I think back to the man on the warehouse roof at the cemetery. Was that my first encounter? Did getting close to him make him interested? Or is it the fact that he sees me as a threat because I’m a magician? A challenger to him.

Chisholm points out several spots on the carpet that have tape markings. “He had five candles lit. We also picked up a faint outline of a body. He’s about five-foot-seven. Probably weighs a hundred and sixty pounds. Athletic. No semen, for what it’s worth.”

“Too bad,” I reply matter-of-factly. That would give us a DNA profile to run through the database.

“How long ago did he leave?”

“Less than an hour before our forensic team got here.”

“An hour? He likes to cut things close.”

“Perhaps . . .” Chisholm has a pensive look on his face. “He didn’t seem rushed. I think you surprised him at the cemetery when you chased him down, if that was indeed him. This time he’s trying to prove he’s in control.”

“How far is he willing to go to prove that?”

“I guess that depends upon how much of a threat he sees you as. He already knows about your background. Today’s little item in the news doesn’t help the situation. Although we might be able to use it to antagonize him a little bit. Maybe play up the idea that the FBI’s Witch sees through all his tricks. Get him off-balance, make him deviate from his script.”

“I don’t want to be a distraction from the investigation,” I reply.

Chisholm shakes his head. “It’s not about that. As we know, this guy is a highly organized thinker. It takes meticulous planning to pull off what he’s done so far. We need to get him to mess up.”

“What if he’s a good improviser?” I ask.

“Nobody is that good. You saw him at the cemetery.”

“I saw someone. We don’t know who. It could have been anyone,” I reply.

Chisholm thinks this over. “This hotel room is proof that he likes to be close to the scene of the crime when it happens. He wants to watch us. He’s choosing these locations so he can do that. The piece of memory card wrapper we found back at the warehouse by the cemetery tells us he’s probably recording what he sees.”

“But now he’s told us as much. He wants us to know how close he can get. If there’s a next time we’re going to clamp down even faster.”

“True,” agrees Chisholm. “I think he’s moving toward more public locations to hide.”

“Or to make a bigger spectacle.”

“Probably. In the meantime we need to play every card we have. And that means you. It’s about catching him off-guard. The telescope is his way of telling us he’s the one in charge. Maybe what we need is someone on the other end staring him down and saying they’re not impressed. What’s it like when you’re onstage and see someone sitting in the audience with their arms folded, looking bored?”