The film on the domes theory has enough credibility to make it plausible, but it’s too complicated. To create the image of the girl entering the building and going all the way to the observation deck, the Warlock would need projectors all over the building. It’s the kind of thing out of a movie. It would also betray his methods. It has to be one of his fake-outs.

I ask the woman a question. “What about the dome over the camera that was watching the corner? Did we check that one yet?”

“They’re taking it down now.”

I know exactly where this is going. I hate to be the one about to burst her bubble.

A tech comes in from the deck and sets the globe on the table. We watch as she takes her flashlight out and flashes it on the surface. The beam passes straight through with little reflection. It’s nothing like the other domes we’ve checked.

She tries the light from a different angle to no effect. “I guess he must have wiped it down.”

I shake my head. “I’m sure he never touched it.”

The woman looks at me with a hurt expression. I just took away her moment. I’d feel bad, but this isn’t about egos. There’s no time for politics. It’s about getting to the truth as quickly as we can. The film is just a big time-wasting ruse, typical for the Warlock. The critical proof isn’t there because that’s not how he did the illusion.

The spray decoy is there to buy him time. To convince us that the first girl never existed, that she’s some kind of phantom. He wants time so he can kill the other girl. If she was an accomplice, this stunt wouldn’t serve much of a purpose. It only buys him a few hours if we keep chasing the theory.

His deception took a lot of planning. I think about how I would create this distraction. The spray could have been applied at any time from a hidden sprayer, maybe even by an unwitting accomplice. I doubt we’ll ever find out when it happened or exactly how, probably months ago. It doesn’t matter right now.

The Warlock left this one dome clear to tweak us. After we’ve wasted time and manpower on the theory, he wants us to know that’s not how he did it. He wants us to think he would have done it that way if he were merely a stage conjuror. It fits with his need to make us believe he’s the real thing. I think he hopes we’re going to be sending people all over the building searching for hidden projectors next.

I’ve seen projecting devices as small as a lipstick case for sale in catalogs. Given the fact that forensic techs can spend weeks looking for a bullet hole in a small room, searching the entire Empire State Building for something like that is an almost impossible task. It’s a devious way to tie us up and send us down the wrong track.