“That’s why I need your help. We have to find something to make the governor’s office stay the execution. If I can’t get time on my side for something that important, the least I can do is get you.”

She looked at him with eyes that spoke volumes, and for the first time, he didn’t look away.

“I’ll help you,” she said. “But you’ve gotta promise to let me work.”

Coletti hesitated. “Well, it’s not like you’d be out chasing this guy, right? You’d be in the office doing psychological research or something.”

“No, I’d be doing whatever I had to do to help you find him, even if it meant being in the line of fire.”

“Look, Mary, I—”

“No, you look. If you want me to do my job, I need to be out in the street, so you have to ask yourself: Is it more important to protect me, or is it more important to find this killer?”

Coletti knew the answer, but he didn’t want to accept it. Not that his acceptance mattered. The truth was the truth, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

“Okay,” Coletti said. “So where do we go from here?”

The question had a double meaning, but Smithson wasn’t about to take the bait.

“It’s not about where we’re going,” she said with a knowing grin. “It’s about where the killer’s going.”

“That’s what I meant,” Coletti said impishly. “You didn’t think I was flirting, did you?”

“You’re a man, so by definition, everything you do is flirting.”

“I’m hurt,” Coletti said with mock indignation.

“I’m a heartbreaker,” she deadpanned. “Get over it, and let’s go catch a killer.”

“Okay, Lieutenant, you’re the profiler. What’s our killer thinking?”

Smithson sat back and pondered the question for a few minutes. “He’s thinking he’s invincible.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He gave himself a nickname. Most killers get their nicknames from the media or the police. They rarely choose them for themselves. That tells me he thinks a lot of himself. I’d even say he has a God complex, and that makes me wonder if he purposely chose to kill in a church. Think about it—an angel with the church as a backdrop. The whole thing seems almost perfect.”

Coletti nodded slowly. “I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. I always wondered if the church was a symbol for him: if he killed there to convey some kind of message.”

“Maybe even a personal message,” she said. “A message to somebody in the church.”

“But if that was the case, he delivered his message ten years ago. Why would he come back now?”

“Maybe he didn’t finish the job.”