Matt said to Tony, “Tell me about the chief of police. He called you?”

“What an ass.”

“And you’re supposed to be the diplomat.”

“Ultimately, it comes down to money. I told him to send me a bill. That seemed to appease him.”

Of course. Money made the world go ’round.

“If Chief Packard gives you any shit, take it—to a point. He’s all bark, no bite. But if he interferes with you getting the job done, shut him down. We’re fucking paying for the privilege of catching this killer, and he’s going to get at least half the credit simply for staying out of our way, so he can sit on his ass for all I care if he doesn’t want to do the work.”

“Understood. Thanks, Tony.”

“And Matt?”

“There’s more?”

“You’ve been on the ground there for less than eighteen hours and we already have more than we had at the beginning of any of the other investigations. Keep it up—and catch this bastard.”

Matt ended the call as he pulled into the Spokane FBI parking lot and shut off his engine. There were fifty-six regional FBI offices, and each regional office had one or more resident agency, depending on both population and geographic size of the district. The Seattle field office had nine, including this one in Spokane. But RAs were sparsely staffed, anywhere from two to a dozen agents.

Matt went into the Spokane FBI office and smoothed things over, using a little bit of honey and a little bit of authority. By the end of their conversation, SSA Torino agreed to assist in whatever capacity he needed.

Maybe he was born to be a diplomat after all.

8

Washington DC
5:45 p.m. ET

Catherine Jones closed the doors of her office, effectively shutting out the seven crime scenes she’d laid out.

She’d told Matt no, she had quit the FBI, but he hadn’t believed her, and he was right. As soon as he walked out of her condo, she pulled out the case files she kept at the condo, simply to prepare them for another profiler in her office—except she was immediately drawn back into the case.

The Triple Killer was hers.

She’d spent the day reacquainting herself with each case—every forensic detail, every commonality and difference, each victim—but she needed a break. Eight hours of violence, even on paper, got under her skin. It was supposed to—because that’s how she got into the heads of psychopaths—but she was also professional and had learned to take a breather.

She opened a bottle of sauvignon blanc, poured a glass, and added an ice cube. She didn’t care that it wasn’t the proper way to drink wine. Her mother would look at her with mild disdain, her disapproving glance reminding Catherine that she was both ill-mannered and ill-suited for society.

She took her drink to her balcony overlooking Rock Creek Park and tried to push aside the darkness she’d exposed when she opened the Triple Killer files. She’d told herself that she wouldn’t let the killer get into her head, but of course that was impossible. They all ended up inside, and this particular killer had been in her head for three years, ever since the case files were dropped on her desk. She’d been the one to connect the Portland murders to the Missoula murders. By then, the killer was long gone, but the case still needed to be solved; the victims still needed justice.