His other line beeped. He ignored it. Instead he listened to the woman he adored tell him she’d be late, for him to go ahead and eat without her. He told her he loved her, and let her go.

Baldwin set the phone down, ran his hands through his hair, making the black bristle stand on end. Scrubbing it helped him think, and he did so violently, accidentally scraping his nails along his scalp.

This had to stop. They needed to find the Pretender. This tightrope walking was going to end badly, for both him and Taylor, if he didn’t exert some control over the situation and find a solution.

He knew what that solution was, but he didn’t even want to think about it. Admitting it would make it real, and push him even further into the abyss. His ass was already hanging out with the FBI, killing a suspect while on suspension would be the final nail in his coffin. He needed to find a way around. Capture, not elimination. Then he could get back to himself, to his relationship, to his job. He damn well didn’t want to let it all slip away, let that fucking bastard take everything he’d been fighting for. It had been too long since he’d felt settled.

He went to the kitchen and poured a mug full of milk, added chocolate syrup and a package of instant coffee. He put it in the microwave and waited for it to heat through. He needed the sugar, the energy. Despite Taylor’s assurances, he would wait up for her. She’d be hungry when she got home, maybe for food, maybe for him. He ate a banana and drank his mocha, let the warmth fill him up. The hot mug felt good on his cold hands.

Back in the living room, he checked to see who’d called while he was talking to Taylor. He was elated when he saw the caller ID. Wendy Heinz. At last. Wendy was the graphologist he’d hired to look at the note from the trailer. Ayin tahat ayin—a most literal message.

His excitement grew as he listened to the voice mail.

Wendy’s voice had a sense of elation. “I’ve gone through the pages you sent me, and I have something you’re not going to believe. Please call me as soon as you can.”

Hot damn.

He checked his watch—10:30 p.m. Not too late to call, he knew Wendy was a night owl. Despite her long days testifying in court, teaching graphology at the University of California, and writing preeminent textbooks on the subject of criminal graphology, she was working on a novel in her spare time. Spare time meant early mornings and late nights. When she could find some quiet, away from her day-to-day responsibilities.

He dialed her number, and Wendy answered on the first ring, her tone jubilant.

“Dr. Baldwin! I’m glad you were able to return my call so quickly.”

“It was a message I could hardly resist. What do you have for me?”

He heard papers shuffling in the background. “A bit more than you’re expecting, probably. So you have something to write on?”

“So long as you promise me you won’t be analyzing it, yes.”

Wendy laughed. “Good one, Doc. Okay, here we go. The letter you sent me was so short that it’s hard to make too many impressions from it, outside of the fact that an increasing rightward slant is indicative of poor impulse control and the propensity toward rage. But that’s not the good part. I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time. I’ve seen a lot of handwriting, consulted on a number of cases. It took me so long to get back to you because I needed to go look at an old case file. There was something about this handwriting that felt…familiar to me.”

Baldwin felt a thrill in his chest, his heartbeat picked up. “Familiar how?”

“Familiar in that I thought I’d seen it before. And I was right.”

“Wait, you said an old case file. You’ve seen notes from this killer before?”

“I can’t say that with absolute certainty. I brought in another colleague to double-check my findings, and he agrees with me. We’re working on the assumption that this is the handwriting of your killer. Without seeing him actually write on paper in front of me, I can’t prove that it’s him. But yes, I’ve seen it before. Ready for some notes?”

“You bet. Let’s hear it.”

“In 1995, I was working on a case in North Carolina. A woman who had Munchausen’s by proxy, or so we thought. She had a history, hurt everyone around her, her kids, her husband, her friends. She eventually killed her husband, that’s when they finally had enough to send her away. She had a short trial, and was sentenced to life in prison. For her sentencing hearing, her middle son wrote a letter to the court, asking for leniency. He was only fourteen at the time. Obviously, leniency was granted—they could have given her the death penalty. She went away, and the kid was suddenly alone in the world. Got placed into the foster system, then in a group home. He started acting out, violently, then went off the radar.”

“He wrote a letter to the court,” Baldwin said.

“Yes,” Wendy replied. “And in my professional opinion, the handwriting is the same as the letter you gave me.”

Baldwin knew some about graphology, but only the basics: that it’s the study of all graphic movement, can be used to gain insight into the mind of a person. Handwriting, doodles, drawings, sculpture and paintings, all can be examined for indicative personality traits, and, in the hands of a trained professional, it can be incredibly accurate.

He asked Wendy to give him a refresher course in some of the specifics. She was more than happy to oblige. The good news had them both giddy. Whether he would be able to close the Pretender down with the information was yet to be seen, but this felt like the first real step they’d taken toward finding out his true identity. He’d finally made a mistake they could capitalize on.

Wendy was a good lecturer, succinct and clear. “So here’s the deal. We can determine both fixed traits, like IQ, aptitude, temperament and identity, and gain insight into ability, attitude, moods, beliefs, motivational levels and physical condition. With a proper sample, there’s very little we can’t tell about a person. Handwriting is as unique as fingerprints and teeth. We’re guided by three basic principles: physical, mental and emotional, and all three of these are readily apparent in our handwriting. But I digress. The reason I recognized the handwriting from the letter in the old case was because it was the first time I’d seen a real, live example of the maniac D.”

“Maniac D. Charles Manson had that, if I remember correctly. It’s when the stem of the lower case d leans really far to the right, correct?”

“That’s right. Manson and the Zodiac Killer, hell, even O. J. Simpson has it. It’s almost exclusive to psychopaths and murderers. Certainly violent offenders, the most dangerous people. So this letter had the maniac D, but that wasn’t all. It was written with what we call an unstable slant. Most people’s writing leans in certain directions—they slant right, slant left or write straight up and down, with variations of all three. It all depends on mood, personality and whether the writer is left-or right-handed, but it’s generally consistent. His was all over the place. There was no acknowledgment of the rules—though the letter was written on regular notebook paper, the lines were ignored, the margins deviated. We call that left margin the line of society, and he disregarded it completely. The letters were narrow and the pressure on the page so intense that it tore in spots. It didn’t take a lot of analysis to see that the writer was tremendously disturbed.

“Highly intelligent, too—the vocabulary was sophisticated, the argument cogent. But the incoherent baseline told me I was dealing with someone who was deranged. I let the judge know, basically banged every drum I could find, but graphology didn’t have the cache it does now.” She laughed softly. “And that’s still damn little. I had a hard time getting them to pay attention to me. The case originated in a very small town in the foothills of North Carolina. He was fourteen, abused and alone. There weren’t a lot of programs in place to help troubled children, much less the antisocial son of a murderer. His trail goes cold after his early placements in foster care and the group home. There’s nothing else in the file. And now you have everything I have.”