He knew why Gage hadn’t said a word to him. Of course he’d recognized Pete. So had Saria. It was even possible that Bijou had. Gage needed a fresh pair of eyes, completely absorbing the crime scene. Gage believed in Remy and his abilities so he’d allowed him to be just as shocked as the rest of them.

“He isn’t shy, this killer.” Remy tested his voice, found it professional and steady. “Any boat comin’ through the swamp could have seen him, but he still took his time.” He turned and looked at Drake. “The vic hasn’t been dead that long.” Which meant Saria and Bijou just missed the killer. He might even have heard them coming.

Drake nodded as cool as ever. “Saria was very aware of that.”

Remy didn’t care if Saria was aware of it or not. He wanted Drake to be aware of it. He had no doubt this was the same killer. The signatures were all there. The killer didn’t bother to try to hide them—or maybe he wasn’t aware he signed his work. The first kill site Remy had seen of this man’s work had been in the vaunted Garden District in a historic bed-and-breakfast, with the victim hanging in the middle of the courtyard right beside the fountain. Just as this one was gruesome and messy, that scene had been horrendously nightmarish.

Arterial blood had sprayed everywhere. The body swung grotesquely from the hangman’s noose, and the left hand had been cut off, dipped in oil with candles tied around the fingers and displayed obscenely on a very precise and clean altar. The altar had been in sharp contrast to the messy scene.

Remy turned to survey the altar erected there in the swamp a few feet from the body, precisely, he knew, four and a half feet to the inch, just as it was in the last four murders, four years earlier. There was no doubt this was the same killer. If he repeated the same pattern as he’d followed four years ago, there would be at least three more bodies before he was done. Each body would have different bones removed from it, all while the victim was alive and hanging. Sometimes they died of shock and blood loss first, other times of asphyxiation.

The killer was bold and always prepared. He took his time, and often the crime was committed in an area where anyone could happen upon him. Still, he never seemed to hurry. The altar, so meticulous and precise, was at such odds with the haphazard kill site. If Remy hadn’t known better, he would think there were two perpetrators at the scene, but he’d studied the photographs and committed the scenes to memory. There was one murderer, and he cared nothing for the victim.