“Yeah, whatever.” He was locking the door. “I didn’t like Walsh. I hope you put him away.”

“So do we,” Joe said. “But first we have to find him. You don’t have any idea where he is?”

“He said he lived here in Sacramento.” He turned toward his van. “But he showed me a couple of his photos, and they weren’t cityscapes. They were just pretty vineyards and rolling hills.”

“Vineyards?”

“Uninteresting, and the composition wasn’t even that good.”

“Sonderville,” she murmured.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” He jumped in the van. “All that matters is that I protected those kids from him.”

“Yes, that’s what matters.” Eve watched the van go down the street before she turned to Joe. “I think we need to go back to that precinct and look through those records again. Walsh was obviously interested in locating a child or children in the area. You said that there was no sign that any child at Sutter Elementary had been targeted. But what about Brownroot Elementary? He was looking at those photos when Nick caught him in the act.”

“And he may not have found what he was looking for.” He took her elbow and propelled her toward their car. “And, if he did, he might not have acted. But we’ll definitely check it out.”

*   *   *

“There’s nothing here,” Joe said in disgust as he shut down the precinct computer two hours later. “The captain was right. No sign of any serial killings or child attacks of any kind in the city during the period that Walsh was here.”

“No.” Brownroot Elementary had been a complete failure, so they had meticulously gone through the other elementary and private schools in the area. They had found zilch there also. “I’m going to start calling other photographers and see if they had visits from Walsh.”

Forty-five minutes later, she struck pay dirt.

She turned back to Joe, excited. “Josiah Tierney Studios. Four weeks after Walsh was almost arrested, he tried again. The Tierney Studios aren’t in the city. They’re in a small town, Milsaro, north of here. Walsh asked Tierney the same thing that he asked Nick. Class pictures. Tierney wasn’t as careful as Nick. He didn’t see any harm in letting him just look at the photos.” She swallowed. “My God, I hope he was right.”

He reached for his cell phone. “Did he give you the names of the elementary schools in Milsaro?”

She nodded. “There were only three. McKeller, Davis, and Campbell. I’ll take McKeller.”

“No, I’ll have to identify myself and maybe tap one of the local law authorities to get the information I need from them. Not everyone in the school systems is as trusting as that ass Tierney.”

She leaned back in her chair and watched him go into high gear. She didn’t like this. It was driving her crazy not to be busy and help. She wanted desperately to know what mischief Walsh had been up to and was equally frantic to know that he had not been successful.

That there had not been another Jenny.

There were lots of them, Jenny had said.

But maybe in his past, maybe not here in this sunny California town.

She jumped to her feet. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. I’ll bring one for you. Call me if you need me.”

She stood at the coffee machine a long time, sipping black coffee and thinking about Walsh. Nick had thought he was an ordinary pervert, but there was nothing ordinary about him. Why had he been looking at all those photos? Did a certain feature appeal to him when he chose a victim? That could be it. She knew that some killers were drawn to a hair color or the color and shape of the eyes. There was no telling what physical feature might draw them. What had Walsh been looking for when he had taken that second risk after Nick had almost had him arrested?

“Eve.” Joe was standing in the doorway.

Her hand tightened on the cup as she saw his expression. “You found one?”

“Maybe. I can’t be sure.”

“What do you mean?” She followed him back to the desk. “Why aren’t you sure?”

“Because there was the death of a child shortly after Walsh examined those school photos Tierney took.” He pulled up the report on the computer. “An eight-year-old student from McKeller Elementary School three weeks later.” He nodded at the report. “But no foul play was suspected. Donna Prahern drowned in the pond in back of her house early one Saturday morning.”

“Then it was a coincidence. Poor little girl.”

“Except that she could swim like a fish, and no one could figure why she’d be walking along the edge of the pond by herself. The consensus was that she’d slipped on the edge of the pond and hit her head on the rocks bordering the water.”

Her gaze narrowed on his face. “But you have doubts?”

“You know what a suspicious bastard I am. It was too close to the time that Walsh was doing his search.” He was typing into the computer. “So I decided to check and see if there were any other curious coincidences.” He pulled up another report. “Candace Julard, another eight-year-old girl. Another unfortunate accident. She died of smoke inhalation a month after Donna Prahern’s death, when Candace’s mother’s house caught fire from faulty wiring. Again, no foul play suspected; her mother also died in the fire.”

“Candace went to the same school?”

“No, she wasn’t even from the same town. I went a little farther afield to Fillmore, seventy miles south. Candace went to Douglasville Elementary.”

“But we don’t even know if Walsh made the effort to search for her out there.”

“No, I haven’t gotten that far yet. But there’s a good chance that he’d hit the local photographer in that town, too.”

“Why?” She impatiently shook her head. Hadn’t she just been thinking that some serial killers were prone to go after certain physical types? “Walsh went to a hell of a lot of trouble. Definitely not victims of opportunity.”

“Neither was Patsy Danver.”

“Another one?” she whispered.

He nodded. “Same town. Seven months later. Eight years old. Car accident with her father, brakes failed, and they went off the side of a cliff.”

“Good God.”

He nodded. “But every one could be an accident.”

“Yes, and none of them bear the signs of the usual serial killer. Most of those killers are into power and the attacks are close-up and personal. Except for possibly the first child, he wouldn’t have even touched those little girls.”

“And there was no indication of abuse even with her.” He paused. “If it was Walsh, he only wanted them dead and was willing to give up any personal satisfaction to make the kills safe and appear unconnected and go virtually unnoticed.”

“Then why did he want them dead? What did they have in common?”

“They were all little girls. Eight years of age. They all had type O blood. They all had dark hair, green or hazel eyes.” He bent over the computer. “And one other similarity. I’ll pull up the school photos for you. It’s only slight but enough so that even I noticed…”

The three photos were suddenly before Eve, staring out of the screen at her. Smiling at her with all the vitality and adorable beauty of children. Dark-haired, green eyes …

She inhaled sharply. “Dear God, they all look a little like Jenny.”

Joe nodded. “Only a little. The same arched brows, but the cheekbones aren’t that pronounced. Still, they all bear a faint resemblance to that reconstruction I saw on your worktable that morning.”

“So he killed them all because they looked like Jenny?” She lifted her shaking hand to her temple. “Not only the same type, but an actual resemblance?”

“It’s a possibility. But we can’t rule out that it could be a family resemblance and that tie could be significant. Providing we accept the premise that these seemingly accidental deaths were murders committed by Walsh.”

“I’m close to accepting it.” She shuddered. “Though the idea of his going through those photos and picking out three innocent children just because they reminded him of one of his former victims is totally macabre.”