A bird suddenly appeared. Flying up from the yard next door, it cawed loudly as it arced over their heads and was silhouetted against the bright afternoon sun. Just a bird.

"Damn, you've got me jittery now," Jackie said.

"It's fine," she insisted. "I'm fine."

"I know you are. And I promise you, Lily, you're going to stay that way. You've got a whole team of people behind you who are going to make absolutely certain of it."

Deputy Director Fred Crandall had worked his way into his position by way of intelligence, determination, drive, and luck. But his complete lack of a conscience certainly hadn't hurt. Nor had the generally slimy factor of his personality.

Wyatt couldn't stand the man and the feeling was entirely mutual. From the moment his boss had landed the job, thanks to the ass-kissing at high levels that it always took to reach this office, he'd done what he could to fuck with Wyatt. The man had just disliked him from the get-go, despite Wyatt's record, the cases he'd closed and the commendations he'd received.

Crandall's former right-hand man, Ray Letterman, who had recruited Wyatt right out of college and had once been a close friend, used to say it was pure jealousy. That while Crandall might own several thousand-dollar suits, he still wore them as if they'd come off the rack from Kmart, while Wyatt could be in a bulletproof vest and jeans and look more stylishly dressed.

Wyatt didn't believe it. It was inconceivable that a man at Crandall's level would let class envy dictate how he did his job. But something had definitely crawled up the man's ass about Wyatt even before the scandal that had cost so many-including Letterman-their careers. Since then? Well, Crandall hadn't declared outright war, but it had come pretty close. This next skirmish could end up becoming a major battle.

"Just when were you gonna let the rest of us in on your little private investigation, Blackstone?" Crandall's jowly face quivered with fury. "Do you know how fucking embarrassing it is to find out one of my own people is conducting a private investigation nobody else in the bureau knows about? If the local police hadn't contacted Anspaugh about the badge, and asked if the case was connected to the other flower murders you put out a bulletin on, we might never have known. Just how many more murders would it have taken for you to do your job?"

"I was under the impression I was doing my job," Wyatt murmured, impassive, as he'd been from the minute he'd stepped into the office. Keeping a slight smile on his mouth, with his legs crossed, and his fingers laced together on his lap, he knew the mere sight of him was sending Crandall into a frenzy. The man was all rage and bluster and Wyatt's very demeanor offended him. Yet the louder the deputy director got. the more quiet and pleasant Wyatt's response.

"Oh, right. When did it become your job to investigate serial killers? Isn't that why we have the BAU?"

"I believe, sir, that's exactly what you tasked me to do when you ordered me to form the team. Isn't catching serial killers what we've been doing since day one, starting with the Reaper?"

Crandall smirked. "Right, the one you let get away?"

The killer, Seth Covey, hadn't exactly gotten away. He'd hanged himself to avoid being taken into custody. Something Crandall and his ilk liked to call the team's failure.

"The point remains, you asked me to lead a team that would solve Internet-related murders, and that's what I've been doing."

"This case isn't about Internet murder and you know it!"

Wyatt shrugged. "I disagree. The victims were chosen specifically because of the Web sites, chat rooms, and message boards they frequented. They were stalked on those sites. Their meetings were arranged in cyberspace. How much more wired does a case need to be?"

Crandall smacked his hand on his desk. "I meant this case is about a whole lot more than the Internet."

"Perhaps, but are you denying the basic elements are all there?" Wyatt wasn't about to let it go, needing Crandall to admit he had no reason to take the investigation away from him. "My interest was captured purely by virtue of the Internet lure, the e-mail communications and the child-pornography sites visited by the victims. Unless the definition of Internet connection has changed, I was doing absolutely nothing other than my job."

The other man frowned, but couldn't deny it. He leaned back in his chair, his pig eyes narrowing to twin slits. "Why didn't the rest of your team know about it?"

"We're a very busy group. That murder-for-hire case was at its peak, and we hadn't officially been asked to help on the first few murders. I was, essentially, gathering information, laying the groundwork for bringing the team in."

"You sure about that? You sure you didn't keep it to yourself when you figured out it had something to do with Lily Fletcher?"

This was the first time Lily's name had come up, but of course Wyatt had been expecting it, so he managed to remain completely impassive. "Fletcher?"

"Don't be coy."

"Why would I connect the case to her? I didn't receive the call about the latest victim, found holding her badge. What other reason was there to think she might have some connection?"

Crandall yanked a file folder off a pile on the corner of his desk and flipped it open. "How about because the killer left lilies at every scene?"

"You would have preferred daisies?"

Crandall sputtered.

"My point is there are probably hundreds of varieties of flowers. Why would one variety make me think of a woman lost in the line of duty so many months ago?" he added, emphasizing the line of duty part. Because Crandall might be thinking of Lily as a suspect already, but that didn't mean he should be. "The next time we find a body lying near a rosebush, should we put out an APB on anyone named Rose?"

Crandall's face reddened more as he grew more irritated, more distracted from the main point. That was good. Wyatt wanted him distracted, kept off guard, and going in the wrong directions, if only to prevent the man from asking the right questions.

Trying to keep the exchange normal, not give Crandall any reason to think he could get away with treating him like anything other than an equal, Wyatt said, "I apologize for not being here yesterday when the new case came in. I was, as you know, out of state. I'll look forward to seeing the details on it."

Crandall didn't respond, just watched him in silence, staring right into Wyatt's eyes. Wyatt had absolutely no problem holding that stare, maintaining his calm, aloof demeanor. He had faced men far more intimidating than Deputy Director Fred Crandall, and if the man thought he could browbeat him, he was sorely mistaken.

Crandall had exactly one weapon he could use against Wyatt. One card he could play that would bring him to heel and have him doing whatever the man wanted. Fortunately, though, he did not yet know that one weapon was still alive.

If asked directly, would Wyatt have lied about it? Said he didn't know if Lily had survived, or where she might be? Considering his aversion to lies of any sort, he wasn't sure. Thankfully, he'd been spared from having to decide because the question had not come up.

A knock on the closed office door was quickly followed by someone opening it and stepping in uninvited. "I heard you were meeting. I think I should be a part of this."

Tom Anspaugh. The agent, with his ill-fitting suit, his crooked tie, and his red-rimmed eyes didn't look well. In fact, he looked like someone who had filled a lot of long, sleepless nights with a lot of cheap liquor. But he had apparently begun to work his way back into Crandall's good graces by bringing news of Wyatt's secret investigation to the deputy director's office.