room for me to lead the way. I took a deep breath and adopted a professional mode. But I wasn’t quite successful. Something was off. As we walked, I became increasingly aware of the blond hairs on the back of his hands. And I had the strangest desire to reach out and run my fingers along the woolly sleeve of his charcoal coat.

TEN

“HAVE YOU EVER WORKED WITH A FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST, Ms. Hayes?” Eighteen empty chairs had offered themselves, but after removing his coat and tossing it onto the conference room table, Detective Stiles had chosen to sit on the one directly beside me. crowding me again. Was it deliberate? He watched me closely, as if studying my reactions, and his voice was muted, as if what he was saying were to be held in the utmost confidence.

“You mean a profiler? No. I haven’t.”

“But you know what they do, right?”

I nodded. “I watch TV like everybody else.”

There was that crooked smile again. As if half his face were happy, the other half grim. There was a shadow on the grim half, some kind of scar.

“These days, everybody’s an expert, with all the crime shows on the tube.” The smile faded. His eyes moved quickly, taking in details of the room, returning to me. “Reality’s a little different, though. The department works with various profilers, experts who analyze crime data and come up with a set of characteristics belonging to the perpetrator. They get pretty good results, too. Profilers described the character and lifestyles of serial killers like Ted Bundy and the Boston Strangler and locally, if you remember, Troy Graves, the center city rapist.”

I recalled the name. Graves had raped several women and murdered one, terrorizing the city in the late nineties.

“Police profilers nailed Graves’s race, age, sexual history, social tendencies, physical build, and personality traits and the general location of his residence at the time of the crimes.”

“But, as I recall, he wasn’t caught here. Wasn’t he arrested out in Colorado?”

“He was. But the profilers had the information just right. You’ve got a woman on staff here at the Institute who does profiling for the department. Beverly Gardener? You know her?”

Everyone knew Beverly Gardener. She was a celebrity, a tall, ambitious, confident, self-possessed brunette with legs to die for and a list of academic credentials as long as my arm. She hosted a call-in radio show, testified at trials as an expert witness, and wrote mass-market books on topics like the sex drives of mass murderers, the childhoods of serial killers, and the spiritual lives of death row prisoners. At the Institute, she was on staff as much for public relations as for her research. The board of directors was in awe of her. She was handled like a superstar, and, aloof and self-absorbed, she carried herself like one. As many times as I’d attended meetings with her or passed her in the hall, she’d never acknowledged me. Never as much as nodded hello.

“The department tends to consult Dr. Gardener, but since I’ve usually worked with the FBI, this is my first case with her. So far, I’m impressed.”

I nodded, having no idea why we were having a conversation about Beverly Gardener. I waited for him to explain. The pause was heavy as he continued to study me. Why was he staring? We sat in adjacent chairs, knee almost to knee. Again, too close. I fidgeted, shifted in my chair, wished I’d tweezed my eyebrows. My knees tingled. I was aware of the muscles in my thighs. And in his.

Finally, I cleared my throat. “So. What does Beverly Gardener have to do with the finger?” I assumed that the finger was what he wanted to talk about.

“The finger?”

“The finger on my doorstep? Isn’t that what you’re here about?”

“Oh, of course. Well, yes and no. If not for the finger, I wouldn’t be here, but actually I’m here to talk about you.”

About me? Again, my face warmed. His eyes were riveted onto mine. Lord. What was he staring at? Was my hair messed up? Was my mascara clumped?

“Let me explain, Ms. Hayes. It’s not a sure thing, but you might be able to help us.”

I wasn’t following. “Help you? How?”

“First, you’re a psychotherapist.”

“No, I’m not—I’m just an art therapist.”

“Okay, then. An art therapist—”

“Well, it’s an important distinction. I don’t work alone—I’m part of a team of therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists who work together. I work specifically with creative expression using visual media.”

“So you do what? Analyze your patients’ artwork? Try to