held the ladder firmly. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do. She’d welcomed the errant Cass’s arrival because it had meant an end of McGuire’s interrogation about how she’d come to look in the tree for the camera. She thought she’d covered well enough. Because there was no way in hell that she could have told him the truth.
The only person she’d ever shared it with was Raiker. And him only because it was impossible to do otherwise. The man was like a human lie detector.
Brandau lifted the instrument, turned it on, and started taking readings. After several minutes he headed down the ladder. “Well, that’s not surprising.”
“No trace of accelerants up there?”
He shook his head. “No need for it, really. His intent wasn’t to burn the thing down. Just to consume the victim.” He set the machine down and bent over a kit before ascending the ladder again. She grasped it to steady it as he climbed.
“Were you called to the other scenes, too?”
“Not the first one.” He unscrewed the lid of the glass jar he’d taken from the kit and began taking scrapings of the charred timber.
“But you’d know which accelerant was used at the first, even if you weren’t there.”
“That’s right. It was a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline. Unless I’ve lost my touch—and that’s highly doubtful—it was used this time around, too. Gasoline burns off too quickly to be relied on. The diesel fuel makes it burn longer.”
“Because he isn’t relying on whatever is handy,” she murmured. “He goes into the kill prepared.”
He glanced down at her as he screwed the lid shut on the glass container holding the scrapings. “That’s right. Has it down to a tee, if you ask me. Our guy has had some practice, even though we’ve struck out with ViCAP.”
The words elicited a renewed burst of interest. The FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database allowed law enforcement to submit details of a crime to compare with similar ones around the country. “You didn’t get any hits?”
“Oh, we got plenty. Nate could tell you the exact number. But none were close matches for what we’ve seen with these crimes, taking into account the type of accelerant, material used to secure the victims, the manner in which they were bound . . . Here, take this, will you?” He broke off to hand her the jar with the sample he’d taken.
She reached for it. The factors he’d mentioned could all be part of the offender’s MO, which could change over time as he perfected the kills. But his signature wouldn’t change. “Were any of the other victims from the results cops?”
“No. But Nate still figures he might have practiced first, so he hasn’t given up on ViCAP.” Brandau handed her another glass jar with more scrapings in it. “Maybe this time around we’ll get more details to feed into the search.”
Something inside her was relieved by the exchange. It sounded like the case was being managed competently. There was no reason to believe she could bring something to this case that McGuire couldn’t. Especially since the dreams that had always been at the root of her “uncanny instincts” had been absent for months.
Until last night.
“Well, well, looks like you were right again.”
Nonplussed by the remark coming so close on the heels of her thoughts, she sent a startled glance upward. And saw Brandau holding up tweezers with something that looked like blackened hair in its grip.
But in the next moment she recognized it for what it was. “A strand of rope?”
His expression was grim as he dropped it into another jar and labeled it. “There’s a few more up here. The bastard kept the victim in place with a rope thrown over these rafters, most likely.” His assessment was an almost eerie affirmation of her and Nate’s guess earlier today.
And a macabre reminder of the burning specter in her dream last night.
Chapter 3
Risa unlocked the small house she’d bought for her mother three years ago. It was past six. Hannah Blanchette would have already headed out to catch a bus to her job, cleaning office buildings after hours. So catching sight of the figure sitting on the brightly floral secondhand couch had her stopping short in the doorway, her hand going automatically to a weapon that wasn’t there.
One she would have been unable to fire even if it’d been present.
Her eyes slid shut for a moment in frustration. “Adam.”
The lack of welcome in her voice had no discernible effect on