Faces of Fear

to be redone, and all the air would go out of it. Who would care about a rehash of a solved series of killings?

On the other hand, if another murder occurred, the special would still have to be completely recut, but she’d have the run of the station and all its resources to get it done on time, and the network might want to pick it up as well. It would be the biggest thing on TV that night.

She tried not to hope that another murder would take place — and soon enough so she’d have time to include it in her special — but there was no denying that one more killing would make her career. She’d be in L.A. long enough to stay with the case for the whole network, and then it would be New York.

New York, and eventually an anchor spot on the national news.

Not, of course, that she wanted it to happen, at least not that way. Still, it didn’t hurt to be prepared for any eventuality, so she righted her chair, picked up the bundle of still shots from the promos Michael had okayed, and flipped through them.

They looked good. The art department had mercifully not succumbed to its original urge to use the same drippy Frankenstein font from the old movies, which would have instantly turned her special from news into nothing more than schlocky entertainment. The promos were almost ready to run, and in five minutes she was due over in production to take a final look at them and make sure they were using the best footage of her.

And that they weren’t giving too much away in the voice-over.

The Frankenstein Killer.

It had been a stroke of genius — there was no denying it.

And what if it turned out that it hadn’t only been a stroke of genius, but of prophecy, too? What if this guy — whoever he was—was trying to make someone out of all these parts he was harvesting?

What if someone was trying to put together his idea of the perfect woman? Suddenly, she had a vision of the killer. He’d be a misfit, of course — the kind of guy who could only get a date on the Internet, where he could use a picture of anybody to sucker in the kind of girl who would never go out with him if she actually met him. He probably spent most of his time alone in some crappy one-room apartment somewhere, jerking off while he paged through magazines, looking at the girls he could never have.

Then he’d started focusing in on what attracted him about each girl.

When had he decided to make his own girl? To find the parts, and put them together into his twisted idea of perfection? A year ago? A decade ago?

And what did she look like, this perfect girl?

The promos suddenly forgotten, Tina began to comb through the files she’d amassed on the series of killings.

Kimberly Elmont’s ears had been taken.

Natalie Owen’s lips.

Caroline Fisher’s breasts.

Her excitement growing, Tina pulled the best photographs she could find of Kimberly and Natalie and scanned them into Photoshop, then cut-and-pasted Kimberly’s ears and Natalie’s lips onto a blank file.

The lips were a little lopsided because of the angle from which Natalie’s picture had been taken, and only Kimberly’s right ear was clear. Tina made a mirror image of it, then slid both ears into position above the lips.

But how far apart should they be? How wide was this guy’s ideal woman’s head?

She went back to the files, found a photograph of Jillian Oglesby before the attack, and scanned it in. Even though Jillian’s eyebrows had been ripped from her face almost a year ago, it was far more likely to be related to the group of recent attacks, and not the ones in San Jose and San Diego fifteen years ago.

Was this a copycat or was the same character still around?

A shiver went through her, and she had to rub away the goose bumps that prickled on her arms.

She maneuvered the mouse until Jillian’s eyebrows were cut from her photograph and pasted into place.

Now a face — very rough, but recognizable as a human face — began to emerge on the computer screen.

And fear began to creep up her spine.

The face was missing a nose.

Which meant that there would, indeed, be at least one more killing. But when?

She looked up at the calendar pinned to her corkboard, the calendar that covered the full year since Michael had promised her the special if there was another murder, and on which she’d been marking everything that had happened and everything she’d done that related to the killings.

The killings themselves had been marked with a bloodred Sharpie.

The killings were getting closer together.

Also, the killer was nearing the completion of his project.

Suddenly, she knew exactly what he was feeling: just as with her career-making special, this guy was eager to finish his collecting and get on to the next step — the actual putting together of the parts into his twisted idea of perfection.

Tina stared at the calendar, mesmerized. The time between Kimberly’s and Natalie’s murders was half the time that had lapsed between Caroline Fisher’s and Kimberly’s.

If the time was cut in half again between Natalie’s murder and the next one, that would put the next murder…

On Friday.

This Friday!

Tina put a big X on Sunday, when her special would air, then put the tip of her pen on Friday and drew a large question mark.

If she was right — and she knew it was a very large “if”—there would be another murder on Friday.

So exactly how big was the “if”? Should she bet her career that somewhere in Los Angeles a young woman would lose her life because a maniac wanted her nose?

And her glands, too.

What was that about?

Tina saved the rough face she’d created, attached it to an e-mail to Michael, then tore the calendar off the corkboard and headed to his office. She wasn’t sure what her obligation was to the police at this point, but Michael would know, and he’d surely want to consult with the station’s attorneys right now.

If they did nothing, and the murder took place when she thought it would, she could use whatever footage they got in her special. She’d just have to make two cuts, one with room for footage of the latest killing, one without it.

But it might be even better to run the rough face she’d constructed with Photoshop on the next newscast tonight at six, which would give her an opportunity to speculate on the murder she was certain was going to happen. That would at least put the whole area on alert.

Michael Shaw, of course, would insist that it was too provocative and could incite panic.

Of course, it would be best to prevent the murder from happening at all. That would make Tina Wong not only famous, but a hero as well.

But how could she make that happen?

She didn’t know.

At least, she didn’t know yet.

CONRAD DUNN RAPPED briskly on the examination room door, then opened it and walked in.

Alison, dressed in a pink hospital gown, was perched nervously on the edge of the examination table, while Risa, pale and looking even more nervous than her daughter, sat in a chair that she’d pulled close enough to the table so she could hold Alison’s hand.

“Who, exactly, is clinging to whom?” he asked, winking at Alison. “Seems like your mom’s a lot more frightened than you are.”

“I think we’re both scared,” Alison said.

“I’m not scared, exactly,” Risa said, the tremor in her voice belying her words. “I mean, I’m not worried, really…I’m just…” Her voice trailed of.

“Terrified?” Conrad offered. “Well, there’s no reason to be. I know what I’m doing, and my team is the best