“Of course not. There can be other adults-uncles, cousins, grandparents, even older siblings, or neighbors, friends of the family. Sometimes the abuse is at the hands of other children. Bullying is abusive. Maybe the child is overweight or has a physical disability, something that makes him different. If the abuse is harsh enough, the child may escape through revenge fantasies. He might learn very early just how powerful fantasies can be.”

“Then how come every kid who gets teased or bullied in the school yard doesn’t end up a serial killer?” Lisa asked. “I was an overweight kid and was teased mercilessly, but I’ve never wanted to kill anyone because of it.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Annie turned to face Lisa from across the room. “Think back. You never wanted to hurt any of the kids who teased you?”

Lisa looked thoughtful for a long moment, then smiled. “Well, maybe a little…but I never thought about killing anyone.”

“Everyone gets pissed off at someone or other at some time in their life. You think of a thousand ways to retaliate. We all do it. The difference between those of us who grew up to be serial killers and those who did not is that most of us learned other ways to deal with our anger and frustrations. Most of us had a safety net in place, or learned how to construct one for ourselves, and we managed our feelings and moved on. But some kids never get past it; they never learn to move on. And some of those kids fantasize about what they would do to get even, and get fixated on revenge. For those kids, acting out those fantasies becomes their way of alleviating pain. They do unto others what has been done unto them.”

The room was very quite for a moment, then Hal said, “So the abuse can be mental as well as physical.”

“Absolutely. One of the major forms of rejection cited by serial killers who have been interviewed wasn’t sexual abuse, it was an unstable home.”

“Back to Mama again,” the mayor said dryly.

“Many times parents have no idea that their actions are having a negative effect on their children. I’ve seen cases where the mother was very dominant and the father was outwardly very complacent, but inwardly, he was very resentful of the control the wife exercised over him. In cases like that, Dad may play the buddy role with the son. ‘Hey, it’s you and me, son.’ And the son grows up to resent his mother’s control the same way his dad did, resents the disdain with which his mother treats his father, because the son identifies more with the father. Mom rejects Dad, Mom is rejecting the son. Do the parents view this situation as abusive? Of course not. But often in situations like this, the boy will fantasize about showing his mother that he’s every bit as powerful as she is.”

“There are a lot of powerful women in the workplace,” the mayor reminded her. “Just look around the table…Lisa, Sue…hell, even me. Are we running the risk of turning our sons into serial killers?”

“Look, it’s always a matter of choice, and it always comes back to fantasy.” Annie told her. “It’s one thing to have those fantasies-many children do. But it’s something else entirely to act them out. The serial offenders we’ve studied all came from backgrounds where they felt powerless to control their situation-whatever that situation might have been-and never developed the coping skills necessary to overcome it. So it follows that there’s a really good chance that our current offender came from a similar background. He’s abducting these girls so that he can control them, and by doing so, he’s become powerful, superior. That’s the bottom line on this guy.”

“So we’re looking for someone local who came from a background where he was neglected or rejected by his parents or teased by his friends,” Sue Martin said.

“That could be anyone.” Christina Pratt frowned. “Christ almighty, my own son went through a period where he was pissed off all the time at everyone because he had a minor speech defect and sometimes at school the kids made fun of him. Does that mean he could be the killer?”

“What it means is that when you identify the killer, you will find there was some sort of difficulty in his background.”

“I thought a profiler was supposed to be able to tell us who to look for.” The mayor closed her notebook with obvious annoyance. “So far, you’ve just talked about generalities. Oh, he could be this, he could be that. I haven’t heard anything yet that could help us figure out who he is.”

“Profiling isn’t an exact science, it’s merely a tool, Mayor Pratt. I can study the victim and the crime scene-and in these cases, we don’t even have crime scenes, we don’t know where these women were abducted and we don’t know where they were kept or killed. I can tell you what type of personality is most likely to commit this type of murder. But I cannot conjure a name out of the air.” Annie did her best to hide her growing impatience with the mayor. If she’d understood Mia correctly, Christina Pratt had been the one who’d wanted a profiler assigned to the case. Why was she being so argumentative now that she had what she’d wanted? “That’s like asking me to pull a rabbit out of my hat.

“Other things you might want to consider,” Annie continued, “is that this man has been able to fly under the radar for a long time. He’s very practiced at keeping that anger and need to control in check. I think he’s probably married, or has been. He may be a father, and if so, outwardly he might dote on his children, though inwardly he might be indifferent to them as individuals. He sees them as his creations, and therefore, in his eyes they are perfect. He’s socially capable, sexually active, and may well live with a partner from whom he’s successfully hidden his inner self. He’s also good at controlling his own emotions-if you listen to the tape he made while he was preparing to kill Colleen Preston, you’ll hear no evidence of excitement in his voice. He’s in total command, and he’s very cool about it. There’s a hint of superiority in his tone. He’s also going to be very interested in how the media covers his story, which is why so often you hear about the killer showing up at a funeral or a press conference or a community meeting.” She paused and looked across the room at Beck. “I’m assuming that’s one of the reasons behind the meeting you’re calling?”

“That’s one reason, of course.” Beck nodded. “But both the mayor and council and I think the residents have the right to know what’s going on. They need to know how to protect themselves.”

“One way of doing that is by finding the common thread amongst the victims,” Annie told him. “What did they have in common?”

“Well, we know they were all in their early twenties and lived within about six miles of each other,” Lisa said. “They were all reportedly fun-loving, pretty, girls-”

“There are probably hundreds of pretty girls who like to have a good time in the area. What was it about these girls that attracted the killer?” Annie leaned on the end of the table.

“They all liked the beach.”

“Why do you say that, Lisa?” Beck asked.

“I was going to get into it when we talked about Mindy Kenneher. Whose background, incidently, is very similar to Colleen Preston’s in terms of her family life, education, job, that sort of thing.”

“Get back to the beach.” Beck gestured with his right hand for her to get on with it.

“Well, you know how Colleen was planning on a weekend at the beach with a friend?”

“Are you telling me Mindy was going in on a condo in Ocean City?”

“ Rehoboth Beach,” Lisa told him. “She and two of her friends.”

“Tell me you have the name of the person who owned the beach house.” Beck stared at her.

“No. Mindy was handling the arrangements. The other girls don’t even know what street the house is on.”

“And you were going to tell me this when?”

“Actually, I was trying to right before the meeting but you were on the phone. I only just talked to the girlfriends this morning. Unfortunately, no one seems to know who the property owner is.” Lisa paused, then added, “Including her parents. I already asked. And I called the Prestons. They don’t know who Colleen was renting from.”