“Emma—”

“I think a part of me is still in Daniel Huxton’s basement. I don’t know how to get out of it, and I thought if I…” She presses her lips. “I don’t know if it’s worked out quite the way I imagined.” She snorts, but it comes out more like a sob, quickly swallowed. “What about you? Why did you join this unit?”

“I guess…” Bell looks as if he’s had all his pillars of faith stripped away. “I guess I’m trying to be like my dad. But he ended up dead. Just like Cooper.”

“Then you have to be smarter than both of them,” Emma says softly.

“Cooper said we’d have to deal with people like Raymond. He said we’d have to deal with petty bullshit and stupidity, right?”

“Yeah. But he said we’d have to learn to manage it.”

A long silence as they both just sit there, trying to work out how the hell they’re going to do that.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Donald Raymond has always considered himself an intelligent man.

Right now, he’s sitting at his desk with all the paperwork from Ed Cooper’s death in front of him, plus the file from the Butcher case. He had to go into his study last night at home so he could read through it and look at the pictures—his wife won’t have this kind of stuff in the house. But he’s examined it all, and he’s got the photocopies and document analysis from the correspondence between Simon Gutmunsson and the Butcher. He thinks he’s found a thread in there that he can build on.

He’s signing the message of condolence for Ed Cooper’s brother when the call comes through from Mike Martino. “Hey, Mike. How’re things working out?”

“It’s going well.” Martino’s voice sounds thin through the phone connection. “But I’m using the phone in Scott’s office, so I don’t have much time.”

Raymond’s expression is long-suffering, knowing, as he does, that it’s an FBI agent’s prerogative to boss people around. “Fine. Out with it.”

“Okay, seems like Gutmunsson first communicated with the Butcher via the personal ads in the Washington Post—Gutmunsson has pretty much unfettered access to newspapers. He says the Butcher was the one who made initial contact, using the ‘Artist’ and ‘Siegfried’ thing. They arranged the Georgetown U system through the personals, so they could communicate privately. About four letter exchanges in all, including the most recent one, I gather.”

Raymond finds this information exciting. “That’s good, Mike. Great work. Okay, here’s what I want you to do for me. You’re gonna get Gutmunsson to write a personal ad.”

“Today?”

“Right now. Obviously the Butcher is wise to the fact that we’ve tapped the mail, so it’ll make sense for Gutmunsson to go back to personals. Get a pen, I’m gonna dictate a couple of things I want Gutmunsson to include in the ad.”

Once Raymond gives him the details, Martino’s voice takes on a different tone. “Uh, he may not want to do that, sir. I mean, Gutmunsson’s crazy, but he’s got a sense of self-preservation—”