She collapsed back on her bed. Half-dressed in pants, a bra and nothing else, she stared up at the ceiling. Then she closed her eyes, tried to see what she must have seen that final night, right before being shoved down the stairs.

Melvin. Paging Melvin. I’m here, I’m ready, I want to know. Come on, Melvin. Cut a girl a break and let me remember.

Wasn’t that what Dr. Glen had said? If she would talk to her pain, directly ask Melvin to help her remember, the weak Exile would surrender. She just had to be ready for what happened next.

Melvin remained quiet. Or really, continued his normal, blah, blah, blah aching throb.

“I’m ready,” she gritted out in the silent bedroom. “I can handle it, Melvin. Come on, you pissant, groveling son of a bitch. I want to know. Tell me.”

Nothing.

“Was it the killer? Came back to relive his little fantasy, got a nasty surprise when he found me there?”

Except most killers hung out on the outskirts of their crimes. To actually pass under the crime scene tape, violate the police barricade, would expose them to risk. Next thing a killer knew, he was in jail for trespassing, not to mention subject to police interrogation. Now, maybe the perfect psychopath, the murderer who was secure in his superiority, would be attracted to such gamesmanship. But their killer? A man who attacked lone women while they slept? Incapacitated them quickly with chloroform, so even their death was a matter of simple, painless execution . . . ?

For a second, D.D. could almost picture such a man in her head. Small of stature. Low self-esteem, poor social skills, uncomfortable around authority figures, especially women. Never had a long-term relationship, probably lived in the basement of his mother’s house. Except not the browbeaten son harboring a tidal wave of suppressed rage—that killer would explode upon his victims once they were suitably restrained. This killer . . . he was quiet inside and out. But obsessive, maybe. Had to do what he had to do, so was trying to at least do it with the least amount of fuss possible. The victims never even knew what was happening.

He got in, drugged, killed, carved.

Because that was what he really cared about. Skinning. Harvesting. Collecting.

He was a collector.

D.D. thought it and knew it to be true. They were looking for a collector. The murders weren’t crimes of rage or violence, but crimes of obsession. A killer who was compelled to do what he had to do.

Or maybe, do what she had to do.

Because sexual sadist predators were almost universally male, but a collector . . . The lack of sexual assault. The use of chloroform to incapacitate the victims. Even the compression asphyxiation. What had Neil said? A person of any size could do it; it was simply a matter of pressing against the right spot for the right amount of time.