“Yes, Melania Kravina has seen the face of the devil,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important that we talk to her. She’s the only one who can describe him to us.”

Knauss scratched at his head beneath the rim of his hat. He seemed reluctant to encourage that line of thinking, in case Teresa really did mean to pester the seriously injured woman.

“She’s been heavily sedated,” he muttered. “The doctor who saw her first said they’ll put her in an induced coma as soon as she gets to the city hospital. It might last for days, possibly even weeks. Do we have that kind of time?”

They didn’t.

The noise of the approaching helicopter’s rotor blades was becoming deafening. A dazzling light illuminated the landing pad, and the snow began to swirl in the air. Teresa watched the stretcher being wheeled out; there was a respirator attached to Melania Kravina’s mouth, her face covered by a sterile mask for facial injuries. Teresa saw her vanish into the helicopter, which took off before its door had even closed.

She became conscious of Marini observing her.

“You knew he was going to do it again,” he said.

It wasn’t a question. Yes, Teresa had known and now felt responsible for what had happened.

“There are so many inconsistencies,” she said. “He’s been acting like a serial killer right from the start, and yet he let her live. Why?”

“Maybe she ran away.”

She glanced at him.

“He bit her nose and her ears off,” she said, whispering so that the curious onlookers who had begun to gather at the hospital wouldn’t hear her. “You can’t run away from that kind of savagery. He’s lucid, but he leaves traces behind. He behaves like an animal when he attacks, but there was something graceful in the meticulous way he positioned the first victim’s body. This time, he didn’t do anything like that. Roberto Valent was a forty-three-year-old male. Lucia’s mother is a twenty-three-year-old woman. Serial killers choose their prey in keeping with very particular fantasies, which is why their victims always have certain shared traits. But I see nothing like that here. He appears to be acting randomly, but that’s not true. It can’t be.”

“Why not? Because of the statistics?”

Teresa heard the sarcasm in his tone, but she was so tired that when she replied, there was no inflection in her voice. “Because the subconscious travels along predetermined paths, Marini.”

“What if it didn’t this time? What if we’re dealing with a mind that is somehow different?”

Teresa was barely listening to him.

“Then it wouldn’t be a human mind, Inspector. Now if there was some common element here, an identifiable pattern . . .”

“He steals their senses.”

“What?”

“Sight. Smell. Hearing. That’s what he’s stolen from the victims.”