“If there’s really anything encoded in this,” Lou asked, “why wouldn’t Lola have told you what it was when she gave it to you?”

“Inner conflict, I suspect. Maybe guilt kept her from making it too easy for us.”

With Lou perched on the pull-out and Vaill on the desk chair, they watched the killer again—viewing number 101. Afterward, Lou crumpled a ball of the white copy paper he had gotten at the front desk, and tossed it with frustration at the wastebasket, which blocked his shot with the top edge of a folded Domino’s box.

Despite this latest disappointment, he continued to pursue the latest possibility—that the letters of each word Burke spoke could be used to form new and more revealing sentences. So far, only gibberish. At Vaill’s suggestion, they had diligently recorded each time Burke had blinked, thinking perhaps he was using Morse or another code to send Lola his location. If there was a subliminal message hidden within the recording, it was proving to be as elusive as an A was in Lou’s college organic chemistry class.

“You okay?” Vaill asked.

“Maybe a little pizza-ed out, but I’m fine.”

“Then let’s play it again,” Vaill said. “We’ll shoot for Chinese delivery in another couple of hours.”

By run-through 105, Vaill’s chin and eyelids were heading south again.

“Honestly, Tim, I think it’s time we take a break,” Lou said.

Vaill lifted his head and Lou saw the fire he recognized from the interrogation room.

“I’m not going to give up because Burke is out there,” Vaill said, tapping the killer’s image with the butt end of a pen. “That piece of garbage murdered my wife, is stealing your best friend’s life, and is laughing at us for coming after him because he doesn’t believe we’ll ever catch him until he wants us to catch him so he can kill us.”

Lou’s own resolve felt strengthened by Vaill’s intensity, and he was about to hit play, when they were interrupted by a series of sharp knocks on the door.

“Hey, Tim,” came a voice Lou recognized with virtual certainty, “it’s McCall. Open up.”

Lou froze. Usually unflappable, his pulse kicked off like a jackrabbit’s. Vaill, by contrast, appeared unfazed.

Whatever exhaustion Lou had seen in the man was gone, and he was instantly on the move, his actions rapid and purposeful. Situations like this are his ER, Lou thought—the equivalent of a doc being confronted by the multiple victims of a car crash. Calm as a summer breeze, Vaill put a finger to his lips, moved the stuffed wastebasket to a remote corner with his foot, pointed to the laptop then to Lou, and lastly to the bathroom. The unspoken message was clear: this was quite possibly a threat.