“Please, Agent Jareau. How many times has a government flack uttered those words?”

“I can’t deny that,” Jareau said coolly, though the harshness of the word “flack” offended her. “I can’t comment directly on an ongoing investigation, of course… but it would be safe to say that any killer who sends pictures of his crimes to a newspaper is looking for attention.”

“Agreed. But perhaps, if we give it to him, he will stop.”

“Mr. Brinkley, how long have you been in the newspaper business?”

“Thirty-two years.”

“And in all that time? Have you ever heard of a serial killer stopping becausehe got attention from the press?”

Several moments crawled past. Then: “You make a reasonable point, Agent Jareau.”

“Thank you,” she said. “You seem like you want to do the right thing here, Mr. Brinkley. Perhaps we can work something out.”

“You’ll give us an exclusive?”

She wanted to say: How many times has an editor of some tabloid rag uttered those words?

But what she did say was, “I can’t make that promise, Mr. Brinkley—not where the public safety could be jeopardized. I do have an idea of how you can sell papers and not interfere in our investigation… and you can do a service to your community as well.”

“I’m listening,” Brinkley said.

“I can give you a twenty-four lead on one thing. Did you get a photo of a young man partially buried in a crawl space?”

“Yes,” Brinkley said.

“The victim is a John Doe. You can run a photo of his face with a plea for anyone who knows him to come forward and identify him.”

“I don’t havea picture of just his face.”

“You will. Our digital intelligence officer will send it to you while she investigates the path the killer’s e-mail took to get to you.”

Brinkley considered that. “And if I fight to keep your agent out of our computers?”

“First, our tech is smarter than you and smarter than me and you couldn’t keep her out with Bill Gates’s help. And second, you want to help us catch this killer—I know you do. That, Mr. Brinkley, makes for favorable press… and it won’t be limited to just your own paper.”

After a moment’s thought, Brinkley said, “Special Agent Jareau, I believe you have yourself a deal.”

“Thank you, Mr. Brinkley. Now, I have one more question for you.”

“Yes?”

“Did he send the photos to the other media outlets?”

Brinkley’s voice was subdued. “I don’t think so. Mine was the only name in the address box and there were no others in the courtesy copy box either. If he didsend the pictures to all the media outlets, would he have taken the time to send a copy to one person at each outlet, individually? That would take a lot longer than just spamming us.”

“I agree.”

“And if he did send mass copies, why send a singlecopy to me? No, Special Agent Jareau, I think it’s possible that he only sent them to us. Then again, it’s not like any other media outlet would tell me if they had copies of these things.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You might put your computer whiz on it.”

“I might at that.”

“Now, Agent Jareau, if I may… one bonus question?”

“All right.”

“You haven’t told Chicago that there’s a serial killer out there—why?”

“It’s a policy of the FBI and the BAU not to discuss ongoing investigations.”

“Yeah, right, that’s the officialese,” Brinkley said. “But how long have you known?”

“Off the record?”

“I could do that,” he said.

“Because of the jurisdictional considerations, and the involved departments not sharing information until now? Two days.”

“Oh hell,” Brinkley said.

Jareau sighed. “That kind of response I’ve been hearing a lot lately.… Our digital intelligence officer, Penelope Garcia, will be in touch within the next half-hour. She’ll send you the picture and start tracking the e-mail, Mr. Brinkley. I want to thank you for your cooperation.”

“We’re not all in it just to make money, Agent Jareau. I’ve seen the photos and I would do everything I could to keep them out of the Examiner, but the last word here is seldom mine. As a concerned citizen, though, I want you to catch this monster and relegate him to some dark hole forever.”

“We’re trying to do just that.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Thank you, Mr. Brinkley.”

“And, uh, Agent Jareau?”

“Yes?”

“Sorry about that ‘flack’ remark. That was un-called for.”

“That’s all right. I almost called your paper a tabloid rag.”

He laughed. “You wouldn’t have been the first.”

Chapter Seven

August 5 Chicago/Aurora, Illinois

   Six days had passed since the last murder and— although the BAU team had been working sixteen-hour days, and sometimes longer—they were no closer to finding, and stopping, the UnSub.

As for the UnSub, he seemed to have taken a very long weekend after re-creating the Gacy murder. While he rested, they had worked. And worked.

For her part, Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss was exhausted. They had already put in eight hours, and now as she stood with Hotchner and the rest, before an expectant audience, she could only wonder if her teammates felt as spent as she did. They were about to present the profile they had developed over the last week.

Their audience consisted of not only the officers from the task force and the affected jurisdictions, but representatives of neighboring communities, as well. So many had been invited (and so many more had asked to attend) that the conference room in the FBI building on West Roosevelt Road would not hold them. Instead, the BAU had borrowed a lecture hall at the University of Chicago.

Three quarters of the seats were filled as the five members of the BAU team gathered on a low stage, Hotchner at the lectern, the others fanned out around him. As usual, the team leader wore an immaculate dark suit. Rossi, to Hotch’s right, wore a charcoal sport coat over a light blue dress shirt with a navy tie and jeans. Beyond him, Jareau wore gray also, a business suit with sensible shoes. To Hotch’s left, Prentiss wore one of her classiest dark business suits and to her left Morgan wore a white button-down with dark tie and slacks, but no jacket. Even Reid, next to Morgan, had his tie snugged in place.

They were the top professionals in the profiling field, and they looked it.

They were all such imbeciles.

The cops, the FBI, the pathetic public, none of them had any idea about him and who he was and what made him tick. The public feared him, but they still didn’t respect him. That would change, as the media fueled the fire. The cops knew only what he wanted them to know, and the FBI even less. And none of them could touch him.

As for the individual citizens who made up this city, they were so goddamn dim that, right now, one of their pitiful ilk was driving him away from a downtown bar, thinking he was a woman.

Oh, he had the requisite attire, a black dress, naturally.His freshly shaven legs looked even better than he had anticipated. Once upon a time, he had created beautiful women from lesser material than this. His wig had been appropriated from home, a prop from that past life, and the makeup had been applied perfectly (tricks of his former trade) in the motel room he had taken for the night—he explained to his wife that he would be at a conference.

His mark was now, ostensibly, driving him to another motel, one that catered to clients who might not necessarily need the room for the whole night.

Hotchner said, “This UnSub has killed six innocent people who appear to have no connection with each other.”

Except for the three who had a connection to Detective Jake Denson,Prentiss thought.

“Three women and three men,” Hotchner said, “with no sexual evidence in the crimes, even when there was in the original crime being mimicked.”