“And you think this person is somehow programming these women?”

She disconnected her cell phone from its portable charger and handed it to him. “You can see the e-mails he sent. He knew Christie was going to have her breakdown at midnight. He wanted me to see it happen.”

Frost studied the messages on Stein’s phone. He enlarged the photograph that had been taken inside the bar, but there was nothing in Christie Parke’s face to suggest what was about to happen to her.

Just like Monica Farr. Just like Brynn Lansing.

The police had closed the intersection. The medical examiner was processing the body. The truck that had struck and killed Christie Parke was still parked in the middle of the street, with blood on its dented grille. He saw a uniformed officer taking a statement from the driver, but there was nothing the man could have done to avoid the collision. Pedestrians gawked from behind the police tape, and neighbors stood in the lit windows of the apartment buildings that overlooked the scene. The media had arrived, too. He spotted video cameras from the local news channels.

Stein’s face pinched into a frown. She saw the cameras, too. Her name would be on television again. It was never good news that made the headlines.

“How is he doing this?” Frost asked. “How does it work?”

“I don’t know.”

Frost handed her the phone. “Can you forward these e-mails to me?”

“Of course, but I’m not sure it will help you. I asked a private security company to examine the messages, and they weren’t able to trace them.”

“We have our own experts,” Frost said. “And if you get any more—”

“You’ll be the first to know, Inspector,” Stein replied.

Her face was a chaos of emotions. She was distracted. Confused. Afraid. Upset. Her eyes kept going back to the street, as if the moment of the accident were replaying in her mind. The impact. The noise. Once you saw someone die, you were never the same. A body always left its mark.

Katie had been his first.

Wind blew down the street and whisked strands of her short brown hair into her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. She leaned her head back against the stone wall of the building behind her and closed her eyes. The downward turn of her lips was eloquent in its sadness.

“He’s taunting you, and he’s targeting your patients,” Frost said. “This is obviously personal.”

“Obviously,” she murmured.

“Do you have any idea who could be doing this?”

Her eyes opened. She stared, not at him, but past him. She was hiding something. “I can’t tell you anything. I’m sorry.”

“Because you don’t know anything, or because this involves your patients?”

The psychiatrist was silent.

“Privilege doesn’t apply if you know a patient represents a serious risk of harm to others,” Frost added.