“Well, I’m running what I have through all the databases, but so far nothing close to a hit. Which, even if it might otherwise identify him, only tells us he probably isn’t in those databases—which is true of most people. If you find a viable suspect, the DNA may at least point at him. Probably not conclusively, though.”

Hollis considered for a moment. “What about the remains of the fetus?”

“You mean DNA?” Jill frowned a little. “I may be able to get a better sample there. You’re thinking paternal DNA?”

Hollis half nodded. “Her fiancé is ruled out fairly conclusively as a suspect in her murder because he wasn’t anywhere near here when she went missing and for weeks before and months afterward. No indication he didn’t believe she had left Salem only weeks after he jilted her. Apparently both families and friends gave him hell over it. But it still might be interesting to find out if he was the father.”

“I’ll get right on it.” Jill looked at them both rather curiously. She had been called in on serial murder cases often enough to be at least aware of how such investigations generally progressed. “Doesn’t sound like a typical serial. A world of difference between how each of these victims was killed and treated afterward.”

“And,” Hollis said, “the third victim was knocked out, tied up, drugged, and buried alive. But left with an oxygen canister pumping air into his would-be coffin. With a timer on the tank. If a very strong telepath hadn’t picked up his call for help, he would have died. We barely got to him in time.”

Jill whistled softly. “Games, a test, or a distraction?” She had certainly been at this long enough to consider the possibilities.

“We’re wondering the same thing.”

DeMarco asked, “Anything else you can tell us?”

Jill’s faint frown deepened. “Something I know but can’t yet prove, at least until all the lab tests come back.”

“Which is?”

“Megan Hales might not have been able to carry the pregnancy to term. And even if she had, the child likely would have been born with severe birth defects.”

Slowly, Hollis said, “There’s usually a reason for that, right?”

“Yeah. In this case, everything I saw was the likely result of inbreeding. Probably not between first-degree relations—siblings, parent and child. Maybe cousins, but if so, first cousins, and there almost had to be a history of inbreeding within the family line to cause the sort of damage I saw.”

—

THEY EMERGED FROM the hospital into the gray and very cold morning, the heavy clouds still promising snow to come, and Hollis absently zipped up her jacket. “From the timing and what Jill suspects, it certainly doesn’t sound like the father was Paul Ainsworth.”

“No. And if she’s right about the birth defects, it’s very likely the father was a Hales.”

“Wonder if that was what caused the breakup. I mean if she started seeing another man and Paul found out there was someone else.”