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her solar plexus as she recognized the area code; 703 usually meant Bureau business, and Bureau business usually meant a restless husband. It was not unlike a liquor store calling a recovering drunk just to tell him about the latest bargain prices on grain alcohol. Bureau people often called Ulysses for a quote for some profile, or even a few hours of consultation. “It’s just a little light reading,” he would assure Maura, “just a glorified book report.” But Maura knew the truth: every time the FBI called with some new abomination of nature, some new monster on the loose, Ulysses got restless, like a bloodhound getting the scent.
    The phone rang a third time, and Maura finally snatched the cordless off its cradle and answered.
    â€œHello,” she croaked in an anxious voice, hoarse with nervous tension.
    The voice on the other end of the line was not the voice she had expected.
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    A thick roux of fog had rolled in over Emerald Isle beach, and now the air stewed with a gray briny mist pushing down from Kitty Hawk. Somewhere out in the black opaque distance, a lighthouse bell sent a melancholy clang echoing over the breakers. The only other sound was the shrill babble of an old lobsterman who stood between two policemen on the beach, gazing down at the human wreckage on the sand, the ragged form barely visible in the magnesium-silver beams of their flashlights.
    â€œI tell ya, it’s the drugs, it’s the crystal meth and the bathtub speed and them college kids comin’ down here from Duke every Easter. Just last year we had some drug addict commit suicide off that same dad-blamed dock right up—”
    â€œSir, please,” one of the cops broke in, raising a beefy hand in an attempt to stem the flow of babble. The older of the two patrolmen, Officer Ted Stenowski had been on the Outer Banks beat for most of his twenty-seven years with the force, but he had never seen anything on the beach quite like this . “I’m going to need you to hold that thought and be quiet for a second.”
    The old salty dog stuck out his lower lip and gave the cop an indignant grunt.
    Stenowski went over to Karen Finnerty’s remains, his Wellington boots sinking down to the ankles in the muck. High tide had come in only minutes ago, and now the waves licked at the woman’s corpse, gently nudging it sideways with every sudsy ripple. Stenowski shone his flashlight down at the victim. Darkening blood swirled on the seafoam like threads of raspberry syrup.
    â€œThis is no suicide,” Stenowski muttered, somewhat rhetorically, more to himself than anyone else. He shone the light off to the left of the corpse, then off to the right. Then he took a second look at everything. He saw the remnants of something scratched into the sand vanishing on the waves.
    They looked like letters.
    â€œJohnny, get on the blower to Raleigh, get Dave Van Teigham and the whole CSI bunch down here.”
    Behind Stenowski, the younger cop frowned. “You want the Bureau in on this thing?”
    Stenowski didn’t answer—he had too many things running through his mind at that moment as he stared down at the meticulously mutilated victim.
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    The door to little Aaron’s room clicked open softly, and Maura peered into the darkness.
    Ulysses Grove sat in a bentwood rocker next to his child’s crib, rocking and thinking. Only the faint yellow glow of a night-light and a pale perfect victim of moonlight coming through the blinds illuminated Grove’s chiseled features. One of Aaron’s coloring books sat on his lap.
    For the last hour he had been absently doodling in the margins of the book with a black crayon, drawing the same symbol over and over—the bulbous gun-target silhouette from his class. The faceless effigy of the every-killer . It was a symbol that had been haunting the periphery of his dreams and visions for nearly a year, ever since he had turned his elaborate