Michael Stanfield Medrano was a forty-three-year-old who had attended high school in Farmington before dropping out his sophomore year to begin building his criminal resume: shoplifting (twice), arson (setting a car on fire outside a bar, apparently because the barman refused to serve him), and cruelty to animals.

This last charge interested Harley most, but the details were sketchy. According to the report, he had been fired from his part-time job at an animal rescue center for mistreating some of the animals. The severity of this mistreatment, however, was left entirely to the imagination.

Still, it was enough to allow Harley to begin building a mental profile. An only child, raised by an alcoholic mother who didnt appear to have worked a day in her life and a father who had spent most of Mikes childhood in prison for drug trafficking, Medrano was on the fast track to failure before he was old enough to choose his favorite color. Some kids, Harley knew, found ways to rise above these difficult circumstances.

Medrano was not one of them.

Had he graduated to molesting and killing young women in his later years? Harley thought there was a good chance the answer was yes, but only time would tell.

Unlocking her phone, Harley navigated to her contacts and brought up Callaways number. She stared at the phone, knowing it would be against protocol for her to confront Medrano on her own, especially since neither Callaway nor anyone else in the Bureau had any idea where Harley wasnot to mention the fact she was technically only a consultant on the case.

But what would he say if she called him? Sit tight, let me get there so I can take the lead? Callaway could be Medranos godfather for all Harley knew, considering how well he seemed to know everyone in the state. Harley could stomach working with him. But working under him?

A distant rumble crept into the quiet street, building like an earthquake as it approached. Harley slipped her phone into her pocket and sank lower against the seat as the Camaro broke the horizon in front of her, narrowly missing a coyote loping across the road. She had a glimpse of a matte-gray finish, a driver with a hood pulled up, and little else.

Her heartbeat quickened as the car turned into the yard of the ranch-style house. The driver stepped out, pulled a plastic bag of groceries from the back seat, and shuffled to the door. He took an ambling path through the yard, as if unsteady on his feet.

When the kitchen light came on in the house, Harley stepped out of her car. She took a slow look up and down the street, feigning a yawn, before walking toward the house with her head down and her hands in her pockets. A siren wailed in the distance, but otherwise the night was quiet.