Blood Dreams

Bishop hesitated, then nodded. 'I think she was. He hunts a type, a physical look, and Annie fit like all the others fit. If he needed to go deeper than looks, needed to know anything else about his targets because knowing more than the surface was important to him, he would have known who she was, known the extreme risks in targeting her. The way she was living, quietly, like any other young woman in Boston, the ordinary surface appearance of her life, didn't warn him that the response to her disappearance would be so immediate and so intense.'

'That's why he stopped, after her?'

Bishop was only too aware that the grieving father he was talking to had spent years as a prosecutor in a major city and so knew the horrors men could do, perhaps as well as Bishop himself, hut it was still difficult to forget the father and think only of the fellow professional, to discuss this calmly without emotion.

This killer isn't the only man I've been profiling, Senator. I've been studying you as well. And I'm very much afraid that you'll take a hand in this investigation yourself before too much longer.

A deadly hand.

'Bishop? That is why he stopped?'

'I think it was part of the reason, yes. Too many cops, too much media, too much attention. It interfered with his plans, with his ability to hunt. Put his intended prey too much on guard, made them too wary. And it became a distraction for him, one he couldn't afford, especially not at that stage. He needed to be able to concentrate on what he was doing, because he was practicing, for want of a better word. Exploring and perfecting his ritual. That's why-'

When the other man broke off, LeMott finished the observation stoically. 'That's why each murder was different, the weapons, the degree of brutality. He was experimenting. Trying to figure out what gave him the most… satisfaction.'

You have to hear this over and over again, don't you? Like picking at a scab, keeping the pain alive because it's all you've got left.

'Yes.'

'Has he figured it out yet?'

'You know I can't answer that. Too little to work with.'

'I'll settle for an educated guess. From you.'

Because you know it's much more than an educated guess. And I know now I made a mistake in telling you what's really special about the SCU.

Bishop also knew too well how utterly useless regrets like that one tended to be. The mistake had been made. Now he had to deal with the fallout.

He drew a breath and let it out slowly. 'My guess, my belief, is that the response to Annie's abduction and murder threw him off balance. Badly. Until then, he had been almost blindly intent on satisfying the urges driving him. To kill a dozen victims in less than a month means something triggered his rampage, something very traumatic, and whatever it was, the trigger event either destroyed the person he had been until then, or else it freed something long dormant inside him.'

'Something evil.'

'About that, I have no doubts.'

LeMott was frowning. 'But even evil has a sense of self-preservation. The brightness of the unexpected spotlight following Annie's murder woke up that part of him. Or, at least, put it in control.'

'Yes.'

'And so he retreated. Found a safe place to hide.'

'For now. To regroup, rethink. Consider his options. Perhaps even find a way to alter his developing rituals to fit this new dynamic.'

'Because now he knows he's hunted.'

Bishop nodded.

LeMott had given himself a crash course in the psychology of serial killers, immersing himself in the art and science of profiling despite Bishop's warnings, and his frown deepened now.

'Even if he was testing his limits or just figuring out what he needed to satisfy his cravings, to kill so many over such a short period of time and then just stop has to be unusual. How long can he possibly resist the sort of urges driving him?'

'Not long, I would have said.'

'But it's been more than two months.'

Bishop was silent.

'Or maybe it hasn't been,' LeMott said slowly. 'Maybe he's done a lot more than go to ground. Maybe he's adapted to being the hunted as well as hunter and changed his M.O. already. Dropped out of sight for a while, yes, but moved and began killing elsewhere. Killing differently than before. Altered his ritual. That's what you're thinking?'

Shit.

Weighing his words carefully, Bishop said, 'Most serial killers have been active for months, even years, by the time law enforcement recognizes them for what they are, so there's more to work with in mapping the active and inactive cycles over time, the patterns and phases of behavior. We don't have that with this bastard. Not yet. He moved too fast. Appeared, slaughtered, and then disappeared back into whatever hell he crawled out of. We had no time to really study him. The only way we even pegged him as a serial was the undeniable fact that the young women he killed could have been sisters, they looked so alike.

'That was all we had, all we still have: that he targeted women who were smaller than average, petite, almost waifish, with big eyes and short dark hair.'

'Childlike,' LeMott said, his voice holding steady.

Bishop nodded.

'I know I've asked you before, but-'

'Do I believe he could begin to target children? The accepted profile says he might. I say it isn't likely. He's killing the same woman over and over again, and that is the experience he's recreating every time. Whatever else changes, he needs her to remain the same.'

LeMott frowned. 'But if he is changing or has already changed his ritual, if he knows he's being hunted and is as smart as you believe him to be, he must know what commonalities the police will be looking for in any murder case. He must know his M.O. is noted and flagged in every law-enforcement database in the country. Can we afford to assume he'll still target women who fit that victim profile?'

Bishop wasn't particularly reassured by the senator's calm expression and his matter-of-fact, professional tone; if anything, those were worrying signs.

Like nitroglycerin in a paper cup, looks could be terribly deceiving.

LeMott had kept a lid on his emotions for a long time now, and Bishop knew the pressure inside was going to blow that lid sky-high sooner or later.

A grieving father was bad enough. A grieving father with little left to lose was worse. And a grieving father who was also a powerful United States senator and former prosecutor with a reputation for having a tough stance on crime as well as a ruthless belief that justice be served no matter what was something way, way beyond worse.

But all Bishop said was, 'He can't change who he is no matter how hard he tries. He'll try, of course. Try to overcome his urges and impulses, or just try to satisfy them in some way that won't betray who he is. But he'll give himself away somehow. They always do.'

'At least to hunters who know what to look for.'

'The problem isn't knowing what to look for, it's the sickening knowledge that he has to kill again to give us something to look at.'

'Always assuming he hasn't killed again and the murder was just different enough to fly under the radar.' LeMott wasn't about to let that idea go, it was clear.

Bishop said, 'That is a possibility, of course. Maybe even a probability. So I can't say with any certainty that he has or hasn't killed again since he murdered your daughter.'

If he had hoped to distract LeMott, back him away, shake him somehow with those last three very deliberate words, Bishop was disappointed, because the senator didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He just responded to the