To Bishop, Nellie said, “Your point being?”

“My point is that our unsub may not know he has any reason to be wary if he sees a crow now and then. Or, at least, not know he should be as wary as possible. Which means they could watch without being noticed. And again, crows remember people. We could use their help, Nellie. Salem’s a small town, but it’s surrounded by some pretty rugged mountainous terrain, and there are still too few of us to effectively cover the ground we need to, as fast as we need to. Especially if this unsub decides to keep us guessing.”

“Keep us guessing how?”

“He may leave us nothing to find,” Bishop said bluntly. “No body or bodies. No crime scene or dump site. Plenty of killers go out of their way to hide victims, to . . . clean up after themselves. Plus, so far at least, this unsub has apparently chosen a victim who wouldn’t, for whatever reasons, be immediately missed and, so, searched for. Impossible to know for certain with only one victim, but we have to consider the possibility. And if he’s doing that deliberately, if it’s his game plan, it’s likely intended to buy him the time he needs without the need to worry too much about people looking for him and looking for signs of what he’s done.”

“But he has to know you’re all here,” Nellie said. “By now, at least. Won’t he expect you all to be searching for him?”

“Now, probably,” Bishop answered. “But if he knows this area well, and we have to assume he does, he still has that advantage over us. And we’ve been pretty visible today. We will be tomorrow. Even if he has what he believes to be a hidden and secure place to hide whatever he’s doing, he has to be feeling the pressure.”

Finn was frowning. “So you believe it’s more likely that he’ll leave us the sort of evidence you’re talking about, a dump site or crime scene?”

“Possibly more likely, which is why we have to keep searching the mountain slopes. We don’t know when he took the victim Hollis sensed earlier; if it is Cole Ainsworth, we don’t have any idea of the time frame he’s working within. And whatever might have been his original intentions, having you and your people alert and aware and us here could certainly change his plans. But again, there are too few of us to cover this valley and the mountains, especially when we don’t as yet have any possible way of narrowing our search.”

“So the crows could really help,” Finn said.

Bishop’s wide shoulders lifted in a brief shrug. “Given the relatively small area of Salem, my experience tells me that even if he tried, this unsub would have considerable difficulty in hiding all evidence of murder, and especially of torture, not for any length of time. A crime scene or dump site would give us more information, maybe help us build a profile, at least give us some idea of what’s driving him.”