Knoll takes the podium. He looks like he hasn’t slept since we returned from New York. “Thank you, Agent Johnson. A few hours ago our friends in the DEA brought something to our attention that may be a major break. Five days ago, in cooperation with Brazilian authorities, they raided a pharmaceutical company thirty miles outside of Rio. The company was under suspicion for supplying compounds on the black market used in the manufacture of a variety of narcotics, including the kind that would be used to manufacture the drug Johnson just mentioned. In searching through their shipping records, DEA found a shipment two weeks ago, of something I can’t pronounce, to an address of a hotel approximately twelve miles away from where the first victim was originally found.

“We’ve obtained a copy of the signature on the receipt from the courier company. The name is ‘Jose Doe,’ obviously an alias, Handwriting analysis suggests the same person who signed for it also signed for the CO2 canister in New Jersey. It’s circumstantial, but we think it’s the strongest lead we have so far. We know this man is involved in the illegal drug trade, is probably wealthy, has access to boats and aircraft. Behavioral analysis is working with the DEA to check our profile against their database of known offenders and suspects. We’re also checking the signature against FAA records and Coast Guard certification.”

It’s a tenuous link, yet our best one so far, only discovered because I thought the Warlock may have needed a CO2 canister to cause the explosion. One of those wildcard, stab-in-the-dark leads that hit pay dirt. In this case, a link to our Michigan crime that would have gone ignored. As Knoll makes the connections, I allow myself a small smile. The Warlock is human. He’s making mistakes.

When he was in Michigan preparing to kill Denise, Chloe’s twin sister, he made another batch of his knockout drug in a portable lab. I’ve seen suitcase-sized kits capable of producing small batches of everything from LSD to meth. Little did he realize that his signature on a FedEx form there would connect him to a welding supply shop in New Jersey. Different names. Same man. You can change your letters, but it’s hard to change the shape of your hand and your unique way of drawing curves and lines.

Knoll clicks the remote and shows an image of Claire in Times Square. “Forensics has found dust fragments on the victim’s body that suggest the traumatic impact that broke her bones took place somewhere else, which we already suspected. We don’t have a geological match yet, but we believe we’ve found traces of volcanic ash. This suggests he dropped the body somewhere on the West Coast. We’re talking to volcanologists to see if we can place that more approximately, although our current priority is stopping the next murder and apprehending this man.”

The Warlock drops the girl in the middle of nowhere to break her bones, then brings her to New York to make it look like she falls from the sky. If he flew his own plane, avoided the major traffic corridors and landed at a private airfield, he could have done the trip in a few hours.