Morgan asked, “How many other times did you… troll for this guy?”

“Just those two times. Never saw him but on those two occasions.”

“If we brought in a forensic artist,” Rossi said, “would you be able to help develop a picture of this man?”

Minchell’s eyes and nostrils flared. “If this guy’s some kind of killer, and he found out…”

Lorenzon dangled the bag of dope. Morgan watched as Minchell silently calculated how long he would be spending in the Joliet state pen. To nudge him in the correct direction, Morgan got out the evidence bag that held Minchell’s knife.

“The dope is column A,” Morgan said, and then wiggled the bag with the knife. “Column B is federal time.”

Rossi said, “Both is the all-you-can-serve buffet.”

Minchell’s face turned as white as the bandage on his nose.

Then he said, “Sit down with one of those sketch artists? Sounds like fun. Sure. Glad to help.”

Chapter Nine

August 7 Chicago, Illinois

   The man some were calling the UnSub prided himself on his planning, on never leaving any detail untended.

Yet here he was doing something simple, checkingto make sure that dolt was still buried if not dead, and now, looking down at the road, he could see that he was about to be interrupted, some moron butting in on his private business.…

Headlights turned into the gravel driveway and started up the long hill to the house, toward the back of which the UnSub had, prior to this intrusion,been heading. The sultry night (actually early morning—the time was one fifteen a.m.) offered up only a few lonely clouds that drifted like lazy smoke, blotting out the moon and a thousand stars. His own car was safely hidden in the barn, so the property should still look vacant.

So who the hell could be wandering up the driveway?

As the vehicle drew closer, he could make out a Ford Bronco.…

“More the merrier,” he said with a shrug, then chuckled, and headed to the backyard just as planned.

There, he saw at once that the grave seemed fine, undisturbed, and the man beneath the earth made no sound. The UnSub found his shovel behind the bushes where he’d left it, then leaned it against the back wall of the house—couldn’t set a trap without a carrot.

Moving back along the far side of the abandoned house, keeping the structure between him and the approaching vehicle, he came around the front as the Bronco eased up into the side yard.

The UnSub had his gun drawn as he knelt next to the corner of the old house, waiting to see who his caller was. If this was some lost tourist seeking directions, who knocked on the door, got no answer,and then headed back to the Bronco, who knows? He might just choose to be merciful. After all, his strong suit was not improvisation, but carefullycalibrated performance.

And if this wasn’t some poor traveler seeking assistance?Well, that was different, wasn’t it?

A man climbed down out of the Bronco. When he appeared at the front fender, he was clearly no lost tourist, not with a pistol drawn and a face as clenched as a fist. The UnSub could barely make out the man, who wore a T-shirt and jeans, and— other than a shaved or possibly bald head—the intruder’s features couldn’t be made out, not distinctly.

The intruder headed cautiously around the back of the house while the UnSub reversed his directionand circled around behind. As surmised, the bald man had spotted the pipe in the ground, and the propped-up shovel, and immediately holstered his weapon, grabbed the implement and started digging.

The UnSub let him dig a while.

Then, coming up behind the intruder, the UnSub said, “Don’t turn around.”

“It’s over, asshole,” the bald man said, stopping his work, leaning on a shovel full of dirt. “Denson, Wauconda PD. You’re surrounded.”

“Am I?”

“I knewit was you.…”

“If you knew—”

That was as far as the UnSub got before Denson spun, throwing the shovelful of dirt toward him. The UnSub had anticipated this move, however, and sidestepped, and shot the bald cop in the belly before the man ever got his gun back out. The bald man did an awkward little pirouette and dropped facedown into the shallow hole. He was breathing heavily, but whether conscious or not, the UnSub couldn’t tell.

“Gut shot like that,” the UnSub told his guest, who could possibly hear him, or possibly not, “it should take a while for you to die. Maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. Although, it’s likely you’ll suffocate first.”

Picking up the cop’s gun from the ground, stickingit in his waistband, the UnSub whistled “WhistleWhile You Work” and he casually started refilling the grave on top of the intruder who now lay on the very slightly exposed plywood casket, from which perhaps could be detected the tiniest whimpering.

Smiling as he casually tossed a shovelful of dirt to plop onto the man’s back, the seeping exit wounds turning the dirt damp, the UnSub said, “Don’t you fools know? I’m always a step ahead.”

That gunshot, before, would have sounded like a cannon going off out here in the middle of nowhere,so it was best to finish fast and leave.

That’s just what the killer did.

Once the burial was complete, the ground patted down hard around the pipe, he returned the shovel to its place behind the bushes, pulled his vehicle out of the barn, pulled the cop’s in. The last thing he did, before shutting the barn door behind him, was remove latex gloves that prevented him from leaving fingerprints on anything; these he threw into a corner of the barn.

He got into his car and drove away. Here he was in the middle of the night—actually, the early hours of morning—and he still had work to do.

Who was it said, no rest for the wicked?

Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid knew he was blessed in his ability to get by on short sleep. On the BAU, that was as valuable to Reid as his intelligence or his memory.

Hotchner had phoned just before six a.m., barely four hours after Reid had finally crawled into bed, and told him to be in the hotel lobby, ASAP. Fifteen minutes later, mildly disheveled, hair still damp from a hurried shower, Reid exited the elevator into the lobby to find Hotchner, Prentiss and Rossi waiting.

Hotchner, newspaper folded under his arm, his countenance perhaps even more tense than normal, looked typically impeccable in his navy blue suit, as did Rossi in a gray suit of his own. Prentiss too seemed to have taken more time than Reid getting ready, and Reid wondered if he had been the last one called or whether the others were just better organized.

The next elevator car opened and muscular Morgan emerged looking like he’d walked out of a magazine ad in black loafers, slacks, and a T-shirt that might have been spray-painted on.

Only Jareau was MIA, and Reid wondered where the normally hyper-punctual JJ was until he spotted her through the hotel’s glass doors. She, too, was impeccable in a gray pants suit, though her hair swung animatedly as she paced a small patch of sidewalk, cell phone pressed to her ear, engaged in a heated conversation with someone.

Seldom had Reid seen JJ this upset—she was naturally cool and her liaison role required her to be cooler than that; but now and then she lost it, though judging by her gestures, she was as worked up now as he’d ever seen her. As she marched back and forth beyond the door, her expression said that whoever was on the other end of the call had not informed Jareau she’d just won the lottery.…

Reid turned to Hotchner. “What’s going on? That’s not JJ’s normal style.”

“ Thisis going on,” Hotch said tersely. The team leader took the paper from under his arm and handed it to Reid like a summons he was serving.