I scan the men’s faces. “Let me preface by saying none of what I’m about to say leaves this room.” Doughnuts, coffee and the earliness of the hour are forgotten. Their collective attention focuses on me. “We know the accomplice is still out there. As far as the investigation, we have two things going for us at this point. The scar. And the DNA from the semen we found inside Mary Plank. If the DNA belongs to Todd Long, we’re back at square one. If it doesn’t match Long, we may have our first big break. However . . .” I pause, let the word sink in. “If the accomplice isn’t in the CODIS database, we’ll be left high and dry.”

“How long until DNA results come back?” Pickles asks.

“Tomasetti is pushing, but he can only do so much. The lab is backlogged. It’s going to be a few more days.” I grimace. “Too damn long. This killer is an animal. Savage enough to cut a fetus from a woman’s body for the sole purpose of keeping us from doing a paternity test.”

The men nod in unison.

“I think I figured out a way to smoke this bastard out of his hole,” I say.

“How?” T.J. asks.

“We set a trap with bait he won’t be able to resist.”

He looks around as if wondering if he’s the only one who’s not following. “What bait?”

“Billy Zook.”

A stir goes around the room. Not a stir of alarm. A stir of anticipation. The kind hunters feel in the moments before they embark on the pursuit of a dangerous animal.

“Does the killer know the Zook kid witnessed the murders?” Glock asks.

“Not yet. But if I release that information to the press, you can bet he’ll be aware of it by the end of the day.”

“The media’s kind of a wild card, isn’t it?” T.J. asks.

“Not if I feed them exactly what we want them to report.”

“If we make it too easy and name the witness outright, the killer will smell a trap,” Pickles says.

“I won’t use names. But I’ll mention the disk and the face in the window. I’m betting the killer kept a copy of that disk.”

Skid nods. “First thing he’s going to do is take a look at it.”

“If we found the kid’s face, he can find it,” T.J. adds.

I nod. “It’ll take some doing on his part. He’ll need to review the disk, magnify the image. Identify and find the kid. But if we make it too easy, he’ll know it’s a trap.”

Glock leans back in his chair. “How do you know the killer will be able to identify the kid? Hell, how do you know if he’ll even read the newspaper?”