Saturday, October 15, 1:00 A.M.

Steven answered the phone on the first ring. "Thatcher."

"It's Harry."

"Where are you?"

"In Pembroke, Virginia. The widow of George Richards is here, visiting her sister. It took me all day to track her down, but when I did I had her go through yearbooks from every high school in the county. I didn't want anyone saying we directed Mrs. Richards unfairly."

"And? Dammit, Harry, tell me."

"She identified Josh Lutz as the boy who used to help her husband chop wood and do errands a few years back. It was some program for troubled kids. You know, back to nature, fresh air. Mrs. Richards said Josh seemed harmless as a lamb, except when it was slaughter-time. Then he seemed to enjoy his job a little too much. Her husband let him go. Josh's mother even came to ask Richards to give him another chance, but the old man was firm."

"So that's how he got the ketamine. Well, that explains a lot."

"There's more. Mrs. Richards said her husband had a woodworking shop in a barn on the farm."

Steven's knees went weak and he sat down. Sawdust. Jenna. "Where? Exactly where, Harry?" He listened, memorized the location. Then ran from the house, dialing for backup.

Saturday, October 15, 1:30 A.M.

Jenna swallowed back terror as Josh placed an assortment of very large carving tools on the table where he'd tied Kelly. From across the barn Jenna could see Kelly struggle, although the girl's movements were pathetically weak.

He was going to kill her now, kill Kelly. I need to get him away from Kelly.

Stall, she thought, do anything. Sooner or later the police would come looking for her. Steven would find her. Jenna wanted to cry, just thinking Steven's name, but she knew she needed to keep her voice firm. She pulled on her teacher's cloak of authority. "So help me understand, Josh. You had nothing to do with the vandalism in my class, or the dead possum."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Really, Miss Marshall. That possum was a roadkill one of my brother's friends found on the road. They're bullies, not sadists." He held up a curved knife so that she could see it. "Nice, isn't it? It's always rewarding to work with quality tools. Old Mr. Richards always had great taste in tools. Now I, on the other hand, am a sadist. If I'd wanted to leave you a gift, it wouldn't have been a roadkill." He smiled mockingly. "Roadkill's so off-the-shelf. I do made-to-order. Rudy's friends have no style. They haven't a shred of creativity."

"But you do," she said archly.

"I do," he answered. "Watch and learn, Miss Marshall." He pulled out a laminated page covered with a design she'd never seen before. "My old school. Fond memories." He looked over and winked. "Figured out I needed to laminate it after the first time. It was all covered in blood." He pulled out a smaller syringe and a bottle of something dark blue. "Art class, creativity at its most enjoyable. Today, Miss Marshall, I'll teach you the art of tattooing. Got this idea from Lorraine. She had a peace symbol tattooed to her ass. Such poor quality workmanship."

"And you can do better."

He shook the bottle and chose a needle. "Oh, yes. I find there's very, very little I cannot do."

The sight of the needle made her stomach roil and Jenna desperately scrambled for another distraction. "Why cheerleaders, Josh?"

Josh smiled easily as he measured and mixed the dark blue fluid. "Oh, I guess I could have picked anybody, but picking from cheerleaders helped narrow the pool to the prettiest of the girls from the get-go. No sense in picking an ugly girl when the pretty ones are so eager to please."

Jenna wiggled her feet in the ropes. "But how did you get them to go with you?" she asked, then too late realized she shouldn't have. The blatant disbelief in her voice was a slap at his ego.

His cheeks went brick red and his fingers tightened on the bottle. "Be quiet, Miss Marshall."

She knew she'd succeeded in rattling him and, glancing over at the knives next to Kelly, realized rattling him further was the best strategy to delay his hand. But you could make it worse, she thought, then thought of the third missing girl and Steven's ravaged face. It had been the worst crime scene of his career. That's what Josh Lutz was capable of. So anything she did couldn't make anything worse. Faster, maybe. But not worse.

"They wouldn't go with you, would they?" she asked. "So how did you make them meet you in the middle of the night? I doubt it was on the force of your winning personality."

Josh's jaw clenched. "For a woman claiming an advanced degree, you are very foolish."

"You're going to kill me anyway," she said evenly. "What do I have to lose?"

A scowl furrowed his forehead, then smoothed. "Sensible, actually."

He'd calmed. She needed to stir him up again. "You lied to them, didn't you?"

He drew dye into the syringe. "I told them what they wanted to hear," he said reasonably. "They all wanted to date a popular jock. It was pathetically easy." He picked up the needle.

Jenna's gut churned. Stall. "You told them you were Rudy," she said, keeping her voice steady.

Josh huffed an impatient sigh. "Of course I did. Now be quiet. I want this tattoo perfect."

Jenna searched her brain again. "So you failed in your initial synthesis of ketamine," she blurted and watched his hand wobble, then steady.

"No," he said carefully. "I quickly realized I needed a lab more well equipped than my own."

"That's what I figured. That's what I told the police. I told them you were incapable of synthesizing ketamine all by yourself, that it was beyond the limits of your intellect."

His hand clenched around the syringe and a few drops of blue dye spilled on the table. "I said, my laboratory was insufficient," he gritted.

"You couldn't have done it even if you had a well-stocked lab. You're not trained to do so. I, on the other hand, am trained to do so. You overrate your own skill."

He turned and she could see his eyes glittering. "Be quiet, Miss Marshall."

"It's Dr. Marshall," she said crisply and watched him flinch. "It's Dr. because I earned my degree. Which makes me a great deal smarter than you. So did you steal it?" she asked, pressing forward, now that she had him off-kilter. Anything to keep him from touching Kelly. Even if he turned the syringe and carving tools on her. "Did you resort to common theft to get the ketamine?"

"No. Now be quiet or I'll tape your damn mouth shut." He bent down over Kelly's head, the syringe once again steady in his hand, and Jenna worked her ankles in the knotted rope, loosening the knot with every movement.

"What about Seattle, Joshua?" she asked, grabbing for any detail. "Did you kill girls there?"

He jerked, his jaw clenched. "Shut. Up." She saw blue ink spurt from the syringe, covering Kelly's bald scalp. With a curse Josh wiped the ink from Kelly's head and threw the towel in a trash can. "Now look what you've made me do," he snarled, then visibly got hold of himself.

"Did you? Those four girls on the wall, are they the ones you killed in Seattle? You know that's why Detective Davies is here, don't you? He knows it's you." She wasn't sure Neil knew any such thing, but prayed Neil and Steven would figure it out.

"Davies is another cop that can't tell his ass from a hole in the wall," he gritted. "Davies thinks Rudy is the killer," Josh continued, his voice laced with sarcasm. "I even gave him Rudy on a silver platter back in Seattle, but Davies screwed it up. Mishandled evidence. And Rudy went free."