"Then I should make you breakfast."

"And coffee?"

"If you're willing, I'll try."

Her eyes had grown smoky in the morning light. "Are we talking about coffee, Jenna?"

She gently pulled her fingers from his face. "We're talking about whatever you want. But right now, it's coffee." She stood up and covered his mouth with hers and it felt so right it hurt.

He watched her walk from the bedroom, then rolled to his stomach. He could smell her on the pillow and thought about what it would be like to see her face every morning for the rest of his life.

It would be heaven. Sheer heaven.

Breathing her perfume once again, he wondered exactly what more he needed to know before trusting her with his sons. Nothing, he decided. Absolutely nothing.

Friday, October 7, 8:00 A.M.

"Good morning, everyone." Steven looked at his team. There were no cheery responses. "Please take a look at the new pictures on the board."

His team looked, their faces quietly contemplative. "Alev Rahrooh is missing. We can assume he has her and he'll kill her, unless we find him first. Okay, Harry, what have you found out about the sign he left next to Samantha's body?"

Harry blew his nose. He was allergic to pine trees. "Good quality plywood, paint available ad any hardware store. Doth-ing, Steven." He shook his head. "Doh fingerprints, doh doming."

"Here." Meg slid a white pill across the table. "These work on my allergies."

"Pushing, Meg?" Sandra asked with a smile. "And in front of law enforcement officers?"

"I have connections," Meg said dryly. "I think I'm safe. So, our boy murders Samantha, then erects a sign next to the body with an arrow and the word 'Body.'"

"Deatly stenciled," Harry said. "Will this make me sleepy?" he asked, looking at the pill.

"No," said Meg. "Just take it. So we have a note, taunting you, Steven, and now a sign. It seems like our boy doesn't think too much of you."

"I figured that out," Steven said. "I don't think too much of him either. I'll have another press conference today. Should I taunt back?"

Meg chewed at her lower lip. "I think so, but carefully. He thinks he's smart, and he is. I think the only way we'll catch him is to force him to make a sloppy mistake."

"Good. I hope you've all read the file Davies assembled on Parker. We need to find anything to help Liz get a court order so that we can get a sample of Rudy's DNA." He gave each team member a hard stare. "We need to be careful. William Parker's juvenile record is sealed. We aren't even supposed to know it exists. In no way do we do anything that will compromise this case once we catch the little bastard. I've got two unmarked cars watching the Lutz place on shifts. We'll know when Rudy leaves, where he goes, when he returns.

"Sandra, I want you to start really looking at all the high school boys. Anybody with a prior. Anybody who's fast with the girls. Get these kids to talk. They'll know who the big scorers are."

"High school locker rooms." Sandra shuddered. "I can hardly wait."

Steven smiled. "I know. Now you'll know how my bathroom at home smells. Just get a big enough group that will naturally net Rudy. I don't want anybody saying we only looked at him. Kent, where are you with the crime-scene analysis?"

Kent pulled out photos of Samantha Eggleston's body. " The ME got me the prelim last night. Cause of death was slab wounds. Heart, kidneys, lungs. He stabbed her fifteen times."

"That's how many times he stabbed the Seattle girls," Davies said. "We thought it was because he was fifteen years old before. He's a creature of habit."

"I'll buy the creature part," Kent muttered. "There was an important difference versus Lorraine. Samantha was not killed in the clearing. She was killed somewhere else and transported." He paused and stared at his notes. He swallowed hard, and Steven remembered this was Kent's first sexual homicide. "Samantha was sexually assaulted. No semen found. Multiple recent needle punctures on her inner arms. ME's testing for ketamine, but won't have results till later today."

"I have dews on the ketamine," Harry said, pulling an envelope from his pocket. "I found this in my box this morning. It's from one of the veterinary supply houses I'd inquired on ketamine sales. They've invoiced more than a hundred vets and farmers within a fifty-bile radius of the city in the last three months. They took a while to get back to me because they found an issue with one of their customers." He tossed the letter across the table to Steven. "George Richards ordered a twelve-vial box last August. He ordered adother twelve-vial box last week." Harry sniffled. "His dame came up when the supply house did an audit of unpaid invoices. Mr. Richards hadn't paid the August invoice, but because his account was in good standing they went ahead and filled the new order and enclosed a friendly reminder. Two days ago, they get an angry phone call."

"From?" Steven asked.

"From," Harry said, "an indignant Mrs. Richards. Her husband passed away six months ago."

"Interesting." Steven picked up the letter and scanned it. "Where was the ketamine delivered?"

"To the Richards's farmhouse. Mrs. Richards insisted she dever saw it."

"Pay her a visit today," Steven said thoughtfully. "Find out who knew her husband had an account with the vet supply company. And, discreetly, find out if her husband knew Rudy Lutz."

"Okay." Harry blew his nose again. "Anything to stay away from pine trees."

"Good work, Harry," Steven said. "Anything else, Kent?"

Kent was staring at the photo of Samantha Eggleston's body. "Just that she was bald, like Lorraine. And she had the same tattoo, just like I thought."

Davies got up and walked to the bulletin board, staring with a frown at the Eggleston photo, identical to the one Kent held. "I've been trying to remember where I've seen that tattoo before."

"You've seen it before?" Steven asked, more than a little annoyed. "Why didn't you say anything when we were looking at the body yesterday?"

"Because I couldn't remember then and I can't remember now," Davies snapped. "He didn't tattoo our girls-that's a new little trick. But I've seen it before. I know I have. Do you have a tracing?"

Nancy pulled a sheet of paper from her folder, holding an enlargement of the symbol. "I've run this through every database I've got," she said. "Nothing."

Davies took the paper with a polite nod. "I'll send this to my old partner. He can pass it around, see if any of the other guys recognize it."

Steven raised his brows. "Discreetly."

Davies scowled. "Got it, Thatcher. I will be the soul of discretion."

"Good. Hit the road, guys, and remember the word of the day. Everybody, all together."

"Discretion," they all mumbled, grumbled, and muttered.

Friday October 7, 1:15 P.M.

Jenna was in the ICU waiting room when the press conference came on. Jumping to her feet, she rushed to stand in front of the murmuring television and strained to hear what Steven had to say.

He looked strong. Confident. And very tired.

"We must confirm reports of a third missing girl," he said when the media had become quiet. "We're withholding the name of the victim. All I can say is she is a sixteen-year-old female."

"Have all the girls been cheerleaders?" a reporter asked.