Crane shook his head, staring at the skull. “This woman wasn’t Karly Vickers. So who was she? Is there another woman missing?”

“Not that we’re aware of,” Hicks said. “The remains will be sent to the Bureau of Forensic Sciences for possible identification.”

“So there really is a serial killer,” Crane said. “Thank God you have him in custody.”

“Yeah,” Mendez said. “Thank God.”

“Thanks for your help, Dr. Crane,” Hicks offered.

“Anytime.”

“So, you’re off to join the search?” Mendez asked.

“Yes.” Crane looked at the skull again. “You see that . . . I hope we’re not too late.”

“This is a nightmare,” Dixon said. “They’re absolutely sure about the prints?”

“They’re a match for Sells and his nephew,” Hicks said, reaching for tuna salad on rye. They had called out for lunch and sat at the conference table, eating and catching up on the latest details.

“Someone brought those cars out to Sells’s field, through the back gate,” Mendez said, “wiped them down and left them.”

“And then what?” Dixon asked. “Walked back to town? Had an accomplice drive back? Or is Sells the accomplice?”

“You have to take Sells out of the equation with Warwick and Vickers,” Vince said. “He’s not the kind of guy who has a partner. Him doing his own thing, at his own place, disposing of his victim in his own backyard—that I can see. But that kind of murder and Lisa Warwick are two entirely different things.”

“We’ve got two killers,” Dixon said. “Un-fucking-believable.”

He got up to pace. He was in uniform and still looked starched and pressed, despite what the day had already put him through.

“We do everything in our power to keep this out of the media,” he said. “Gordon Sells is in custody. The press can keep their eye on him for now.”

“And you have to hope your UNSUB doesn’t get pissed off by that,” Vince said. “Sells getting credit could push him into something.”

“It’s a no-win situation,” Dixon said. “If we admit there’s still a serial killer out there, he gets his ego fed, then he wants more. He wants more, he does more—right?”

“Probably,” Vince conceded.

Dixon swore under his breath and shook his head. “We’re working three murders and a missing person with at least two different perps in a county that doesn’t see three murders in a year. We’ve got to break this down.

“Trammell and Campbell, check all missing persons reports from a five-county target area then work your way out if you have to. We’ve got to try to put a name to the victim at Sells’s. The Bureau of Forensic Sciences has a forensic artist who can come up with a likeness of the victim from the skull. And put some pressure on the nephew, see if he won’t crack.”