Marc offered another objection. "But wouldn't he have known? If he was psychic, if that was how he was hunting his prey?"

"You'd think." Hollis was scowling at no one in particular. "Damn, no wonder Bishop's still trying to get a handle on this guy."

Dani rubbed the back of her neck in a vain attempt to soothe the stiffness there but forced herself to stop when she realized Marc was watching her. "Look, one doesn't necessarily negate the other. Think about it this way: If he isn't psychic and did have to spend time studying and hunting each victim, we have several instances where he couldn't possibly have known in advance where his prey would be, because the women were somehow outside their normal routine. If, on the other hand, we assume he was so lucky because he's psychic and hunted them that way, then the only victim who doesn't really make sense is Annie LeMott. Who she was made her a dangerous victim, and if he was psychic he should have known that."

"Maybe he couldn't read her," Paris suggested. "Even the strongest psychic isn't a hundred percent."

"As far as we know, that's true," Hollis said. "Plus, some people have shields, either naturally or because they needed at some point in their lives to protect themselves, and even the strongest psychics we know of can't get through walls like that."

Paris nodded. "Exactly. So even if he is psychic, and if he does have more bells and whistles than we do, we can't know for sure that he doesn't have some of the same limits. In fact, he must have, given that he's at least nominally human. So he's out trolling, he already has eleven notches on his belt, and if I remember correctly, there was nearly a week between the eleventh victim and Annie. Right?"

Hollis nodded. "Right. Boston was jumpy as hell, and very few women ventured out alone."

"So he hasn't been lucky in that sense. If there's plenty of prey but none of it's vulnerable, unprotected, alone, then this hunter doesn't come out of the dark. And he really, really needs to feed."

Dani said, "I know the animal metaphor fits, but-"

"Sorry. Anyway, he's out hu-trolling, and crosses paths with Annie completely by chance." Paris frowned. "Does anybody know what she was doing out alone?"

Nodding again, Hollis said, "She and a friend went to a movie, together. Rode together, sat together in the theater, were careful not to be alone, just as they had been warned to be. Went back to the apartment building where they both lived, together. Approximately a half hour later, a neighbor saw Annie about to take her trash out. That's the last anyone saw of her."

Paris shook her head a little, jolted from the mental exercise of trying to solve a puzzle by the reminder of a young life snuffed out. "Man, you do everything right and then get tripped up by something utterly ordinary."

"Such is life," Hollis noted. "Or fate or destiny, if you believe in that. Because not only did Annie spend those few precious minutes about ten yards from the safety of the door of her apartment building, but she just happened to be exactly the killer's type, he just happened to be close enough, and for whatever reason he couldn't know or guess that by grabbing her he was making his first real mistake."

"AT THIS RATE," Gabriel said with a sigh, "we're gonna be here a long, long time."

We can't be here a long time. You said it yourself: strangers will stand out here. Especially once they know about the victims.

"Yeah, the sheriff's done a good job of keeping his people quiet this long, I have to say." Gabriel studied his map for a moment, then squinted into the distance. "That old textile mill is right in the middle of a neighborhood. No way can I get close in daylight."

My turn tonight, then.

"Right." He put a small check mark beside that particular circled area on his map. "Just about every backyard I see has a dog, so be careful."

Dogs love me.

"They make a lot of noise when you're around. I'm just saying that if you're going to do a little breaking and entering in the dead of night, best not to rouse the neighborhood watch. Okay?"

Yes, Gabriel.

"The meekness does not become you. It's also a rotten lie," he said, moving the map slightly and leaning closer to the Jeep's hood to get a better look. He frowned, then bent to get a laptop out of his backpack and opened it up on top of the map. "You know, this is sort of a weird little place."

Why do you say that? I mean, aside from the obvious serial-killer thing, it seems a perfectly normal small town to me.

"With an awful lot of churches."

Small towns in the South usually do have a lot of churches.

"Uh-huh. With names like Church of the Everlasting Sin?"

You're kidding.

"No."

Hmmm. Maybe that's just the Baptist version of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows, something like that.

"I don't think so."

Why not?

He typed rapidly, having no problem carrying on a conversation at the same time. "Every Baptist church I've ever seen has been nice, with polished pews and thick carpet and lots of flowers, and even stained glass. I don't think the Church of the Everlasting Sin is going to have any of that."

Because?

"Because," Gabriel said, "according to this most recent map, the church is presently housed in what used to he an old grain-storage facility, and according to the database we're still compiling on the town, the pastor of the Church of the Everlasting Sin, one Reverend Jedidiah Butler, has locked horns with the town council for the last couple of months. He insists on holding services in the place as it is, and the town wants him to either rehab or rebuild."

Never bet against a town. Unless you have God on your side.

"Yeah, well, I'm not so sure this guy does." Gabriel scowled down at the laptop's screen. "Fifteen years ago, the cops were dogging him out in California. And it wasn't for staging a protest for freedom of religion."

Don't tell me.

"Yep. Seems the good pastor was suspected of killing his wife."

"Last night was… strange," Dani said, keeping her voice low as she watched people in special protective gear working carefully in and around the roped-off pool.

"Tell me about it," Paris said. "My head is still killing me. Hollis?"

"Yeah, me too." Hollis was frowning. "Is my memory off, or did I hear another voice in there with ours?"

Paris said, "Hard to tell with all the screaming."

"You're clairvoyant and didn't pick it up?"

Paris hesitated, looking at Dani. "Well…"

"It was there." Dani looked at the other two women and managed a smile. "Yeah, same voice. His. I've been thinking about that. That… junction of hallways in the dream walk? A bit like the center of a web."

"Another trap," Hollis said.

Dani nodded. "I think about all those women in Boston, the women here-it's like he lays his trap and waits for them walk into it."

"That's what you feel the symbolism means?" Hollis asked.

"I don't know what I feel, except… that something's missing. Something important."

Marc joined them in time to hear what Dani said, but instead of commenting on that, he looked at them one by one and said, "So, is somebody going to tell me what happened last night with the three of you? I can't say for sure about Hollis, but I've never known either Dani or Paris to drink enough to be hungover the next day-and that's what you all look like."

"I'd love to work up some righteous indignation," Paris told him, "but I see them, and I saw me in the mirror this morning, and I couldn't agree more."