“Mike, I really don’t give a shit if Simon Gutmunsson is worried about his own hide. He wasn’t worried when Ed Cooper was bleeding out on the linoleum at the Fairfax hospital. Gutmunsson needs to learn to do as he’s told. He’s tender about the sister, right?”

“Uh, right.”

“So come down hard on that. Hell, if you think it’ll work, start soft and tell him I can get visitor access for his sister at St. Elizabeths.” Raymond eases back in his chair, swaps the phone receiver to his other hand. “Arrange to get the ad in the Post by this afternoon. I want it on the newsstands by Sunday morning.”

“Yessir.” No more complaints from Martino now.

“And when you’re done on the phone, tell Dr. Scott to call me direct. She and I are gonna have words.”

“If you try to organize a sting here in the asylum, she’ll fight you,” Martino warns. “She’s pretty tough.”

“I’m tougher,” Raymond reminds him. “You let me handle Scott. Just get me that personal ad and get it out by tomorrow.”

“Copy that, sir.”

“Outstanding. Keep up the good work, Mike. Call me when it’s done.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Emma sweated out her grief hangover on the Saturday morning run, and with every thump of her feet, it felt as if she was running farther away from Quantico. Now, showered and dressed and back in the Cool Room, she pulls out the case files again. There must be a link between the victims somewhere. How is the killer choosing them? How is he finding them?

She can’t stare at the photos and expect a miracle anymore. If miracles were real, Cooper would still be here.

By the time Bell arrives, ragged and smelling of gun smoke, Emma has been poring through victim histories for three hours, and the names of the dead are echoing through her skull: Kimberley Berger, Carol Lambton, Lamar Davis, Mark Spiegel, Sienna Ramirez, Brian Barnes, Donna Williams.… Each of them was beautiful, each of them special. And Emma can see herself reflected in their personal histories. The intensity of being a teenager, the quest for self-direction, the need for individual control—she sees it all there in the files, bouncing back at her like she’s standing in some ghastly fun-house hall of mirrors.

Maybe the need for control is the key? Her own desire for control is exaggerated, she knows, but that kernel of desire is in every teen. In what ways did the Butcher’s victims seek to control their own worlds?

She goes back to their families, their hangouts, and finally their medical histories. Bell is packing file papers into the boxes he knocked over yesterday. For a while, the only sound is Bell sighing over the paper mess, with a brief interruption when Emma asks him to pass her the phone.

After a few calls, Emma makes a noise.

On his knees on the floor, Bell squints up at her. “You got something there?”

Her own scribbled notes are starting to blur in front of her. “Maybe. A few crumbs, I don’t know.”