“Which would mean Fane was at each crime scene. Or…”

Taylor slapped her forehead. “They split them up. Fane and Juri Edvin and Susan Norwood, they split the targets and each handled a few. They must have gotten in under the guise of delivering the drugs. Remember there was no sign of forced entry? So they show, drugs in hand, with some sort of weapon, then force their victim to take the pills. The OD effect would kick in almost immediately, and they’d die quickly. They waited around until the victims were fully unconscious, arranged the bodies, carved the pentacles, shot the film and left.”

“Three kids, eight victims, including Brittany Carson, would be pushing it in the time frame. But four kids, that would even the odds,” McKenzie said.

“And Brittany’s murder was last. According to Juri Edvin, she and Susan Norwood have a history. The Carson girl dated Norwood’s ex-boyfriend and it pissed her off. Juri said Susan wanted him to kill Brittany, that it was her idea. Well. That answers that.”

She stopped. McKenzie was grinning at her-they’d come to the same conclusions at the same time.

“But what about this brother? We still need an ID on the boy from Ariadne’s drawing. Think it’s Schuyler Merritt?”

“I bet it is. Why don’t we go show his picture around? Let’s try Susan Norwood first, see what she does. She’s the vulnerable one in all of this.”

Forty-Seven

Nashville

7:00 p.m.

Ariadne crumpled the herbs between her palms, rubbing them back and forth so the fragrant sprigs fell into the fire evenly.

“I sis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, In ana.”

She repeated the Goddess chant four more times, calm, monotonous, stringing out the last long A on Inana, feeling herself become one with her pantheon. Scrying with fire was her specialty, a favorite, and she was sure she’d be able to trace the movements of the warlock now that the bond to his coven had been interrupted. He would be flinging his emotions around on the wind, searching for ways to bring them back together, and Ariadne felt sure she could connect with him.

The flames rose high before her, scented with rosemary for remembrance, and jasmine, because that was the warlock’s scent. She allowed her eyes to close and she fell deeper and deeper into her trance, then opened them, staring into the flames, seeking. Seeking.

She saw an altar, simple, crude, even, and a black-handled athame. Two bodies, male and female, writhing in the Great Act. Then she saw the female crying, and the male disappeared. There was nothing else.

She drew back and sketched the altar she’d seen. It was a feminine deity being worshipped. There were useful identifiers scattered among the lares and penates on the altar. She tried to make sense of it all.

She knew the male in the flames was the boy she’d seen at Subversion. She just didn’t know who he was, or what role he was playing. The female seemed the stronger of the two, but perhaps she was misreading it. Men sometimes withheld their strength in the presence of a female they loved, treated them as equal. When she’d seen them downtown, the boy seemed the stronger half. One thing was certain; their bond was very intense.

She didn’t know what else to do. She’d put the word out among her brethren. They were all looking for the mysterious warlock, as well. She finally drifted off into a light sleep, notepad nearby, hoping that perhaps the pantheon would show her the way in her dreams.

Forty-Eight

Northern Virginia

June 18, 2004

Baldwin

Kaylie Fields was smaller than the others. Nestled gently into the base of the tree, the ropes holding her in a loving embrace. Her hair was plastered against her face-she’d been out here during the storm, just like he’d been worried about. Sorrow welled in his chest. He’d been afraid of storms as a child; he wondered if she’d been scared. But that was silly-she’d been dead and lashed to the tree long before the storm broke. There was no way for her to be scared, not anymore, and really, what was a little thunderstorm compared to being kidnapped, beaten and murdered? Her legs were obviously broken, a cruel act Baldwin assumed happened almost immediately after the abductions so the victims couldn’t run away. None of the autopsies had shown ligature marks on the bodies-why tie someone up if you could incapacitate them?

Baldwin heard one of the Fairfax County guys stumble off, retching. His first dead body, probably, or his first child victim. Kay lie looked to be peacefully asleep, a vision marred only by the slight scarlet stain spread across her naked torso and the awkward bend to her shins. Stabbed through the sternum, just like the previous five girls. The Clockwork Killer had struck again.

There were a few differences in this kill from the others. One was the distance from the previous dump sites. The first five victims had been found just off the main hiking trail. Kay lie was deep in the forest, discarded like leftovers from a camping trip. They wouldn’t have found her so quickly if it hadn’t been for a phone call the parents received detailing the dump site. Another shift in the MO-the call had come from a pay phone in a dark alley in downtown D.C., possibly the work of the killer, or someone he’d paid off to make the call for him. They were scouring the tapes of the cars coming in and out of the park, with no luck. They still had no idea how the bodies were being transported into the park.

He’d never felt a case so far out of his control before.

Charlotte sighed deeply, and Baldwin turned to see her scratching notes. “It’s different,” he said. “It’s him,” she replied. “He’s just making us dance.”

The day had not improved from there.

The crime-scene techs had worked Kay lie’s body to no avail. There was no evidence on the body, nothing in the crime scene, the dump site. The storm had washed away the microscopic evidence they might have otherwise found. Baldwin had them take the soil from around the body, hopeful that they could find something in the alluvial muck that pointed them in the right direction. None of the Great Falls Park Rangers had seen anything. The video cameras had a multitude of cars coming in and out of the park, but all of them checked out. It was as if the killer had flown in, dropped the body at the base of the cliff and flown out again.

Of course that wasn’t the case. He had been there. But how? They’d been watching Aden’s house. There was no movement, in or out, all last night. He must have dumped the body before they’d started watching him-that was the only way.

Unfortunately, another round of interviews with Harold Arlen had been preempted by the expensive defense lawyer that had been retained by Arlen’s twelve-step parent organization, who vociferously claimed he was being unfairly railroaded. He used their own work against them-they were watching the house, they knew he wasn’t able to leave and deposit a body. Add to that the nagging little question of the lack of physical evidence. The pictures on the computer just weren’t enough. Arlen insisted he didn’t know how they got there, and if this went to trial, it was possible for the attorney to claim the photos had been planted, or accidentally downloaded. All it would take was one juror who agreed, and poof, no more case. Without corroboration, they just didn’t have enough.