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table.
    “It must have felt so so so so so so good,” I said, pitching my voice low and breathy, “to watch them realize they were going to die.”
    I remember his look. Horror and fascination and hope. Could almost hear his thoughts.
    Could she actually understand? Was it possible?
    It was, God help me, though not in the way he thought. I felt it, I understood it, but in the end, my understanding was synthetic. I was unfaithful; only Jasper’s love was pure.
    He blabbered and blathered and sweated and shook and he talked. He told me his secrets. He was happy to share, grateful to finally have an audience. I listened and nodded and pretended empathy.
    It occurred to me that Jasper had probably used false empathy to lure those women. Did this make him my victim? Our aims weren’t that much different. He wanted to destroy those women; I wanted to destroy him. The difference between us is that he deserved it.
    None of these thoughts had shown on my face. I’d given him my full attention. At one point, I even held his hand when he cried. Poor Jasper, I had whispered. Poor, poor Jasper.
    I went home that night and soaked in the tub till the water turned cold.
    AD Jones is asking me to dive into that oil, to begin the process, to start feeling the man who did this.
    “I don’t have enough data yet,” I say. “No emotional component. The act itself is incredible. Audacious. That has meaning to him. It’s either a message or it heightens the excitement, or both.”
    “What kind of message?”
    It pops into my head from nowhere, a shallow dive. “I’m perfect. Or the reason for what I’m doing is perfect.”
    AD Jones frowns. “How’s that?”
    “It’s like…murder in a locked room. He killed her midair. He was trapped and surrounded by witnesses. I think he killed her early in the flight too, so he could sit there next to the body and feel that excitement. It would have been tantalizing. Would someone notice? If they did, there was no way out. Only someone who was perfect could do this, could have the courage, could master that fear. He felt protected, either by his own ability, or because what he was doing was right.”
    “What else?”
    “He’s very smart, very organized, capable of long-range, meticulous planning. He’ll be older, but not too old. Late forties.”
    “Why?”
    “He’s too confident to be young, too practiced.” I sigh. “We’ll interview the other passengers, but I can almost guarantee any description we get will be inaccurate.”
    “You think he used a disguise?”
    “Yes, but it will have been subtle. Hair color, tinted contacts, things like that. The greatest difference will be personality. He’ll have adopted a characteristic that will stand out in the witnesses’ memories, something that caught their eye and drowned out other observations.”
    “What makes you sure about this?”
    “Anything less wouldn’t be perfect. Only perfection would do.”
     
    JOHNSTON BEGAN TO PEEL LISA’S face down from her skull so he could open her head and get to her brain. I decide this is a good time to do something else. I place a call to Bonnie. It’s almost eight-thirty here, which means it’s dinnertime in California. She answers the cell phone I’d gotten for her on the first ring.
    “Hi, Smoky!”
    “Hi, sweetheart. How are you?”
    “I’m fine. Elaina made macaroni and cheese.”
    Elaina Washington is the wife of Alan, a member of my team. She’s one of my favorite people, a Latin woman who was born to provide love and support to those in her life. Not in some sugar-sweet, overly sentimental way; Elaina can love you as much by chastising you when you need it as by hugging you. She was the first to come visit me in the hospital after Sands’s attack. She held me in her arms and got me to cry, and I’ll always love her for that.
    Elaina watches Bonnie when work situations like this one pop up. She also homeschools my adopted daughter.
    “That’s great, babe.”
    “Alan left.