No reason to be in pain. You’ve suffered enough these past few weeks.”

Vail turned and hobbled down the hall to grab a seat. “Ain’t that the truth.”

seventy-eight

An hour after Bledsoe left, Robby showed up at Vail’s house with a bouquet of white roses, along with a bottle of V. Sattui’s Madeira, not realizing Vail had already procured the champagne.

“We’ll start with the champagne,” he said, “then work our way to the madeira. A friend of mine brought it from Napa a couple months ago. He said it’s real good after dinner. Wine fortified with brandy. Not too sweet, but very smooth.”

“I gotta warn you, Detective Hernandez, I don’t handle my booze very well.”

“Oh, yeah? And what happens?”

“I get drunk and disorderly.”

Robby’s eyebrows raised. “I think I can deal with that, Agent Vail. I’ve got my cuffs with me.”

“And I get really horny.”

Robby smiled. “Then we’ve got everything we need.”

She laughed. “Come on in, you can help me finish cooking dinner.”

THE FAMILY ROOM FIREPLACE was crackling, lit candles were flickering, and the smell of a merlot-based tomato basil reduction sauce filled the entire house. Vail removed the garlic bread from the oven while Robby drained the linguini noodles.

And they were already on their second glass of champagne.

Vail swiveled her head. “You know, I had some paperwork from the hospital somewhere, but I can’t find it. I’ve looked high and low and everywhere in between. Everywhere and in between,” she said, drawing out the last word.

Robby smiled. “Maybe it said not to mix alcohol and pain pills before surgery.”

She could feel a slight bead of perspiration on her forehead, her movements free and a bit easier than usual. The alcohol had hit her bloodstream.

“No shit, Sherlock. I know that, but Bledsoe told me to take my pain meds, codeine, can you believe that? I’d be, like, totally flying now if I’d done that. Codeine and alcohol. You know what that would’ve done to me? Can you believe how that would feel? I’d be, like, shit-faced right now.”

Robby placed his fingers on her lips and smiled. “Shh . . . I don’t know if I should tell you this, but you’re already shit-faced.”

“Not me. Not after only two glasses of champagne.”

“You’re a lightweight, Vail. I’m in total control of you.”

She pulled him close. “And what are you going to do with this control, you detective agent Rob-me Horny-andez?”

He pulled her from her chair and carried her out of the dining room into the adjacent living room, where he laid her on the couch. “I’m going to take advantage of you.”

“Oh, should I call a cop?”

“What’s a cop going to do about it, help us cop-ulate?” He chuckled.

She giggled.

“Maybe he’ll use these,” he said, pulling the handcuffs from his back pocket. But they dropped harmlessly to the floor as he leaned into her and planted a long kiss on her lips. She wormed her arms around his neck and held him close, continuing the kiss, the alcohol melting away the stresses of recent weeks. No, it wasn’t the alcohol, she suddenly realized as he unbuttoned her blouse. It was passion. Love. The release of letting oneself go so completely without fear of total consumption.

They made love over the next hour, the candles flickering above them, hearts fluttering within them. Warm bodies and hot breaths forging a union she had been yearning for all her life, but never had found. Until now.

They lay on the floor in each other’s arms, the fire dying out and the cool air chilling their naked bodies. She drew a throw blanket around her while Robby crawled to the coffee table, where he then peeled away the smooth, red wax sealing the bottle of madeira. He poured a glass for her, then for himself, and they both drank simultaneously. “Ooh, this is good,” Vail said. “Really good.” She instantly felt the rush as the brandy-infused wine slid down her throat.

“I’ll have to thank my friend—”

He was interrupted by the warble of his cell. Vail’s went off a second later. They shared a confused glance, then Robby rose to retrieve his phone. He helped Vail to her feet, but she let out a loud cry and crumpled in his arms. “My knee. Shit. I shouldn’t have been sitting on the floor like that. It’s locked. Shit.”

“I’ll get you some ice.” He carried her into the kitchen and set her down on a stool.

“There’s a gel pack in the freezer.”

He wrapped the pack in a paper towel, then handed it to her.

“Thanks.” She nodded toward the coffee table, where his cell sat. “Who’s it from?”

Robby made his way back to the family room. She watched his butt move as he walked, a pleasing sight that seemed to ease the pain a bit. But maybe it was just the freeze from the ice.

He lifted the phone and checked the display. He looked at Vail, his face turning pale, his eyes conveying confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

“Text from Bledsoe. Dead Eyes code.”

She sat there on the stool, fighting through her alcohol haze to process the meaning of this. Finally, she managed, “Can’t be.” Vail reached for the phone and dialed Bledsoe. He answered on the second ring. “Bledsoe, what’s—”

“All I know is first cop on the scene said it looks like a Dead Eyes job. I asked him, is the left hand severed, he said no. I asked if there was any writing in blood on the walls, he said no.”

“You’re thinking copycat?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. I’m in my car. Meet me there ASAP.”

She hung up and relayed the info to Robby, who had already gotten dressed. He was strapping on his shoulder holster, when she threw the ice aside and announced she was going to go with him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got surgery in the morning. Besides, you can’t even put weight on the leg. Stay here, ice the knee. I’ll call you as soon as I get there, walk you through the scene. I’ll take some photos and video and you can review it all as soon as I get back.”

“You okay to drive?”

“Hey, you’re the lightweight. I’m fine.”

“I hate being like this. I need to go and do, not sit around. I can’t just stay here.”

He shrugged on his wool overcoat and gave her a long kiss, then pulled away. “I’ll call you as soon as I look over the scene.” She grabbed his hand as he turned to leave. He looked at her over his shoulder. “I love you, Hernandez. Be careful.”

seventy-nine

Bledsoe was the first of the task force members to arrive. He relieved the patrol officer, who had responded to the call and roped off the surrounding area with yellow crime scene tape.

“Lights were off inside,” the cop said. “I used my flashlight, didn’t touch anything. I even put the bedroom door back the way it was when I walked in.”

“Good,” Bledsoe said.

“My partner’s canvassing. He radioed in a few minutes ago. Nothing to report.”

“Who discovered the body?”

“Neighbor. But 911 didn’t get a name. They’re analyzing the tape now. It was a short call, sounded garbled like it came from a cell phone. They gave the address, said they were a neighbor, and then the signal dropped and we lost the call.”

“Male? Female?”

“Operator thought it was male, but wouldn’t swear to it.”

“What do we know about the vic?”

“Place is registered to a Laura Mackey. DOB 5-9-69. Dark brown hair, best I could tell with my flashlight. Looked like someone did a chop job on her hair, though.”

A chill bolted up Bledsoe’s spine. He nodded, then turned toward the front door.

“It’s bad, sir. Real bad. Be perfectly honest, I had to come outside and get a breath of air before I called you. Felt like throwing up.”

“I know the feeling.” Bledsoe patted his pocket, felt the air sickness bag, and said, “Okay, take your position. No one through except the task force. Forensics should be here soon.” As Bledsoe turned away from the cop, Robby and Manette pulled up to the curb. He waited for them at the front door.

“Sinclair and Del Monaco are on their way,” Bledsoe told them. He produced a bunch of latex gloves from his pocket and handed them out.

“Karen’s not coming,” Robby said, wiggling his left hand into the glove and snapping the rubber to position the fingers properly. “Knee’s real bad. She can’t even stand.”

Bledsoe looked up from his gloves. “Shit. I was really hoping she could give us some insight as to what the hell is going on here.”

“Her insight will just be a lot of might this and maybe that,” Manette said. “Won’t do us no good. See where it got us?”

“We don’t know anything till we look everything over,” Robby said. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. We can’t have any biases.”

Manette leaned back. “You been spending too much time with Kari, I think. You beginning to sound just like her.”

Bledsoe frowned, then opened the front door. They filed in slowly, eyes roaming every square inch of the entry area and hallway. Looking for signs of a struggle—scrapes on the walls, broken glass on the ground, and blood . . . just about anywhere.

But there was nothing.

They continued through the house, clearing room by room until they reached the one at the end of the hall. The door was partially closed and obscured the view of the bed. Bledsoe glanced at Robby, then turned back to the door, squared his shoulders, and nudged it with his shoe.

It swung open with a creak.

And before them lay a young woman, brutalized in a way that had become all too familiar to them. They took a few steps into the room and stood there staring at the body. Bledsoe bent over and barfed into his bag. Blood was everywhere . . . pooling on the bed, dripping to the floor. Smeared on the walls. But not painted.

“There’s no message,” Robby said.

“Maybe he’s already made his point. We know what it means, so there’s nothing left to say.”

Just then, a noise down the hallway pricked their ears. Bledsoe instinctively drew his SIG Sauer nine millimeter. Then he heard the deep voice of Sinclair and the heavy footfalls of Del Monaco, and his heart slowed toward a more normal rate.

Sinclair’s eyes found the body. “Holy Jesus.”

“Fuck,” Del Monaco said.

Bledsoe found himself agreeing with Del Monaco. A simple four-letter word, but the emotions it conveyed in this particular instance just about summed it up.

“Okay, Frank. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you think. Karen’s not coming, so you’re it.”

Del Monaco swallowed hard, took a few seconds to compose himself. “It appears to be the same offender, but there are some key elements missing. Hand isn’t severed, there’s no message, and the blood isn’t painted on the wall. It’s kind of smeared.”

“Yeah, we can see all that. When I told you to tell me what you see, I didn’t mean literally. I meant, you know, what do you see that we don’t?”

“I know, I know what you meant.” He dragged a hand across the sweat on his brow, then took a step closer to Laura Mackey. “Key is focusing on the ritualistic behaviors we didn’t make public. We didn’t release anything about the hand, right?”

“Right.”

“And the hand isn’t severed. So maybe that indicates copycat.”

“Here we go with the maybes again.”

“Give me a break, Manette. You think this is easy? I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. You got anything better to offer than smart alec remarks?”

“Let’s take it down a notch.” Bledsoe said. “Go on, Frank.”

Del Monaco swallowed and turned back to the body. After a few seconds of observation, he said, “Knives driven through the eyes. That would also go in the copycat column. Same with the smeared blood. But the knives . . . I’d want to know if there are similar knives in the kitchen. Dead Eyes always used the vic’s own knives. That wasn’t released to the press.”

Bledsoe nodded to Sinclair, who left the room in search of the answer.

Del Monaco continued. “Body left in the vic’s bed. No significant signs of struggle. Copycat or not, this guy knew what he was doing. There’s confidence in this scene. He’s organized, methodical. He’s killed before. This isn’t the work of a beginner.”

The forensics team arrived and immediately began setting up their halogen lights in the bedroom to take their photos and collect their evidence.

Sinclair returned holding a steak knife. He held it beside the victim’s body and compared the handles. “Looks the same.”

The task force members were lost in thought as the technicians set up their equipment. Finally, Robby stepped beside Del Monaco and said, “I thought smeared blood, blood all over the crime scene, could indicate disorganization.”

“Yes, it can,” Del Monaco said. “But this guy got this woman into her bedroom without much of a struggle. I don’t even see head trauma. Won’t know for sure till they shave her head, but if I’m right, he probably used verbal means to con his way in. That indicates intelligence and planning. There may be some disorganization in the postmortem behavior, but this guy is high IQ.”

“None of this makes any sense. Dead Eyes is dead,” Bledsoe said.

“There is another explanation,” Del Monaco said. “Someone on the inside.”

“On the inside?” Manette asked. “What drug you on?”

“It’s happened before. Could be a forensic tech, too. Someone who’s been at the crime scenes, who knows what we’d expect to find. Or a lab tech who’s worked on processing one of the vics.”

Sinclair shook his head. “Let’s not go off half-cocked here—”

“Half-cocked. Hancock.”

Everyone turned to Bledsoe. He had said it softly, but the word caught their attention.

“Hancock,” Del Monaco said. “Yeah, it’s possible. Let’s bring him in for another chat.”

“Wish we could, but we pulled the tail off him a couple days ago once we had Farwell. I tried reaching him about Linwood, just to ride him a bit, but couldn’t find him.”

“And now this.”

Robby squinted at something that caught his attention. “What the hell is that?” Something white, illuminated by one of the halogen lights. He moved toward the body and peered between the legs of Laura Mackey. “Tweezers?”

“Chuck, pair of tweezers,” Bledsoe called to the head technician.

Chuck walked into the bedroom and handed them to Robby, who deftly held them near the victim’s vagina and extracted a tightly rolled piece of paper.

“How the hell did you see that?” Manette asked.

“Caught the light.” Robby unrolled it, then unfolded it into a full size sheet of paper. “Holy shit.” He turned to Bledsoe. “What the hell does this mean?”

Bledsoe came up alongside him and looked at the document. He turned to Robby, his jaw clenched. “Oh, man. This is bad.”

Robby pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number. “Come on, Karen, answer the damn phone.”

“What’s the deal?” Sinclair asked. He crossed the room with Manette and Del Monaco to look at the paper.

“She’s not answering,” Robby said, his voice rough and tentative.

“Let’s go,” Bledsoe said, then started to run out. “Call all available units,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Have them report immediately to Karen’s house. Hurry!”

eighty

Vail watched the minutes tick by. Angry at her body for betraying her when she needed it, frustrated that she had to remain behind. Concerned they may have made a grave mistake.

As her cold pasta sat in the pot in front of her, she stared at the clock in a daze, running all the Dead Eyes facts through her mind. It all fit. It all made sense. So why was she filled with this sense of unease?

It was a copycat killing, it had to be. All they had was a beat cop’s first-on-the-scene impressions. He wasn’t a homicide detective and he wasn’t a profiler. The finer points of behavior strewn out across the victim’s bedroom would be lost on him, just as they would be on the new agents she taught each month.

But the unease ate away at her. And Robby had not called. She was tempted to phone him, but her better sense told her not to. She needed to let them evaluate the scene without interference. He said he would call . . . he’ll call, she just had to be patient.

But being patient was not part of Karen Vail’s makeup. Acknowledging she needed to divert her attention, she limped over to the stove and began placing the food into containers. She sniffed the sauce and caught a whiff of the fresh pasta and garlic. It would have made a special meal. But with Robby gone, she had lost her appetite.

She slipped the food into the fridge, then pulled the stool in front of the sink. She turned on the hot water and began washing the dirty dishes and pots. It was more difficult to do from a sitting position, but at least it kept her mind off the crime scene, Robby, and her knee pain.

As she placed a dish into the drainboard, she heard a noise somewhere behind her. She stopped the water and listened. Her eyes bounced around the room, noticed the fireplace had completely burned out and was now a smoldering layer of embers. Perhaps a piece of wood had fallen from the rack.

She turned around and returned to the dishes, moving on to the pots. As she maneuvered one into the sink, she heard a clunk! and quickly brought a hand up to the faucet, shutting the water again. She swiveled on the stool and squinted into the family room.

Nothing.

She thought of where she had left her Glock. In its holster, in her bedroom. She slid off the stool and lowered herself to the floor, then hobbled down the hallway, moving slowly, eyes wide and her body ready to react. Question was, react to what? To whom?

“THIS IS PAUL BLEDSOE,” he shouted into the handset in his car. Robby’s hands were locked on the dashboard as Bledsoe maneuvered through the traffic. “Get out an APB on Chase Hancock. Info’s in the computer. There’s an active case open under my name.” He handed Robby the mike and put his other hand on the wheel just in time to swerve away from a pedestrian. “Shit. What the hell’s going on here?”

Robby chewed on his lower lip, holding his thoughts.

Bledsoe accelerated. “Who could’ve gotten hold of the profile?”

“We know who got hold of it,” Robby said. “Dead Eyes.”

“We got Dead Eyes. He’s deader than a doornail.” He glanced at Robby. “No. Someone broke into Karen’s house and stole it. Someone left a message on her wall. We just assumed it was Dead Eyes.”

“Who the hell else would it have been?”

“I don’t know, Hernandez, I don’t know. Her ex? Screwing with her head? Hancock? Same reason?”

Robby sighed. “Whoever broke in is whoever stole the profile. Same person rolled it up and shoved it into Laura Mackey.”

“So who are our suspects?”

“Hancock. Deacon Tucker. And an UNSUB.”

Bledsoe swerved onto the shoulder of the roadway and passed several cars waiting to make a left turn. He was on surface streets, headed to the Interstate, trying to make the best time possible.

“Try Karen again.”

Robby pressed redial. “No answer.” He shook his head. “The line must be cut.”

“Maybe she’s just not home.”

“She’s home. Her knee’s real bad. She’s got surgery tomorrow morning, she wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, she’s got a machine.”

Bledsoe gripped the wheel tighter.

Robby tried the line again, cursed under his breath, then slammed the phone shut. “Can’t this car go any faster?”

VAIL MOVED INTO HER BEDROOM and saw the holstered Glock sitting atop her dresser. She strapped the shoulder harness across her body then flipped on the overhead light. Everything was as it should have been. She left the light on and moved into Jonathan’s bedroom and glanced around. Nothing unusual.

Next she checked her study, where the message was still scrawled on the wall. She would have to get some paint and get rid of that, and soon. It gave her the creeps. It reminded her Dead Eyes had been here, had violated her space.

She moved back down the hallway, using the walls for support. As she stepped into the great room that contained the kitchen at one end and the family room at the other, she wondered if she was just being paranoid. Noises in the house. She hadn’t spent the night here in several days, ever since the profile had been stolen. She was unnerved, is all. A killer had been in her home, touched her things. Now she was back here at night and got spooked.

She hobbled through the living and dining rooms, turning on lights. Everything was in its place. There were no messages scrawled across the walls. She chuckled silently, amused at letting herself get so worked up over nothing. Shame on you, Vail. You should know better.

She sat back down at the kitchen sink and continued washing the pots.

“WHAT’S OUR ETA?” Bledsoe asked.

Robby looked around at the dark landscape flashing by outside the car. “Man, I don’t know. I never go this way. If I had to guess, five minutes, maybe ten.”

“When are they going to invent flying cars, huh? Make our jobs so much easier.”

“Were there any available units in her area?”

“Different jurisdiction. Dispatch was putting out the word. Did you try her mobile?”

“I texted and called her three times. I was kicked right into voice mail.”

“Try the landline again.”

Robby hit redial and waited. A moment later, he closed the phone. He didn’t need to say anything. Bledsoe already knew there was no answer.

THE SMELL OF BURNT WAX and smoldering wicks irritated Vail’s nose. A draft must have blown out some of the candles. She hated that odor—she always tried to put a cup over the candle before it had a chance to burn out. Vail shut the water and reached for the dish towel to dry her hands.

But it was not where she always kept it.

A noise behind her, in the family room—and she grabbed for her Glock. Her wet hands fumbled with the leather strap, but she finally yanked the pistol from its holster. Three point stance, hands thrown out in front of her in a triangle. She slid down off the stool and immediately felt the pain of her body’s weight bearing down on her left knee. She swung around, keeping her hands fixed in front of her, moving in an arc. But she saw nothing.

“Who’s out there?” she yelled.

A flash of light to her extreme right caught her eye, and she spun and fired her gun in one movement—but suddenly the house went dark. There was no longer a doubt of if there was an intruder.

Someone had cut the lights. The only questions were who—and where—he was.

Then something else occurred to her. Vail knew she had pulled the trigger. But her pistol did not fire. In fact, it felt light. She pressed the release button with her thumb and the magazine dropped into her opposite hand. She stuck her index finger into the opening, feeling for the rounds. But there were none. Whoever was in her house had emptied her weapon.

Shit.

She shoved the magazine into the pistol and backed toward the sink to grab one of her large knives, but her foot caught the stool’s leg and she fell, the Glock flying from her hand. Her initial reaction was to feel for it in the dark, but she realized there was nothing to be gained. She pulled herself up, the pain in her knee now toothache-intense, and moved toward the counter where she kept her knife block.

She realized too late that if the intruder had been smart enough to empty her Glock, and stealthy enough to move her kitchen rag, he probably had also removed other weapons of opportunity. Her knives.

“Hancock, show yourself!” She shouted it into the dark air, hoping to elicit a response. Hoping for a chuckle if she were wrong, a voice if she were right. Something to give her a sense of direction.

But before she could plan her next move, she heard a shuffle of feet. She threw her hands up and bent away from the noise bracing for impact—and got what she expected. Whack! Across the hands. Then a swift kick to her left knee. Pain ignited, burst through her leg, like fireworks exploding in her brain. She let out a groan, in that instant knowing there were going to be more fierce, angry blows.

She crumpled in pain and was driven backwards to the floor, as a lineman would tackle a quarterback. And then she felt the weight of a body atop her.

Vail swung her arms hard and hit something, something metal, and heard the object clunk against the floor. She immediately threw her hands up and grabbed clothing—then pushed the man back, away from her. Her eyes were now accommodating to the darkness and could make out what looked like nylon pantyhose stretched across his face.

“Son of a bitch!” she shouted as he grabbed her neck with strong, vice-like hands.

She tried to maneuver her legs to kick him, but he was sitting on her abdomen. Pinning her pelvis to the floor. He had done this before, she was sure. Highly intelligent, excellent planner . . . thirty to forty years old . . . her profile flittered through her mind while she tried to pry his hands loose.

As the air left her lungs.

eighty-one

Bledsoe swerved, his tires crying in protest. He broadsided a parked Honda but continued on, the rear of his car dovetailing as he accelerated.

“We’re close,” Robby said. “Maybe half a mile.”

“I just hope dispatch got through to the sheriff’s office—”

Just then, a police cruiser came speeding up behind them, strobe lights whipping in dizzying rhythm.

“He’s either after us for hit-and-run or he got dispatch’s message.”

“Let’s hope he got the message,” Bledsoe said, “’cause I ain’t stopping for nothing.”

Bledsoe killed the lights a half a block away; the tailing cruiser followed suit. Bledsoe pulled up at the curb with a heavy foot on the brake while trying to avoid squealing the tires. Robby was out his door before Bledsoe and covered the postage-stamp lawn in four strides. Bledsoe motioned the cop in the patrol car toward the rear of the house.

They drew their guns and stood on opposite sides of the front door. Bledsoe nodded to Robby, who stepped up and unleashed a wicked front-on kick.

The door splintered inward. Bledsoe charged in, followed by Robby. They crouched low and moved quickly through the family room, their roving LED flashlights throwing an eerie flicker through the darkened house. Bledsoe tried the light switch. Nothing. He motioned to Robby to move on, toward the back of the house where the bedrooms were located.

Robby started down the hallway—and saw something on the kitchen floor. Vail’s Glock. He knelt beside it, reached into his pocket and pulled out a latex glove, and snapped it on. He lifted the weapon, held it up to his nose. It had not been fired. He removed the magazine. Empty. “What?”

Bledsoe came up behind him.

Robby motioned to the gun. “Magazine’s empty. No shells. Hasn’t been fired.”

Bledsoe squinted confusion. He turned and continued on through the house, his flashlight’s narrow beam bouncing around the walls. Robby remained where he was, trying to piece together what had happened. Why would she empty her weapon? That doesn’t make sense. Unless someone emptied it for her. Concern welled up inside his chest; his blood was pounding in his neck, in his head, in his ears.

He moved toward the garage, using his small but powerful flashlight to peer under boxes and around corners. Vail’s car was still there; the hood was cool to the touch. Come on, Karen, where are you?

He moved back into the house and met Bledsoe. “Anything?”

“House is clear.”

“Car’s in the garage,” Robby said. He rested his hands on his hips. “So where is she?”

Bledsoe held up Vail’s BlackBerry. “Turned off. That’s why you didn’t get through.” He scrolled through the numbers stored in memory. “Three missed calls. All yours.”

“I think we can assume she didn’t leave of her own choosing.”

As they stood there, the looming silence between them was deafening.

Finally, Bledsoe turned and headed toward the garage. “Let’s get these lights back on and take a good look around.”

To Robby, that course of action seemed severely inadequate. But at the moment, he had nothing better to offer.

eighty-two

Vail’s head was bowed. Her shoulders ached and her neck was on fire. As consciousness returned, second by passing second, she realized why she was in pain. Her wrists were encircled by handcuffs secured to a beam, her body suspended above the floor, a few inches off the ground. Her ankles were shackled together, the loose chain dragging impotently beneath her.

And she was naked.

A single bare bulb stared her in the face, a few feet from her head. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from it. The remainder of her body was cold, the air chilled and drafty. A strong mildew scent tickled her nose.

She blinked, trying to clear her blurry vision. She did not know what had happened to her after she fought for her last breaths. She remembered an intense electrical shock ripping through her chest. The only likely scenario was a stun gun.

But there was so much that remained unexplained . . . chief of which was how Dead Eyes could have been resurrected. She had seen Patrick Farwell’s body on the ground. And the most telling evidence of all, the left hands.

But what if the man lying there had not been Farwell? Their only photos of him were mug shots from twenty years ago. What if Farwell had found someone who resembled himself, took him back to his house, and executed him, disguising it as a suicide and expecting the police to draw the obvious conclusions, that the body was that of the Dead Eyes killer?

If it was not, in fact, Farwell’s body, then the crime scene had been staged: making it look like something it was not. Staging was a telltale sign of an organized offender. That Vail did not see this sooner bothered her. Another missed sign. She had never wanted to accept that she was fallible. Yet as the pain in her shoulders and wrists increased, it served as a constant reminder of just how flawed she was. Kidnapped by the Dead Eyes killer, however, her fate was far worse than imperfection.

Such a fate was not something she was willing to accept. Not yet.

She closed her eyes for a moment, attempting to reinvigorate her night vision. The bright bulb, seemingly the only light source, had blinded her, and she wanted to be able to look into the darker recesses around her. Hopefully to gain some clues as to where she was.

Closing her eyes provided a secondary benefit: it focused her senses. She swore she smelled something, a light perfume, more a suggestion than a statement. It was a scent she had smelled before. But where?

When Vail opened her eyes, she looked to her extreme left, where a narrow shelf sat mounted to a bare plywood wall. The space was about eight feet across, the ceiling perhaps eight feet high. It almost had the look of a closet, though slightly larger. She moved her head and looked over her right shoulder. The underside of steps. This was some sort of basement, or dead space beneath a staircase. Dead space for Dead Eyes. The irony was not lost on her.

Also not lost on her were the crime scene photos stolen from her house. Hanging to her right were pictures of the Dead Eyes victims: marked with what appeared to be red lipstick: their names, their identification, their personality—who they were as people—reduced to mere numbers on darkly grained plywood. They were all there, Marci Evers, Noreen O’Regan, Angelina Sarducci, Melanie Hoffman, Sandra Franks, Denise Cranston; and a newspaper photo of Eleanor Linwood, two knives protruding from the wall. Stabbed through the eyes.

Vail now knew where she was: in the killer’s lair. She closed her eyes and tried to think. Tried to block the pain coming from her shoulder joints, which felt as if they were going to snap like the dead twigs she used to crunch beneath her heels in her parent’s yard in Old Westbury. What a far better place to be now.

But her situation was not going to be solved by visualizing better times or reliving the past. She was a spider caught on a web, hung out until the predator could come along and eat her alive.

Her legs, though cuffed at the ankles, were still free to move about. But the tractioning weight on her left knee was substantial. Which hurt worse . . . her shoulders and wrists or her knee . . . it was difficult to say. At the moment, none of that mattered. She had to shut off all pain, all thoughts of defeat.

Visual examination of her surroundings told her there was nothing she could use to her advantage, no walls or stools, boxes or handles for her feet to gain purchase. She would have to use her legs to kick and, hopefully, win her freedom.

Questions flooded her thoughts: Where was she? Down the street from her house or in another state? In the middle of nowhere? She thought of the bank, of the Alvin look-alike, of how there was no tactical team outside backing her up. Yet standing there with her Glock trained on the man’s head, she’d had control, she’d had power. What she would give to be back there.

Because as precarious as it had been, staring down the barrel of a crackhead’s .38 Special, it was nothing compared to this.

BLEDSOE WALKED BACK into the kitchen and joined Robby, who was kneeling beside a forensic technician.

“Anything?” Robby asked.

Bledsoe shook his head. “Nothing of use. There was a struggle in the kitchen. That’s about it. No obvious signs of forced entry.”

“Anything on your end?”

The technician looked up from his toolkit. “About the best news I can give you right now is that there’s no blood. We found a few footprints in the soil outside that don’t match any of your shoes. Sneakers, size nine, Reeboks, if I had to guess.” He stood from his crouch. “Latents galore, but it’ll be a while before we can sort them all out. Sorry. I wish I had more to give you. We may have more later.”

“Later . . .” Bledsoe griped. He walked off with Robby.

“So where does this leave us?”

Bledsoe rubbed tired eyes. “We thought Patrick Farwell was Dead Eyes. Everything pointed to that, even the shit at his place. But he’s dead—”

“Is he?” Robby asked.

“Look, Hernandez, I know it’s late and we’ve been pushed up against the wall, but you’re not making sense. You saw the bullet wound. His body’s lying at the ME’s office on a slab.”

Robby was waving his hands. “No, no. You’re missing the point. Someone was shot dead in that house. What if it wasn’t Farwell?”

Bledsoe sat down on the family room couch, eyes searching the floor. “It sure looked like him. We had his mug shots—”

“Yeah, from twenty years ago. Humor me. Call the ME, find out where they are in processing the body. See if they’ve run the fingerprints yet.”

Bledsoe dug out his cell phone, then punched in the number.

Robby stood there, trying to work it through. Feeling he was missing something, but not sure what. Then he realized what was bothering him. The email from the offender. He played it back in his mind: The hiding place smelled musty . . . it was small and dark. He watched everything through little holes in the walls. It had to be. If he was wrong, they would lose valuable time. But at the moment, there were no other leads to pursue.

Bledsoe’s shoulders fell. “Can you run them ASAP?” he said into the phone. “The body may not be Farwell’s. Soon as you get something, call me.” He shook his head, then closed his phone.

Robby grabbed Bledsoe’s arm. “I know where she is.”

“You know? Or you think you know?”

Robby hesitated. He had asked himself the same question. But he was relying on intuition . . . intuition and analytic logic. “How soon can you get a chopper here?”

“If there’s one in the air, ten minutes. If not, longer.”

“Make it ten. Karen’s life is at stake.”

THE PAIN WAS STARTING to reach her limits of tolerance. Vail tried pulling herself up to alleviate some of the strain on her shoulders. If her arms had been separated by just a few more inches, her position would be the same as the leg pull-up exercises she did to strengthen her abdominal muscles at the Academy gym. But because her hands were locked so close to one another, the increased strain on her arms only worsened the wrist pain.

“Shit,” she said. It was her first utterance . . . but not her last. Figuring that the intelligent offender would have gagged her had he thought her screams could be heard, she knew that calling out for help would be a useless exercise.

She did it anyway.

But after her first plea, she was stopped short by the feeling that someone was behind her. She spun her head around and saw, in the dim recesses of the small room, a figure dressed in dark clothing. Vail’s body swung from her sudden movement, allowing a sliver of light from the bulb to catch the shiny nylon of the pantyhose stretched across the offender’s face.

“Won’t do you any good,” the voice said. It was rough and strained, but confident.

“Who are you?” Vail shouted.

“I gave you more credit than you deserved.” He moved slightly to his right, making it more difficult for Vail to see him. It was a move of power, Vail was sure of it. He talked; she had to listen but could not look at him.

“Are you the Dead Eyes killer?”

“You still don’t get it, do you? Crack profiler, supervisory special agent and you ask a dumb question like that. What good is the title ‘special’ if you’re as stupid as the rest of them? Of course I’m the Dead Eyes killer!”

There it was again. The scent. She tried to force it from her mind, but it popped back in. The backyard. Sandra Franks’s yard, when she felt as if the killer was watching her, when she had run through the brush and sprained her knee.

“It is you,” Vail said.

“The light comes on. How very promising. Now for the million dollar question: Do you know where you are?”

“I’d say the million dollar question is who you are, not where I am.”

A snapping sound flicked in Vail’s ears before the searing sting of a whip slapped against her bare skin. “I ask the questions here, Agent Vail. Karen. Sweet little Karen.”

The bite from the whip was still throbbing and overrode all other pain; she bit her lip to contain the whimper that threatened to escape her mouth. She was not going to give him that.

“I’ll tell you where you are. You’re in the same place we grew up, the place where we watched father through that peephole in front of you. The place we hid, too scared to come out.”

“We?” Vail clenched her jaw, trying to will away the pain, trying to put it all together. Come on, Vail, think! An accomplice. There had been many serial killers who had a friend or spouse as their partner in crime. Then: “Where is he? Is he afraid, too scared to come out?”

The whip snapped again, this time striking the flesh over Vail’s low back and buttocks. Tears squeezed from her clenched eyes.

“I’d hoped to make you work for it, but I see you’re too stupid to get it. And I’m not interested in playing twenty questions.”

The offender moved in front of Vail, the light beating down on the pantyhose-covered head. Vail squinted at the figure before her, bracing for what might come next. Pain was a state of mind now, coming from nowhere . . . and everywhere. Her abdominal muscles, which seemed to be stretched beyond their limits by the weight of her lower extremities, were cramping. She needed to lift her legs somehow, to lessen the strain on her stomach.

But suspended as she was, there was little she could do to defend herself. Instead of harming her, however, the offender merely reached up and pulled off his nylon veil.

And in that instant, the profiler in her vanished. All thoughts, all emotions, all words left her mind. Seconds passed before the shock wore thin enough to speak. And even then, she was only able to whisper one sentence: “Oh, my god.”

eighty-three

How could this be?

The lighting was poor, her vision blurred by pain. But from what she was able to see, the offender’s hair was short, the face hard, the brow prominent, and the mouth drawn down into a scowl.

Vail finally summoned the strength to speak. “Who are you?” But the name was unimportant, Vail realized. The physical appearance, the hair color, the face, the eyes. . . . There was no need to ask who it was. The answer was obvious. Vail hesitated a moment, then said: “I . . . I’m a twin? I have a twin sister?”

“I’m not who you think I am,” the Dead Eyes killer said.

“You have to be,” Vail insisted. It was all coming together. The nightmares . . . could it be possible they weren’t merely dreams, but some kind of “psychic connection,” the kind documented between twins? She’d always doubted such phenomena, but now she wasn’t so sure.

Of course. “Nellie took me and left you with our father.”

Another snap of the whip, this time across the legs. “Does it hurt? Do you feel the pain? It’s just like the pain you caused. You. You’re the one responsible. You and that dead queen bitch. The lying Eleanor Linwood. Or should I call her Nellie Irwin?”

The bare bulb cast a harsh light on Dead Eyes’s head, causing deep shadows to fall across the remainder of her face.

“I can help you,” Vail said.

A laugh. A deep, guttural laugh. But no response. The killer moved out of the penumbra holding a Tupperware container. “Do you know what this is?”

Vail strained her eyes downward.

The killer removed the top and held the container up to Vail’s face. Inside was a left hand. A man’s hand.

Vail immediately recognized the thick scar across the knuckles. “Deacon—”

“An ugly SOB, if you don’t mind me saying. And mean—man, I tell you, it was a totally different experience. All those bitches were soft-talking sitting ducks. But your Deacon, he was a bit more challenging. I thought it would be fun to go to his house, make him think I was you. At first, it worked. He thought you’d come to fight, and he got nasty with me. Reminded me of father. So I gave him what he deserved.” Dead Eyes looked down at the hand and shrugged. “I took a little souvenir. A trophy, I think you called it in your profile.” She looked down at the container, tilted it in the dim light. “It turned out to be more satisfying than I thought it would be.”

Vail stared at the hand, embarrassed by her momentary relief over the discovery of Deacon’s death. She pushed the thought aside, realizing she needed to find a way out of this, for she had no desire to join him. “The eyes,” Vail said. “Did you stab the eyes because of how you think mother looked at you? Because she left you and took me?”

The killer forced a tight smile. “‘It’s in the blood,’ Karen. Do you get it now?”

“I got it. I thought the genetic reference meant father. The letter to Singletary threw us off.”

“Wasn’t that absolutely brilliant? I found some letters from Richard Ray in the house. He and the bastard were obviously good friends. But friendships only go so far. I knew if I sent Richard Ray a letter, he’d try to use it to save his sorry ass. Between that and the locket, I knew you’d end up here.”

“You killed father for revenge.” It was more a statement than a question.

“The bastard deserved it, for what he did. I wanted to do something special to him, but I knew his ‘suicide’ would be worth more. It gave me an opportunity. I had to control my desires so I could take advantage of the situation, use it for the greater good. It’s always about control, isn’t it?”

Always about control. In many cases, it was.

At the moment, Vail had to control the pain. Fight through it. Focus. “What was the greater good?”

“Going after you, of course. Once I killed the queen bitch, you became the ultimate prize.”

Vail leaned forward and locked eyes. “It didn’t work out, though, did it? I’m still here.”

A growl, then Dead Eyes swiveled away from the light, toward the shelf, and returned with a small, black, rectangular object.

Vail instantly knew what it was. A stun gun. And she now knew another thing: her earlier suspicions had been correct: Dead Eyes had used the device to get her here.

But it was not going to be the way she would die.

eighty-four

Dead Eyes studied the stun gun as if teasing her, then looked up at Vail. “My guess is that you already know what this is. But don’t worry, I won’t kill you all at once. You’re different than the other bitches. I’m going to have some fun first, play with you for a little while.”

If Vail was ever going to do something, this was the time. She had to override the pain and summon the strength to move.

“The longer I hold the probes against your skin, the more scrambled your brain gets. So I’m going to start with a few quick jolts to make sure your mind is clear. I want you to know what’s happening to you. I want you to feel it.” She smiled. “In a few minutes you’re going to beg me to kill you. And I’ll be glad to accommodate your wishes.”

Vail’s eyes were riveted to the stun gun. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Really! You read those emails, you know what the bastard did.” The killer jabbed her breast with the stun gun. Vail screamed.

“Don’t you understand?” Dead Eyes yelled. “It should’ve been you!”

Vail bit her lip, trying to contain her fear. She had to turn her thoughts inward, separate mind from body. She closed her eyes. There is no pain. I’m feeling no pain.

“Don’t shut your eyes on me! I want you to watch!”

Another jab, this one to the stomach. Her leg muscles twitched fiercely. She was starting to lose consciousness. No, fight. Think of Jonathan. Of Robby.

Another jolt. She opened her eyes.

On the shelf was a steak knife, the silver blade catching the orange incandescence of the bulb. Her eyes shifted to the stun gun as it again moved toward her—

And she drew her legs up, thrusting them outward and catching Dead Eyes in the chest. The killer reeled backward, her head slamming against the wall.

A growl. Blazing eyes. “Bitch!”

She righted herself and came at Vail. This was it—perhaps her only window of opportunity. Her mind screamed Now! as she lifted and spread her legs as far as the chain allowed. She forced her thighs over the killer’s head and slammed them onto her shoulders.

Dead Eyes writhed and pulled, grabbing at Vail’s legs, trying to loosen her hold. The weight of her body transferred from her wrists to the killer’s torso, relaxing the pull on Vail’s arms. Vail grabbed the overhead pipe with her right hand, giving her more control over the movement of her body. But Dead Eyes was putting up a valiant fight: Vail felt like a cowboy riding a bucking bronco, summoning every last ounce of strength to hold on.

Remembering that the leg muscles were the strongest in the body, Vail tightened her stomach and brought her thighs together. But as she squeezed, she felt the killer’s hands pulling on her ankles, trying to pry the legs apart.

It was a smart move, because gripping the legs down low gave her leverage, leverage that Vail found hard to overcome. Sharp knee pain shot up her thigh. Her muscles started to shake. And her legs slowly parted. “Damn it!” she screamed, desperate to keep her hold. “Ahhh!”

It was all she had left. In the seconds that followed, all she could think about was how much she wanted to live. Jonathan and Robby. She filled her mind with those thoughts as her legs spread apart. Dead Eyes twisted free and fell to her knees. Coughed spasmodically. Then grabbed the stun gun from the floor, stood up, and swung hard, smashing the light bulb.

Vail hung there, her leg strength spent, her stomach muscles cramping. Overriding pain just about everywhere.

In total darkness.

Awaiting the searing jolt of electricity.

eighty-five

With the chopper’s high-intensity spotlights swirling over the Farwell ranch below, Robby spied an older model Audi parked perpendicular to the front porch.

“This is it!” he yelled into Bledsoe’s ear. He thrust a finger into the helicopter’s window, indicating the vehicle below.

Bledsoe craned his neck to have a look, then leaned over the pilot’s shoulder, pointing at the ground. “Set her down! Set her down!”

The helicopter descended rapidly and touched down in the clearing, thirty feet away.

“Air Unit Four,” Bledsoe shouted into the mike, “positive ID at Farwell ranch. Requesting backup.”

“We’re not waiting till they get here,” Robby said.

“Hell no. Let’s go!”

They climbed out of the chopper, weapons drawn, and ran without cover toward the front door. Had someone been crouched anywhere nearby with a rifle—or even with a pistol and a steady hand and a good eye—Bledsoe and Robby would have been tin cartoon characters in an old fashioned arcade game.

But they reached the door without drawing fire. They threw their backs up against the clapboard siding of the house and watched the helicopter lift up and away to search the immediate area in case the offender had attempted to flee.

Robby motioned to Bledsoe that he would take the point. After receiving a confirmatory nod, he crouched low and stepped through the splintered doorway.

Into pitch darkness.

Bledsoe followed and tried a light switch. On-off, on-off. Shook his head. Nothing.

They pulled their flashlights and swept the narrow beams across the path ahead of them. “You go up,” Robby whispered into Bledsoe’s ear. “Once you clear it, meet me back down here.”

Pistol in hand, Bledsoe proceeded up the creaky stairs as Robby moved through the rooms slowly, relying on his ears as much as the tightly focused cylinder of light. After their initial analysis, the forensics crew had crated everything and moved it out for additional evidence collection at the lab, so clearing the house was efficient and quick. Less than a minute later, Bledsoe descended the stairs. Robby met him at the landing.

They pivoted 360 degrees.

“Any ideas?” Bledsoe whispered.

Robby leaned down to Bledsoe’s ear and said, “I’ll take the closets. You look for crawl spaces.”

Bledsoe trained his light on the worn wood flooring to search for an access point. A broken trail of caked mud littered the ground. He turned and tapped Robby’s arm. Nodded at the soil tracks. They both checked their shoes: no dirt.

Robby followed the mud with his flashlight as it trailed from the house’s rear door through the downstairs hallway. It ended at the entryway coat closet, built into the back of the staircase. With everything having been removed, Robby knew it would be empty. He motioned to Bledsoe and they positioned themselves on either side of the door. Bledsoe yanked it open.

Robby swept the area with his pistol and flashlight, then shook his head: nothing. Bledsoe started to close the door, but Robby stuck out his arm. His eyes caught a straight-cut line in the wood floorboard. He followed it to his right, where it met the wall . . . and another seam. He craned his neck up and around. They were beneath the staircase. He looked down again and followed the seams in the flooring. Then it hit him.

A hidden room. His thoughts flashed back to the contents of the vanishing email Vail had received. The UNSUB mentioned “a hiding place . . . musty . . . small . . . dark.” Robby moved into the closet and knelt in front of the side wall. Putting the narrow flashlight into his mouth, he traced the seam up and around: it was approximately four feet high and nearly two and a half feet wide, the bottom of the rectangle being formed by the floorboards. He reached into his back pocket and removed a long, black handcuff key. He stuck it into the seam and pried outward. The section of wall moved.

Robby traced the edges with his fingertips and noted a roughened area along the left side: whoever had built the hideaway had pried against the same spot numerous times while using it as an entry point. On close examination, based on its texture, Robby figured a section of the wall had been replaced with a rectangle of painted plywood.

He looked up at Bledsoe and motioned him into the closet behind him. Robby extinguished his light and continued prying at the wall. When it was sufficiently loose and ready to be removed, he tapped Bledsoe twice on the leg. Bledsoe, nearly a foot shorter than Robby, would be the logical choice to enter first.

Bledsoe crouched and waited as Robby tapped his leg once, then twice, then three times. Robby yanked back on the wall and the rectangle popped into his hands. A musty odor wafted toward them. Bledsoe, weapon out in front of him, remained by the opening and waited. Listened. Then he climbed in.

ALTHOUGH ROBBY THOUGHT he had prepared himself for just about anything, he knew that whenever you crawled into a dark space in a house that belonged to a sexual offender, you could not possibly anticipate what you were going to encounter.

But the pained scream that emerged from Bledsoe’s mouth caught Robby off-guard. He flicked on his flashlight and held it against the side of his handgun. Bledsoe was facedown, sprawled across what appeared to be two small steps leading down into the crawl space beneath the house. Bledsoe was moaning, his body convulsing. Robby shined his light up and around, his Glock moving with the beam. He saw something, something that made his racing heart skip a beat.

A woman’s body, apparently hanging. But he could only see the dangling ankles and feet, as she was suspended below the staircase, and his view was blocked. Karen?

Bledsoe’s convulsing had slowed to intermittent twitching. What the hell had happened to him? A stun gun. It was the only thing that could incapacitate someone so rapidly and leave telltale signs of transient nervous system disruption.

Robby again ran his light around the small space. Was it safe to go in? Clearly not. To take out Bledsoe with a stun gun, the offender needed to touch him: he had to be nearby.

But he couldn’t retreat and wait for backup, either. If that was Karen a few feet away from him, and if she was still alive, he had to get to her. Now.

He reached forward and grabbed Bledsoe by his belt and yanked him back into the closet. He was heavy and he banged up Bledsoe’s face on the rough edge of the cutout, but Robby’s concern was getting to Vail.

Glock firmly in hand, he squeezed through the opening feet first. If he was going to get zapped, this would be the time. But he made it in and quickly swung his light and pistol around the space. Nothing. Swiveled it toward the woman’s body.

My God.

He stood face to face with Vail. Shined his light: eyes at half-mast. He moved behind her to keep as much of the area in his view as possible, stuck the small flashlight in his mouth, then fumbled for his key. He unlocked the handcuffs and gently lowered her to the packed dirt ground in a sitting position against the side wall of the stairwell. A spasmodic tic rattled her body.

A voice in the darkness: “So good of you to drop in.”

Robby spun, swinging his Glock in the direction of the voice—but an electric shock jolted him, like a lightning bolt attacking his muscles. He convulsed.

Pain shot through him. His arms spasmed, his body went numb, and his mind exploded into a mess of disorientation as he dropped to his knees.

“Thanks for coming,” Dead Eyes said. “How nice it is to kill you.”

eighty-six

What happened? Where am I? Who’s talking?

A voice, in the distance . . . and a feeling that something was terribly wrong.

“I’m saving you from the evil this bitch would’ve brought upon you, Detective. It’s an evil that’s generational, an evil that must be purged. An evil that spreads, invades, and infects. You’re infected . . . you must be killed like a germ.”

Robby’s muscular twitching and fatigue were still pervasive. The intense vertigo and numbness, however, were clearing and his senses were coming back to him: he smelled a rank odor . . . felt raw nerve pain flaring in his shoulder . . . saw a dark figure looming, leaning down toward him—

And heard a woman’s scream: “No!”

Robby instinctively threw up his arms to protect himself. But his movements were still slow and ineffective. The assailant brought his arm down—

—and then crumpled to the ground, beside Robby, atop Vail’s lap.

Standing there was Bledsoe, a thick two-by-four in his hands. “You okay?”

Robby’s eyes shifted to Vail, who just sat there, apparently lacking the strength to move. His twitching ceased, the pain subsided, and normal vision returned. “Karen. . . .” He rolled onto his side and clumsily pulled the handcuffs from his belt. He got them around the wrists of Dead Eyes and ratcheted them down. Bledsoe grabbed the offender’s torso and dragged the unconscious body toward the opening.

Robby removed his windbreaker, draped it around Vail’s shoulders, then drew her close. “I was afraid I was going to lose you.”

She squeezed him softly, with all her remaining strength. “That’s never gonna happen.”

eighty-seven

Karen Vail stood behind a large one-way mirror in the Special Needs cell block of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. Chase Hancock had been found in New Jersey, laying low and looking for work. As for Vail, her wrists were wrapped in cock-up splints, and she was wearing a figure-eight support on her shoulders and a hinged metal brace on her left knee. High-dose Motrin floated in her bloodstream. The ER physician prescribed Vicodin, but she wanted to be lucid, in complete control of her surroundings.

It’s always about control, isn’t it?

Beside Vail stood Paul Bledsoe, along with Thomas Gifford and the rest of the task force squad. Vail was transfixed on the scene unfolding behind the glass, where Behavioral Science Unit criminologist Wayne Rudnick had begun questioning a shackled Dead Eyes killer. Normally, one or two task force members would be in the interview room with their quarry. That was just the way it was done: those who tracked and caught the killer were given the opportunity to interrogate. It was like the reward, the dessert for eating your vegetables. But due to the complexity of the offender’s psychological condition, Bledsoe had reluctantly deferred to the BSU specialist.

The Dead Eyes killer abruptly stood and shouted. “Get her in here! Fucking bitch. Where is she? I’ll kill her!”

“Sam,” Rudnick said, maintaining his calm, “Please relax. I need you to sit, Sam, so we can continue to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk. All I want to do is kill her! Where is that bitch?” The chair went flying and the metal table overturned, knocking Rudnick to the floor. Four guards rushed the room, moving to restrain the killer—who was still fairly well contained by the shackles. But it was a raucous and adrenaline-spilling situation nonetheless.

“You okay?” a guard asked.

“I’m fine,” Rudnick said, his voice tinny through the speaker. Even through the one-way mirror, Vail could see Rudnick’s face was red from embarrassment. She watched him brush back his wild, tightly coiled hair and shrug his shoulders to reseat his worn, corduroy sport coat.

Upon Vail’s arrival, Bledsoe had told her they had just completed a nightlong search of the ceramics studio and loft, and found a bogus FBI shield fashioned from brass. An old copy of U.S. News, with a close-up photo of a genuine Bureau badge, served as the model.

Vail’s gaze returned to the Dead Eyes killer, Samantha Farwell. Her twin sister.

The short red hair was parted to the side, the voice was deep and rough, and the actions were aggressive and consistent with male offenders she had faced in the past. In fact, everything in the killer’s behavior was consistent with that of a male. Above all, a true female serial killer was nearly unheard of. But it was now clear there was a great deal more going on.

Rudnick was back at the table facing Sam, who had calmed. The guards had left the room on Rudnick’s insistence. “Sam, I would like to talk with Samantha.”

“And what’s she going to tell you that I can’t?”

Rudnick shrugged matter-of-factly. “How she felt, what it was like growing up.”

“I can tell you everything you need to know.”

“I’m not here to hurt her, Sam, you know that. I realize you can answer my questions, but I’d really like her perspective. Please.”

Sam’s chin dipped a bit and his head tilted to the side. The brow softened, the face lost its hard edge—became more feminine—and the shoulders slumped inward.

“Samantha?” Rudnick asked. “Is that you?”

Her head remained still, but her eyes darted around the room before coming to rest on Rudnick’s face. “Who are you?” The voice was smooth and melodic, as different from Sam’s as the scent of a rose is from a clove of garlic.

“Whoa,” Sinclair said, watching through the mirror. “No offense, but your sister’s loony tunes.”

Manette whistled. “Man, she is definitely off her rocker.”

Loony. Off her rocker. Convenient colloquial terms, but inaccurate. “Samantha has classic DID,” Vail said. “Dissociative Identity Disorder. To understand what it is, you have to understand who she is, where she came from. Her father, Patrick Farwell, was a sadistic man; Samantha had to find a way of dealing with him. My guess is she was young and weak and ill equipped to handle his abuse. Eventually, her mind created a stronger personality, what psychiatrists call a protector persona. Sam, a male, was better equipped to withstand the abuse and probably found a way to fight back. He became dominant and Samantha remained tucked away, safe and sound.”

“Sounds like more psycho bullshit to me,” Manette said.

Vail spun to face her. “It’s a well-documented condition. It usually begins during childhood as a defense mechanism to severe abuse. And it mostly hits women. Don’t take my word for it, look it up in the journals. Hell, check the DSM-IV manual, it’s in there, too.” She turned back to the glass. “And I’ve seen it before.”

“So have I,” Del Monaco said. He had been standing in the background, engrossed in the interview. “Once. Absolutely blew my mind.”

“So Samantha was asleep for twenty-five years?” Bledsoe asked.

“Not asleep,” Vail corrected. “Dormant, probably for a little while. Patrick Farwell was arrested when Samantha was about thirteen. My guess is that when Sam felt it was safe, Samantha reemerged. When Farwell got out of prison eighteen months ago, he must’ve found Samantha. Sam reemerged, older and wiser, able to carry out the fantasies he’d created as an adolescent.” Vail continued to watch her sister through the glass. “Unleashed and unchecked, Sam acted on those fantasies. He set out to kill the woman he considered responsible for Samantha’s fate—her mother. He started killing. The first victim came easy. It was intensely satisfying, and he killed again. And again.”

Del Monaco nodded. “Each victim was similar in appearance to the way Eleanor Linwood looked as a young woman. To Sam, each victim was Samantha’s evil mother.”

“What keeps every killer from claiming they’ve got this ‘identity disorder’?” Manette asked.

“Nothing,” Del Monaco said. “Gacy tried to claim DID as a defense, but not once, in all the interviews I conducted with him, did I ever see evidence of an alternate personality. Gacy was bullshit. From what I’m seeing here, Samantha Farwell is the real deal.”

Vail couldn’t help but think how fortunate she was. If Linwood had not been able to wrest her from Farwell’s grasp, she, too, could have ended up like Samantha. And what of her sister? What would happen to her? Shipped off to a state mental institution’s maximum security ward, possibly for the rest of her life. Slim chance of rehabilitation or recovery.

Recovery. Vail knew the treatment for dissociative disorders involved merging the different personas into one. Even if technically possible, how could Samantha integrate a serial killer into her personality? How could she recover from the knowledge that she’d brutally murdered eight innocent women? Vail rested her head against the one-way mirror and sighed deeply.

“You okay?” Bledsoe asked.

“Let’s see, I find out I have a twin sister who’s a serial killer, my mother’s really my aunt, my biological mother is brutally murdered, and my worst fears about my biological father are confirmed. I’d say it’s been a kick-ass week.”

Manette nodded. “Sometimes, Kari, life just sucks the big one.”

eighty-eight

Vail was lying in recovery, her left knee bandaged and slightly elevated. She had regained consciousness a few minutes ago, her senses coming back to her in stages. She was hungry and felt dehydrated.

“Knock, knock.” Vail smiled. Robby’s voice.

“Come in.”

Robby stuck his head in from behind the curtain and grinned. “How you doing?”

“Better, now that you’re here.”

His head ducked back for a second before reappearing. “I have a present for you.”

Her eyebrows rose and her head tilted. “What is it?”

Robby pulled back the curtain and Jonathan stepped forward. He was thin, but he looked well. His face was bright. He hesitated at the foot of her bed, his eyes taking in the bandaged knee and the braces on her wrists before finding her face.

She lifted her arms, taking care not to snag the IV line, and motioned to her son. Jonathan moved to the side of the gurney, then melted into her embrace.

“It’s over,” she whispered. “We get to start again, a new life for us.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“A little banged up, but nothing I won’t get over.” She looked down and noticed something in Jonathan’s hand. “What’s that?”

He pushed away and showed her the small package. “Robby got me Too Human.” He must have noticed Vail’s quizzical look, because he elaborated. “It’s an Xbox game, mom.”

“Oh. Hecka tight, right?” she asked.

“Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Robby cleared his throat. “You’re embarrassing him.”

“Give me a break. I can speak the groovy lingo with the best of them.”

A nurse appeared at the foot of the gurney with a large bouquet of flowers. “A messenger dropped this off for you at the front desk,” the woman said, then handed them to Robby, who thanked her.

Vail pulled the small card from the porcelain vase. As she read it, a smile teased her lips.

“Who’s it from?” Robby asked.

Vail eyed him curiously. “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”

“More like a couple of notes.”

“Hmm. Haven’t heard that tune in a while.” She winked at him. “It’s from Jackson Parker, my attorney. He told me to get well soon so he could face me in court again. And, he wanted to let me know that everything’s going to be fine.”

“What’s going to be fine?” Jonathan asked.

Vail gently touched her son’s face, then reached out to take Robby’s hand. “Everything, sweetheart,” she said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

acknowledgments

I’m indebted to the following individuals for their time and assistance. Any errors (or literary license I may have taken with some minor facts/locations) are solely my responsibility.

FBI Profiler Mark Safarik, recently retired Supervisory Special Agent with the Bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. My work with Mark goes back twelve years, and during this time he’s helped me gain a deep insight, not just into the life and work of a profiler, but into the serial offender’s mind as well—perceptions and observations that can’t be gleaned from textbooks. In ensuring the accuracy of the material, characters, and concepts used in The 7^th Victim, Mark’s unending assistance and attention to detail were invaluable.

FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole, Supervisory Special Agent with the Bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, for being candid with me about her experiences as a profiler both on and off the job; for her insight into the mind of a killer; and for offering me a woman’s perspective on the unique issues she faces not only in her unit but as woman packing a large weapon . . . with the attitude and skill to use it.

Lieutenant William Kitzerow, City of Fairfax, Virginia Police Department, for his extensive tour of his police department and hospitality in making sure I had everything I needed—including being “my eyes” in extensive follow-ups; there’s nothing better than having a veteran police lieutenant interview people on your behalf for information.

Major R. Stephen Kovacs, Commander, Court Services Division, and Lt. Stacey Kleiner, Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, for giving me a private tour of the cell blocks and booking and processing areas of the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. They were courteous, open, honest, and invaluable resources.

Fairfax County Police Officer First Class Micheal Weinhaus, Mason District Station, who not only answered my unending questions but who took me on a behind-the-scenes tour of his facility and then welcomed me into his cruiser for a hoppin’ midnight shift ride-along. I’m confident one day he’ll be able to get my finger impressions out of his dashboard.

Fairfax County Police Officer Jeff Andrea, Mount Vernon District Station, for his assistance and explanation of prisoner booking procedure and transport; Sergeant Jamie Smith of the Vienna, Virginia, Police Department for his tour, candor, and contacts; Major H. D. Smith and Detective Twyla DeMoranville, for taking me behind the scenes at the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office and Criminal Investigations Division.

Kim Rossmo, PhD, Research Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Texas State University, and the Director for the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation. That’s a mouthful—but bottom line is that Dr. Rossmo is the father of geographic profiling. I thank him for his time in discussing with me the concepts of geoprofiling, for lending his name to the manuscript and for reviewing the relevant portions of The 7^th Victim for accuracy.

Rodger Freeman, Community Outreach Assistant for Women Escaping A Violent Environment, who provided me with insight and perspective on domestic violence issues. Marion Weis, for relating her real-world experience in dealing with people who have been stricken with Alzheimer’s Disease. Matthew Jacobson, my Xbox and Internet guru, for ensuring I got my references and terminology correct. Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, for his information on anonymous email. Michael Berkley, ceramicist, for providing me the framework for Dead Eyes’s occupation.

Michelle Sallee, PhD, psychologist for San Quentin’s death row inmates, for her input on, and experience with, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Jerry Gelbart, MD, psychiatrist, for information pertaining to the diagnosis, treatment, and incidence of DID. David Seminer, MD, for orienting me as to the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of coma.

Bill Caldwell, retired police officer, armorer, and firearms instructor, for assisting me with the nitty gritty details on firearms.

Army Lieutenant Cole Cordray, Hostage Negotiation Team, for being my jack-of-all-ordnance and research guru. Pamela Midthun, manager of the Red Fox Inn, for her tales of Monte the ghost and other facts regarding her Bed & Breakfast. Bob Campbell, Work First coordinator with North Carolina’s Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce, for being my “eyes and ears” in Warren County and the fictitious Rockridge Correctional Institution.

Frank Curtis, Esq., for his sound legal counsel and astute editorial input.

C. J. Snow. He’s not only a man of integrity, but a fabulous bookseller and a skilled editor. His early critique of the manuscript helped me craft a finer product.

To those who’ve helped me get my novels into the hands of my readers—I’m sincerely grateful: Tom Hedtke, Poppy Gilman, Lonnie Blankenchip, Dave Gabbard, Ben Coombe, Lyn Caglio, Lia Boyd, Stephanie Burke, Anthony Horsley, Erika Cowan, Karen Brady, Carol Stonis, Sheila Gordon, Mary Jo Corcoran, Joan Wunsch, Joan Hansen, Barbara Peters, Terry Abbott, Kathy Coad, Ed and Pat Thomas, Fall Ferguson, Betty Ubiles, Lita Weissman, Ben Coombe, Amanda Brooks, Nelson Aspen, Connie Martinson, Marianne McClary and Nick Toma, Bill Buckmaster, Dawn Deason, Glenn Mason, Dan Elliott, Jennifer Smith, John St. Augustine, AnnMarie Jasso, Kristin O’Connor, Norm Jarvis, Tony Trupiano, Vicky Lorini, Linda Keough, Jean Kelley, Stacey Kumagai, Brent Deal (Doodle Films), Brandy Jones (NAYABIS Productions), and Robert Gross-man (Focus Creative Group).

Kevin Smith, editor extraordinaire, who tweaked and refined but didn’t destroy. Any author who’s read and reread his or her own work a gazillion times—yet still misses a repeated word—knows how invaluable an editor is with Kevin’s exceptional skills.

Anais Scott, my copyeditor, for her keen eye and attention to detail. A good copyeditor is vital to giving a novel that last buffing before it hits the presses.

Roger Cooper. Roger is not merely a veteran of the publishing industry. He’s a visionary who understands the transformation that has occurred across entertainment the past couple decades, and who’s acted on it. I owe Roger a lot—and you, my readers, owe Roger a lot, too—because without his foresight, The 7^th Victim might not have lived to see the light of your bookshelf.

The staff at Vanguard Press/Perseus Books—including Georgina Levitt, Amanda Ferber, Janet Saines, Joshua Berman, and the entire sales, marketing, and design departments—for successfully seeing this project through the various phases of production with skill and professionalism. You’ve been fantastic and have made it look easy—and I know it never is.

Peter Rubie. It was many years ago that I first stumbled upon Peter’s nonfiction book, The Elements of Storytelling. Its influence remains ingrained in my writing DNA.

My brother, Jeffrey Jacobson, Esq., for all his tangible and intangible support over the years. Always willing and able, there’s no one I’d rather have in my corner than my brother.

My kids, who have seen me daily (before leaving for college) and who’ve been with me through all my career highs, lows, and highs. You’re a gift. I’ve tried my best to give you what you need in life to succeed—but you’ve given me as much, and more.

Ultimate thanks goes to Jill, my wife and life partner, without whom I’d be incomplete. Jill’s stood beside me every step of the precarious path that accompanies the journey of getting three major novels published. It’s a road filled with landmines, but each time we’ve found our way through, together. Third time’s a charm. In more ways than one.

If I’ve left out anyone, the omission was unintentional; please forgive me. Stated facts, if they differ from the truth, were changed for reasons of National Security, under the threat of prosecution. Actually, no facts were knowingly altered (aside from a tiny bit of harmless literary license). If something’s wrong, it just means I blew it. I worked hard to ensure accuracy, so I sure hope you don’t find any errors.

Copyright © 2008 by Alan Jacobson

Published by Vanguard Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved.