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    LePoast’s fingers flew back to the keys. “Then, my dear Sherlock, it’s not our concern.”
    She stopped pacing and huffed, “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
    “That’s me: John LePoast, a piece of work. Right you are. Speaking of work…”
    “We should at least check out the camera.”
    “I bet the camera didn’t even take the pictures. I’m tellin’ ya,’ Rez, it’s just some kook who downloaded the photos from the Net. I mean, what kinda stupid name is Regis Willoughby anyway? That’s totally made up.”  
    “All the same, if it is a hoax, it could net us the guy who started the hoax in the first place. That would be worth something, right?”
    “Don’t pull that crap on me, Rez. I know how you feel about the Smiling Jack case. That’s not your angle and you know it.”
    Agent Rezvani crossed her arms and glared. The buzz of the Hoover building, third floor, washed over them. Hushed conversations, phones ringing, keyboards, and old printers.
    LePoast ran a finger under his collar and shrugged uncomfortably. He wasn’t intimidated by her status in the Bureau. He had six years on her. And he certainly wasn’t cowed by her size. She was 5’4” to his 6’2.” But Deanna Rezvani had a presence about her—a mix of grace, confidence, and moxy—that filled up the room and made her partner a little nervous.  
    It didn’t help that she was drop-dead gorgeous.  
    She had rich brown hair, burnished by the sun, curled naturally and tied back in a loose tail just above the nape of her neck. Big, brown, almond-shaped eyes under thin golden brows, cute nose, and full lips that curled impishly in the corners—and always iced with that dark plum lipstick. Her olive skin was smooth and lightly tanned, and she always rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse to the elbows. Even in FBI-acceptable attire, Dee Rezvani looked like a bronze statue of Venus. But LePoast was a married man, so he didn’t notice such things.  
    Still, he squirmed a little under her expectant gaze. He felt a little like a bug getting roasted by the sun under some cruel kid’s magnifying glass. “Whaddaya want, Dee?”
    “I want to go to Destin,” she said.
    “Don’t we all,” LePoast shot back. “Some of the sweetest beaches in the world.”
    “You know what I mean. I want to meet this Regis, size him up. Something about this case…I don’t know. I just feel like something’s going to break. I want to be there when it does.”
    “The case is closed, Dee. Sheesh, it’s not even an actual case. You wanna go to Florida, go to the Deputy Director.”

    * * *     * * *     * * *     * * *

    “Absolutely not.” Deputy Director Ulysses Barnes looked like he’d been hewn from granite, or perhaps something harder. Fifty-nine years old, ex-Navy Seal, ex-Navy Seal Instructor, Barnes still exercised the equivalent of the Ironman Triathlon each and every month. At his desk, he sat with thick arms in front of him, knob-knuckled hands clasped. He was as rigid as could be, looking very much like the head of a sledge hammer. He just sat there, impassive and unyielding.  
    Deanna Rezvani waited, but she knew that game wouldn’t work on the Deputy Director like it did on LePoast. Barnes had the constitution to out-wait anyone. As Deputy to the most powerful officer in the FBI, Barnes acted as a kind of physical filter for his boss—nothing short of a state of emergency got past him to the Director.  
    Once, a junior agent gave Barnes a wooden replica of former President Truman’s “The Buck Stops Here” plaque. Deputy Director Barnes tossed it in the trash and said, “Truman was a wuss.”
    “Deputy Director, Sir,” Rezvani said. “Please reconsider. The Smiling Jack case could be one of the worst serial murder strings in U.S. history. Twelve dead already, and now six more taken? If we can get something from this Willoughby, we might be able to rescue some of these women.”
    “Do you hear yourself,