But he can see it now. The killer naked—would he be naked? Emma seems to think so—capering beneath the writhing bodies, knife in hand… the waterfall of red, a hot shower, slippery underfoot… that first gush of vitality pouring over your skin, thick and refreshing, so addictive that you’d want to do it again and again: one victim, two at a time, three at a time, and oh Jesus—

Bell rears back, needing air.

“Kristin, thank you,” Emma says, somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears. “I know these pictures are disturbing, but you’ve given us something very important.”

“Really? That makes me so…” Kristin casts around for the right word. “Relieved, I suppose you’d say. I want to help, more than anything.”

“And you have.” Emma catches sight of him, and whatever she sees makes her take control. She packs up the photos, closes the file. “Everything you’ve given us today is going to add to this investigation. Which I guess is a way for me to segue into goodbye—we need to take this information and present it to our supervisor. So I might have to ask you to excuse us now.”

“Oh, of course!” Kristin is all cooperation. “I’m so glad that something I said will be useful! That is quite amazing.”

Bell sways toward the door. “I need a drink of water.”

He thought he knew all this; he thought he was educated, jaded. But Kristin Gutmunsson has torn the veil from his eyes. He wants it back, but he’s a better investigator without it. There are no limits, he sees now. There are no monsters. Only people.

He glances over his shoulder. Kristin is smiling at Emma. “I’ll have to follow the reports even more closely, now that I’m connected to it. So next time I read an article in the newspaper, or see you on the television—”

“You saw us on the television?” Emma blanches.

When Bell opens the door, Cooper has his hand raised, preparing to knock. Bell takes one look at his face and knows they’re in trouble.

“I was just…” Cooper peers around him, sees Kristin. “What’s going on?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bell says. “What is it?”

Cooper’s eyes are dull with tiredness, grave with inevitability. “Somebody told.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Remember,” Cooper says. He looks at Bell and Emma in turn. “Don’t go off script.”

When Travis was fourteen, his sister Lena got into trouble at school for busting the lip of a boy who’d called her a derogatory name. He remembers retreating from the house to the swing chair on the front porch while his mother called the school principal to give the man a piece of her mind. Her voice grew strident on the phone, until it was audible outside. His mother always used a lot of Spanish cuss words when her temper was high.

As the tirade continued, Travis’s father came out on the porch to join him. “You taking cover?”

“Yep.” Travis glanced through the front window. “She’s going off again.”