“It’s a potential lead. There might be other ways to make the connection between Swanson and the pilot. We don’t know if the Warlock even knows about this website,” replies Ailes.

“He does.” I can’t put my instinct into words.

“Why are you so sure?”

I hesitate. “Remember I told you about the friend who pointed out the website?”

“The guy you ran into at the airport?”

“I didn’t tell you everything about him.”

FOR THE NEXT half hour I give Ailes the mostly unfiltered backstory of me and Damian. It’s uncomfortable, but someone else needs to know. And I trust him. I’ve only just met him, but he reminds of the kind of father some of my friends had who would ask you how you were doing and mean it.

Ailes thinks everything over, then finally replies, “So you think that if one crazy sees this, others have too?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s one way to put things.”

“And you’re not worried about this Damian character?”

“I think he’s manageable.” That’s a lie. “In any case, the owner of the website is our best lead.”

Ailes takes a moment to think it over. “This guy is a bit of a jerk. Abrasive and insulting. He tried to talk down to Jennifer quite a lot.”

I’m sure that didn’t go over very well with her. “Maybe that’s the problem. She threatens him. She probably knows more about his platform than he does. The only thing he could do was cling to his castle and tell her she couldn’t play inside it. I don’t pretend to be an expert on anything relating to computers. He’ll know that. Possibly I can play to his ego a bit.”

Ailes gets straight to the point. “And bat your eyelashes?”

“If it gets us his cooperation and access to the servers, then yeah. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to act to get someone to get out of the way.” I look at Swanson’s image on the screen. “And it might tell us if he’s choosing the victims to fit the scenarios or the scenarios to suit the victims.”

Knowing how the Warlock selected his victims would be a big break. Did he want to kill the second girl and look for a previous murder to tie her to? Was it the same with Swanson? Did he just happen to look like a pilot missing since 1945? The odds of that being the case are astronomical.

“Yes. Answering that question could make a world of difference.” Ailes’s phone rings.

His face freezes as the voice on the other end repeats something.

“No? They’re sure?” He shakes his head and hangs up. “Ready for this?”

I can’t even begin to imagine what’s about to come out of his mouth anymore.

“The lab did a test of what was left of the body from the cemetery. They used a procedure that’s not even in the journals yet. They finally found some tissue from which they could extract DNA.”