“I know.”
As if reading her mind, he continued, “But if she doesn’t run the photos on the news, he’s going to try and kill again.”
“He’s going to kill either way.”
Sin thought about the poem. “I need to show you what I discovered while I was gone.”
“All right,” Jack said, “bring the reporter here and we can formulate a plan. I can’t think of a safer place for her at the moment.”
“See you in twenty.”
27
When Sin and Tiffany arrived at headquarters, the place was hopping. Agents were milling about and the drug taskforce was gathered for a debriefing. Sin heard a familiar voice from her past, and peeked into the room. Running the meeting was an agent she’d worked with back when she’d first joined the FBI—Bill Duggen. Her presence caught his eye, and he gave her a slight nod, not skipping a beat in his update to the team. Sin was happy to see Duggen.
Evelyn was at her desk, but not for long. Sin asked her to take Tiffany to an unused room and Evelyn nodded, asking Tiffany to follow her.
“I don’t mean to be a pain,” Tiffany said, “but is it okay if I call the station? I need to let them know that I won’t be able to make the midday news, and I need to make arrangements if I’m going to broadcast at six.”
“That’s fine,” Sin responded. “Tell them you have breaking news and that you need to be on the air at six. Agent Gonzales will take you to the station, stay with you, and bring you back here when you’re finished.”
Tiffany pulled at her tank top. “I’ll need to change.”
“I hope you have something at the station because your apartment is now a crime scene and you can’t go back there until it’s cleared.”
She nodded. “I always keep a change of clothes there just in case.”
Tiffany pulled her cell phone from her purse and began to dial. Sin reached for it and took it away before she could finish the connection. Addressing Evelyn, Sin said, “Let Tiffany use the landline to make the call.”
She then proceeded to the conference room. McGuire and Gonzales were already there.
The whiteboard was full of new information.
Jack looked at Sin with a questioning expression, and Sin acknowledged him silently.
Jack had witnessed the conversation between Sin and Tiffany. “You think the killer has a trace on her phone?”
“I have no idea, but I’m not taking any chances.”
The three of them spent the next hour going over Jack and Alejandro’s conversations with the Stokler siblings. She took out the Blake poem, A Divine Image, she’d printed at Charlie’s and handed a copy to both men.
“That’s some deep stuff,” Jack said.
“Yeah, and it must mean something special to our killer because he’s using it as a blueprint.”
“What do you mean?” Gonzales asked.
“The murders,” Sin explained. “The first, highlighted the heart; the chest was cut open like a ‘hungry gorge.’ The second, accentuated the face, which was sealed in a furnace.”
Jack and Alejandro reread the poem.
“When we asked Ashley and George about the lines left by the killer, they denied ever having seen them but, I have to say, their expressions told a different story.”
Sin ran down what she found out in the Keys and stressed the fact that she couldn’t find any information on Miranda that dated before 1978. When Evelyn returned, Sin asked her to run a background check, hoping she was missing something.
Turning her attention back to the men, she pulled a stack of images she’d printed from the Internet. “Check these out. What we thought was a helmet, turns out to be a replica of an old wood- or coal-burning furnace. ‘The face a furnace seal’d.’ ”
“Jesus,” Jack said, scanning the poem, “you know what this means?”
Sin completed Jack’s thought, “It means he’s not done. There are two lines left to complete—”
“His divine image,” Jack said.
28
As Sin was about to leave the field office, Evelyn showed up waving a file.
“We have a positive identification on the second vic.”
Sin was hoping this was the break she needed. Rifling through the file, she was soon disappointed. “Our perp is doing a better job of scouting his victims than we are at finding him,” she sighed. “Sylvia Lang seems to fit the same MO as Vivienne Spinner: a loner. Hell, except for her job, she appears to practically be a recluse.”
Glancing at the clock, Sin asked Evelyn if she would call Quincy and have some of his techs go and scour Sylvia’s residence. “Who knows, we might get lucky,” she mumbled. Her own disbelief ringing through her tone.
Sin and Jack watched the six o’clock Action News from atop stools in a sports bar on Brickell Avenue. They had just finished going over tomorrow’s plan of action concerning the Stoklers when the anchor mentioned that they had breaking news in the Painted Beauty case.
She watched as the camera cut to a nervous looking Tiffany.
Tiffany took a deep breath, appeared to center herself, and smiled brightly at the camera. “This is Tiffany Swenson reporting for Action News. I received a package from the Painted Beauty Killer—pictures of his latest victim. They are graphic, so I ask viewers to please use discretion.”
Images of the victim wearing the furnace flashed on the screen. When the camera panned back, Tiffany was almost in tears. She began to choke up, and steadied herself once more. “The FBI has asked me not to divulge any further information at this time, and I will be respectful of that request. This is Tiffany Swenson reporting.”
“She did a good job,” Jack said. “Brave girl.”
“But did she do enough to appease the maniac?”
29
Ash watched with great anticipation as the camera switched from Jim Day, the news anchor, to Tiffany Swenson. He became frustrated when he didn’t see her wearing the clothes he bought her.
His frustration turned to anger when the pictures scrolled across the screen. She didn’t show the close-ups of Sylvia Lang. His anger turned to
