"Who is he going to murder?"

"If we knew that, Will, we wouldn't be having this meeting," Jared said, holding up a hand to stop the conversation while the young male waiter returned to serve their lunch.

"Anyone need anything else?" the waiter asked. a.s.sured that no one did, the young man left the room, and once again closed the door.

"Somehow I get the feeling that I'm the only person in this room who doesn't quite know what's going on." Will's gaze went from one face to the next, stopping when he reached Miranda.

"That must be a first," she murmured as she picked a slice of tomato from her sandwich.

Ignoring her, he turned to Jared.

"How 'bout you bring me up to speed?"

Jared nodded and finished chewing a mouthful of sandwich.

"Several months ago, there was a series of murders in Lyndon, a community about thirty-five miles from here. All women whose names were listed in the phone book as Mary Douglas or M. Douglas."

"Wait, I heard about this. Mara Douglas, your sister, was the intended victim," Will addressed Anne Marie.

"That's right. That's how the Bureau became involved in the first place. I called in Aidan Shields from medical leave to work with us."

Will turned to Miranda.

"You called me during that investigation. You wanted information on an old case from Ohio. The victim was Jenny Green. . . ."

"Proving that the rumors about Will are all true." Miranda glanced at the others. "He never forgets a d.a.m.ned thing."

He continued, "You wanted copies of the statements of a suspect you'd interviewed at the time. He'd been let go."

"Right again." Miranda nodded. "Here's the story in a nutsh.e.l.l. We had several victims here in eastern Pennsylvania. Evan was the lead detective on these cases because, at the time, he was with the Lyndon Police Department. Something about the crime scenes reminded me of a case I'd worked on about six years earlier. That Ohio case was the first time I'd worked in the field, so everything was memorable. I remembered wanting to reinterview a suspect who'd just flat-out disappeared. I called Will to look up the file, get the name of the suspect for me. Once we had that, and a little information on him, Aidan followed that thread to a man named Curtis Alan Channing."

She paused to sip at her water.

"Channing was a serial killer who'd been a real busy boy over the years. But he'd flown so far under the radar that his prints weren't even on file anywhere."

"If he was under the radar, how do you know he was a serial killer?" Will asked.

"The Bureau has been running his DNA through the data banks," Miranda explained. "So far, we've had hits on old, unsolved cases in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. He was not only busy, he was clever. He could have gone on for years."

"Then a few months back, he ran a stop sign in my town." Evan picked up the story. "The officer who stopped him found an outstanding warrant for another Curtis A. Channing, and over Channing's protests that they had the wrong man, he was hauled out to the county prison, since the arrest had been made on a Sat.u.r.day night." Evan leaned back in his chair. "The following Monday, when the courthouse opened, Channing went before a judge, proved his ident.i.ty, and was released."

"And he then proceeded to murder how many women?" Jared shuffled through the stack of notes he'd made the night before.

"Three women named Mary Douglas," Anne spoke softly, "and two other women. My sister, Mara, would have been his sixth victim, if he'd had his way."

"Where is he now?" Will asked.

"In h.e.l.l, where he belongs," Anne Marie replied.

"So what's this got to do with this Archer Lowell?" Will asked.

"All of the victims-including his intended victim, Mara Douglas-had a connection to a man named Vincent Giordano. He killed his family in cold blood, and was convicted and sentenced to several life sentences," Evan told Will. "Sentences he'll never serve, because the evidence used to convict him was all tainted, all fabricated. They had to let him go."

Will whistled long and low. "That had to hurt."

"More than you could imagine." Evan grimaced.

"How were Channing's victims connected to Giordano?" Will pushed his plate aside and rested his arms on the table.

"Mara was the child advocate who recommended that the court terminate Giordano's parental rights to his sons," Evan said. "One of the other victims was the judge who ordered that termination; the other was Giordano's former mother-in-law. The other three Douglas women were killed by mistake. Channing hadn't done his homework too well at first. He'd been a little sloppy there in the beginning."

"So you were able to put Giordano back into prison as Channing's accomplice?" Will surmised.

"No. Not only was Giordano still behind bars while the killing was going on, we have not been able to positively establish that the two men ever met. Giordano, of course, swears he never met Channing and has no idea who he is."

"I'm confused. I don't understand what this has to do with this other guy, this Archer Lowell."

"Shortly after Giordano was released from the county prison, my sister Amanda's business partner was found with a bullet through his head." Evan spoke levelly. "Not long after that, another close friend of Amanda's was found murdered."

"And Lowell, who had been convicted of stalking and a.s.saulting your sister . . ." Will's fingers began to beat softly upon the table.

"Was still in prison," Evan told him.

"And your sister?" Will asked tentatively.

"Is alive and well because of Miranda and the local chief of police," Evan said. "Giordano came after her."

"But what was the connection between your sister's partner and her friend-the two deceased-and Giordano?" Will accurately followed the sequence.

"There was none to Giordano," Evan said, "but they were both people who had p.i.s.sed off Archer Lowell. Both had given statements to the police about Lowell's actions; both had made it very clear they were going to testify against him at his trial. Their testimony was the main reason Lowell's attorney insisted that he accept the plea offered by the D.A."

"Strangers on a Train," Will murmured. "You do mine, I'll do yours. . . ." Will murmured. "You do mine, I'll do yours. . . ."

"Exactly." Miranda nodded, then added grudgingly, "You figured that out a lot faster than we did."

"Channing offed people who had connections to Giordano, Giordano took out people who had connections to Lowell. So if the pattern holds, we could expect Lowell to be going after people who have ties to Channing," Will said.

"That's the way we see it." Miranda munched a potato chip.

"So, if we're correct in a.s.suming that Channing got the names of his victims from Giordano," Will continued, "and Giordano got the names of his victims from Lowell, we have to figure out whose names Channing gave to Lowell. Who, over the course of his life, p.i.s.sed off Channing sufficiently that he'd want them dead."

"Unfortunately," Miranda reminded him, "Channing himself is now dead."

"Guess we won't be getting much help from him," Will muttered.

"So the question is, who is Lowell going to go after, now that he's out of prison, and how do we get to them before he does?" Jared stated the obvious.

"Why don't we just ask him?"

Four heads swung in Will's direction.

"Why don't we ask him?" Will repeated.

"I doubt he's going to admit that he's part of a conspiracy to commit murder," Jared said dryly.

"One of two things will happen." Will's fingers were all now drumming on the table. "He'll either tell us the truth, or he won't. Either way, he'll know that we know. It might be a deterrent, if in fact he was planning something."

"Will has a point," Anne Marie said. "At the very least, he'll know that someone will be watching him. Of course, he won't tell the truth. . . ."

"Why not?" Will turned to her. "Who is there for him to be afraid of? Channing's dead, and Giordano is back in prison, right?"

"He won't admit to the conspiracy." Evan shook his head. "He's out, he's going to want to stay out. Why should he implicate himself in anything?"

"Maybe, if he thought he could get immunity, he'd tell the truth," Will suggested.

"I know this guy," Evan told him. "He'll smirk and he'll lie, but he'll never admit to knowing either of the others. As a matter of fact, he's already denied ever having met them. Believe me, I've asked."

"What's his incentive?" Will persisted. "There's no one to make him follow through."

"We don't know what his intentions are," Anne Marie agreed, "but I think, knowing what we know, we have to proceed as if he is planning on playing this out. Several lives could be at stake."

"Then we really have nothing to lose by confronting him." Jared turned to Miranda. "Since you were involved in the other two cases and know some of the players, I'd like you to take the lead here. Pay him a visit, have a little chat with him."

"My pleasure." Miranda smiled. She'd expected this.

"You, Fletcher." Jared directed his gaze to the opposite side of the table. "You'll go along. I want him to know that the Bureau is very, very serious about this. Two agents will make a stronger impression than one."

"But what about Annie and Evan?" Miranda frowned. "Evan's dealt with Lowell before, and Annie's insights into his personality would be invaluable. I'd think either of them would be better suited to the a.s.signment than Will."

"Annie is headed back to Quantico for a lecture she's giving tomorrow, and Detective Crosby-who, may I remind you, does not work for the Bureau-is heading back to his cla.s.ses at the National Academy. John asked them here today strictly for their input." Jared closed his folder and slipped it back into his briefcase. "The case is all yours, Agent Cahill. Yours, and Agent Fletcher's. Visit Archer Lowell. Find out what he's up to. Put the fear of G.o.d into him. Any questions?"

He looked from Miranda to Will, then back again. They both shook their heads no. No questions.

"Good." Jared grinned amicably as he stood. "Now, let's see if I can find Mrs. Duffy. Anyone else want dessert?"

CHAPTER THREE.

"What a great way to start off a new week," Miranda grumbled under her breath as she hung her clothes in the small closet of her room at the Fleming Inn. Just peachy.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, she'd live out of her suitcase rather than take time from a job to unpack. But these circ.u.mstances were not the norm, and she needed a little bit of a break between finding out with whom she'd been partnered on this a.s.signment, and actually forging ahead. It wasn't that she had doubts about Will's abilities. On the contrary, he had an unfailingly accurate mind for facts and dates. Unfailing, and highly annoying, as far as she was concerned. The man had a mind like a steel trap. He never forgot a d.a.m.ned thing.

Except the things that might have mattered most.

"Might have is the key here," she murmured to herself. "Apparently, some things mattered only to me." have is the key here," she murmured to herself. "Apparently, some things mattered only to me."

Let it go. That was then; this is now. You're a professional. He's a professional. You have a job to do. Several innocent lives may very well depend on how well you do it.

"Right," she muttered aloud as she debated a change in clothing. The red jacket and short black skirt had been fine for the meeting, but now she was going into the field. She decided to change.

"Absolutely right. Focus on Will Fletcher, federal agent, and stuff Will Fletcher, the man I once thought I was in love with, into some dark, subterranean place where he belongs."

She traded the short skirt for tailored black pants, the white sweater for a crisp white shirt, all the while mentally toying with the image of Will Fletcher being physically stuffed into a dark place. Dark and dank. One filled with spiders.

Picturing Will with big black spiders crawling on him somehow cheered her.

"There. I feel better already." She switched jackets and closed the closet door.

She turned off the light and left the room, her leather bag swinging from her right shoulder, her key chain in her hand. She marched down the steps to the first floor.

"Well, you're in a better frame of mind," Will observed from the bottom of the steps, where he leaned upon the newel post.

"Must have been the chocolate mousse."

"I must say I'm a bit disappointed, Cahill." He eyed her as they went out the front door.

"Oh? In what?"

"In the wardrobe change. How many of those black suits do you own, anyway?"

"I have closets full of boring black suits, Fletcher."

"Seriously, what's with that?"

"When I'm in the field, I want to fade as much into the background as possible. I don't want my clothes to be an issue."

"Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Cahill, but it would take a h.e.l.l of a lot more than a black suit for you to fade into the background." He glanced at her sideways, saw her jaw clench.

"Thank you. I think." She shifted her bag a little higher on her shoulder. "Can we get back to the case now?"

"Whatever you say. You ready to take on old Archer?"

"Piece o' cake." She walked past him and took the path that forked to the right.

"My car is over here." He stopped midway down the walk.

"Well, mine is over here." She called back without turning around. "Don't make me remind you who is the lead on this case."

"That ent.i.tles you to drive?"

"Absolutely."

"Do I have to ride with you in that?"