He gives everyone a look, then lifts the lid and peers inside. He takes out the envelope inside the chest and holds it up. “Am I supposed to open this?”

“Please.”

Breyer takes a letter opener from his desk and slits the top open. There’s a smirk on his face.

His smug expression vanishes when he looks inside. “Holy crap!” He pulls out his business card. Written on the back is the final score for the game. Breyer presses his intercom button, still holding the card. “Jill, did anyone get into the safe?”

“I hope not . . .” she replies from the next room.

Breyer shakes his head at me. “All right, witch. Explain.”

It’s an old method. Nobody uses it anymore. Not that I would feel any guilt explaining it to a room filled with FBI agents trying to solve a murder.

“Look at your business card.”

Breyer gives the back a closer inspection. “It looks like it was rolled up.”

I point to the key on his desk. He picks it up to examine more closely. Breyer shakes his head and hands the key to Chisholm when he sees the hollow end. He lifts the chest and looks through the keyhole. “The prediction was inside the key? You slipped that in there while we were all watching you?” He nods his head and gives me a smile of approval. “Clever, Agent. So the sand?”

“It’s only a theory,” I reply. “At first I thought he might have tried to drill a hole from above into the casket. Then I realized he didn’t need to. When he took out Chloe’s body out he probably installed a piece of PVC pipe going straight into the open lid and hid the other end under a few inches of dirt. When he planted the second body, he just poured the sand and water in through the tube, then pulled the tube out of the ground. If Danielle’s team still has the density data, they’ll probably find something odd in the direction the sand was pooled in the coffin. Maybe.”

Breyer nods and gives Ailes a grin. “All right.”

Ailes replies, “Maybe we can reassign Agent Blackwood to work on this full-time with Dr. Chisholm and give behavioral analysis an assist too? I think she’s being wasted in the paper jungle.”

I hadn’t expected him to ask that, much less in front of me. He just put Breyer on the spot. I didn’t want him to. I’d love to be able to work on this full-time, but I’d never dreamed about asking myself.

Breyer’s eyes go to the floor in contemplation as he sits on the edge of his desk and taps his fingers. “I think Agent Blackwood is very clever. I don’t doubt that.” He waves a hand toward the chest. “But I think we got this mystery under control now.” He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “And we need clever people in the paper jungle as well.”

A polite rejection. “I’m happy to do my part wherever I can.” My words are half true, yet I feel like I’ve been rebuked for wanting something I didn’t ask for.