“About thirty minutes,” he said. “We’ve got our folks in the back right now reviewing videotape, but it’s the damnedest thing. We isolated the video a minute before and a minute after the bag showed up, and on it you never see anyone bring it here, and you never see anyone walk away. It’s like it just appeared out of nowhere.”

Lynch glanced at Coletti, who looked around the station trying to gauge the possibility of someone entering unnoticed. There was far too much open space for that.

“Who spotted the note on the body?” Coletti asked.

“I did,” said a sergeant from Amtrak’s K-9 unit. “We didn’t move anything. It’s still there.”

Mann joined Coletti and Lynch as they looked inside the duffle bag at the body. All three of them gasped when they saw the thinning black hair, the priest’s collar, and the slight frame. Father Douglas had been stuffed inside in the fetal position, and he was still wearing the same fearful expression he’d worn when he told them he’d seen the angel of death kill three people in his church. From the nature of the priest’s wounds, the MO appeared to be the same as the other church murders—a shotgun blast.

“I guess angels don’t like to leave witnesses,” Mann said.

Lynch grunted in agreement. But Coletti was silent, staring at the dead priest as anger and guilt wrestled for control of his mind. Coletti still blamed himself for every body they found, and a quiet rage was building inside with each moment that the killers remained free.

“We’ve got to stop this now,” Coletti in a near whisper.

“We’ve already got Petrov,” Mann said. “We’re halfway there.”

“Maybe,” Coletti said. “But we’ve been wrong before.”

“So how do we make sure we’re not wrong this time?” Mann asked.

“We give them what they want to draw them out of the woodwork,” said Lynch. “We offer them a meeting with Coletti.”

They both turned to the old detective, who returned their stares with unflinching resolve. “I’m in,” he said. “But how do we set it up?”

“I have a feeling they’ll be reaching out to us,” Lynch said.

Coletti looked at the duffle bag once more and clenched his jaw. “I’m going to the bathroom,” he said, walking across the station floor in an attempt to cool off.

Lynch and Mann barely acknowledged him. They were too busy trying to figure out how they were going to track down the killer. It was just as well. Coletti needed a few minutes alone. It was the only way he’d be able to sort things out.