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The man glanced over his shoulder at the bar, and Taylor felt the waves of anger roll off him. The intensity of the emotion nearly took her breath away; it was overtly negative. Taylor was certain if Baldwin had been in the room, he would have felt it, too.

She felt her breath begin to quicken. The palpable ani

mosity, the powerful frame, the casual yet hip sprung attitude… She glanced at Jerry, who was talking to the woman at the bar and stealing looks at the man. Sam entered Taylor’s pinpoint field of vision. She was walking right at the man, a casual, hip-swaying, “I’m having a good time” motion to her gait. The man reached out a hand and grabbed her wrist as she walked by. Taylor 208

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was up out of her seat before Sam’s mouth fell open in surprise.

Three good strides would get her there, and she’d taken two when she heard Sam giggle, roll her eyes, then pull away from the man and head toward her.

“Going potty?” she asked. Taylor just nodded and kept moving. She needed to see this guy head-on. She made it to the bathroom door, ducked inside, counted to five, then came out, wiping her hands as if she’d just gone in to wash them. He was gone. She took in the entire bar, realized he was nowhere to be seen. His beer bottle wasn’t on the table, either. She walked to Jerry, whispered to him, “Where?”

Jerry shook his head. “I didn’t see him get up.”

Taylor went to Sam. “The guy who grabbed your wrist. Did you see him leave?”

“Yeah. He winked at me as he went out the door. He got up the second you walked past. Why?”

The scent of cigar smoke wafted to her nose. She looked around, didn’t see anyone smoking a cigar. The bar was empty. Taylor had her cell phone out, speed-dialed Baldwin’s number. She gave Sam a wry smile.

“Whatever you do, don’t wash your hands. Something was very wrong with that man. You may have just touched our killer.”

Twenty-Two

Charlotte Douglas schemed as the Lear jet left the terminal building. As far as John Baldwin knew, it was flying her away from Nashville.

The sheer audacity of Baldwin, to push her away with so little regard for her feelings. Who was he to say what she was to do with her life? He’d decided she should leave Nashville. He’d decided she would no longer be of use in capturing the Snow White Killer. He’d pushed her away like she was a whore. Well, she wouldn’t be treated like that, not by him, not by anyone.

He’d had a field agent escort her to the plane. Five minutes after her friend had left, an earnest young man with jutting ears and a solemn smile knocked on her door. After identifying himself as an agent with the Nashville field office, he’d taken her suitcases and practically thrown her out of the hotel room.

She wouldn’t stand for this kind of treatment. Who did these people think they were? They had no idea who they were dealing with.

She left the terminal in a cab and made her way back downtown. Checking back into the same hotel, she 210

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dropped her bags in the room and placed a phone call. She was lonely. She decided to go to the house for the evening instead of hanging at the hotel. A night in her old room, a meal with her father, a thrill with her lover—all would serve to get her back on track. She would come back to the hotel tomorrow, maintain the slim veneer of legitimacy she’d worked hard to conceive.

They weren’t finished. She would have her vengeance. Twenty-Three

Taylor and Baldwin sat close together, re-creating the past half hour. It was entirely possible that the man who’d been in Control this night, as well as the other nights, wasn’t their killer at all. But Taylor had felt something so malevolent, so horrid, emanating from him in that one brief moment that she couldn’t stop thinking about him. A crime-scene tech had arrived quietly. If this was the haunt of their killer, they didn’t want to draw too much at

tention to the fact that they were closing in. The tech had gone over Sam’s arm carefully but got nothing. The man had paid for his beer with three one-dollar bills, all of which were confiscated for processing, but the odds of them actually finding some kind of DNA or prints that would be both usable and admissible in court were slim to none.

Jerry the bartender had proved worth his weight in gold. He’d positively identified each of the four women killed by the Snow White copycat. All four of them had been in the bar at one time or another. Finally, they had their staging area. Taylor hoped like hell she’d just caught a glimpse of their killer.

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A police artist had been working with Sam and Jerry to create a composite, but the end result was too generic. It could be anyone. Their mystery man had nothing excep

tional about him except a bad haircut, at least that either Jerry or Sam could recall.

Taylor was furious with herself. She had felt it, the malice that radiated off the man. She’d played the situa

tion wrong. Maybe he’d seen her badge and gun and it scared him away. Maybe she was just imaging the whole thing, and the man she’d seen was just another patron. She was wound so tight, it wasn’t so far-fetched. She was standing by the bar, aggravated as all get out, tempted to topple a pile of Amstel Lights, when the crimescene tech shouted for her.

“Lieutenant? I’ve got something here.”

She went to the woman, a short, overweight brunette named Ricki with a sweet smile and an even sweeter dis

position.

“Hey, Ricki, what do you have?”

She held up a mass of plastic. “Straws. All tied in knots.”

Taylor slipped on a latex glove and took the mass from Ricki. She flashed back to an image of the man, his hands loose between his knees. He might have been tying the straws then.

“This is perfect. Perfect. Thanks, Ricki. Bag this for me, okay? That’s going to be an important piece, so be careful with it, okay?”

“Gotcha, boss.”

“Hold up. What do you have there?” Baldwin came up to her, put an arm around her shoulders. Taylor smiled.

“Show him, Ricki.”

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Baldwin looked closely at the clear plastic bag, now closed with red evidence tape. “Intricate.”

“You could say that. If they match up to the knots in the ropes we have in the lab, we might have something. Ricki, can you test them for trace, too? We’re looking for some more of that creamy substance found on the previous victims.

She turned to Baldwin, excitement making her heart pound. “Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Those knots are so different, so unique.”

“That they are. I can imagine a killer this precise using the knots as a tool, a pastime. Something so intricate takes practice.”

“Well, he was pissed when that chick came in and blew right past him. The guy that sat here is used to being admired, used to being fussed over. If it was the copycat, I’d bet we’re going to have another murder, and soon. How much lead time do you think he needs now?”

Baldwin looked at her, eyebrow raised. “We might make a profiler out of you yet. If he’s ru

Taylor remembered the man’s silhouette, the tense way he took up space, and shuddered. “I’ll be happy to make that happen.”

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* * *

They stayed at the bar for another hour, trying to act normal as the CS techs surreptitiously combed through the place. It was late, and Taylor was tired. When Baldwin offered to drive her home, she didn’t resist. She let him tuck her into bed, accepted a kiss on the forehead, like a child just finished with a bedtime story. As he was leaving the room, his hand on the light switch, she called to him, “I’m supposed to do some things tomorrow. Girl things. Sam things.”