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But Kaminsky didn’t say anything. Hoping to ward off any revelations, Charlie stepped into the breach.

“I’m almost positive there’s something in this bag that’s important to the investigation,” Charlie said. Having with Kaminsky’s help wrapped it in several layers of garbage bags earlier to protect it from the rain, Charlie handed the swaddled shopping bag to Tony. “I don’t know what it is, though.”

“We’re thinking maybe microscopic blood splatter on the clothes,” Kaminsky added. The look she flicked Charlie, combined with the fact that she had passed up the chance to tattle to Tony, made Charlie feel that Kaminsky was going to keep quiet about her meltdown in the cemetery. It was a woman-to-woman thing, a solidarity that was unexpected. Charlie recognized and appreciated it for what it was, and acknowledged it with a barely perceptible nod of thanks at Kaminsky. “Maybe it’s something from the unsub. Maybe he cut himself. Or … who knows? Probably everything in there ought to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb in the lab.”

Tony agreed, and disappeared with the bag. Kaminsky looked at Crane.

“So, did I miss anything?”

“Lots of stuff. You wearing flip-flops?” He frowned as he stared at Kaminsky’s feet. They looked small, pale, and a little plump in Charlie’s too-large flip-flops. Kaminsky had a nice pedicure, though.

“I broke a heel. These belong to Dr. Stone.”

Charlie sighed. She’d had a long day, she’d disgraced herself by crying like a little girl, she was damp and hungry and heartsick on so many levels she couldn’t even bring herself to try to count them all, and she was, at least for the moment, tired of being Dr. Stone.

“You know, you guys can call me Charlie.”

Kaminsky shot her a look. Forget solidarity. The attitude was back. “No, we can’t.”

Frowning, Charlie reflected attitude right back at her. “Why not?”

“ ’Cause then you’ll call me Lena, and him Buzz, and since you and Bartoli already have the Tony and Charlie thing going on, we’ll all be just too tight for words, and it will be unprofessional.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking for a while that the way you call me Crane and I call you Kaminsky is idiotic,” Crane said before Charlie could reply. “I’ve known you since you had braces. Lena.”

“And I’ve known you since you first started chasing after my sister, Crane. Which is at least one really good reason why neither one of us wants to go there.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I—”

Crane broke off as Tony walked back into the room.

“Taylor’s running that bag over to the lab. If there’s anything useful in it, they’ll find it.” Tony must have felt a charge in the atmosphere, because he looked from Crane to Kaminsky to Charlie with a frown. “Something up?”

“No,” Kaminsky said. “Crane was just getting ready to show us something on the computer.”

Crane’s face darkened, but he swung around to face the monitor. “This.” He tapped it.

Tony shot Charlie a look. She shrugged, and then as Kaminsky leaned forward to look at the screen and ask, “What is it?” Charlie focused on it as well.

“All three primary victims attended a dance or a concert where there was dancing within a week of their deaths, just as Charlie predicted.” Crane’s shot across Kaminsky’s bow did not go unnoticed by Tony, who looked at Charlie with raised brows. Behind the others’ backs, she shook her head at him: Don’t ask. “This is all the video footage we’ve been able to obtain from those dances. Right now I’m cross-checking to see who turns up in all three places.”

“You get any hits, Crane?” Kaminsky was dead tired, Charlie knew, but the way she said his name had real bite.

“So far, we’ve got seventeen males who were at all three dances.” Crane tapped a button and the screen filled with rows of tiny faces that looked like they had been culled from driver’s licenses. “Two of the band members, eight members of the security staff—who work for a company called Frigate Protection Services—three members of the audience, the lighting guy, the sound guy, a waiter, and a bartender. We’re running checks on all of them as we speak, but we’re concentrating especially on the security staff.”

“Why?” Kaminsky asked.

“Show them,” Tony directed. Crane did something with the mouse that caused the faces to disappear from the computer and a picture of a black, short-sleeved uniform to appear on the screen instead.

“Zoom in,” Tony said. Crane did, until the uniform’s breast pocket filled the screen.

Charlie caught her breath.

Embroidered on it in bright yellow thread was a logo: a bird in flight above the company name.

“It’s a frigate bird,” Tony said with satisfaction. “I don’t know for sure yet, but I’d say there’s a good possibility that the logo is on other items of clothing, too, like maybe a watch cap.”

“Oh, my God.” That was the best news Charlie had had for a while. “Did you try matching the men against the physical description and other parameters?”

“Working on it,” Crane said.

“We’re going to get him.” Tony’s smile was grim. “Hopefully before he can hurt anybody else.”

“Have you had a chance to cross-check these guys against the video that was shot at Jockey’s Ridge?” Charlie felt a shot of excitement. She knew the killer had been there, as surely as she knew anything.

“I’ve been over all the Jockey’s Ridge video, and I’ve run it through the facial recognition software,” Crane said. “None of them turn up.”

Charlie gave a quick frown. “Let me see.”

Tony intervened. “Tomorrow. I’m pulling the plug on you and Kaminsky for tonight.”

“What about me?” Crane groaned.

“Not you. You’re not done with the license plate checks.”

Kaminsky straightened and looked first at Tony, then at Charlie, to whom her subsequent remark was addressed. “Doesn’t sending the women off to bed while the men stay and work strike you as being just a little bit sexist?”

“A little bit,” Charlie agreed.

“Fine.” Tony threw up his hands. “You two want to stick around and help Crane? Have at it.”

The license plate checks turned up nothing that even smacked of being a smoking gun, and by the time they were finished with them, it was nearly eleven. Charlie, for one, was drooping with fatigue. The rain had turned into a full-blown thunderstorm as she, Kaminsky, and Crane—Tony had headed off to confer with Haney about something—dashed for the house, garbage bags held over their heads. Damp and exhausted, Charlie left Kaminsky and Crane to bicker in private as soon as they were inside, eager to get upstairs, shower, and fall into bed. But as she reached the door to her rooms, she hesitated, then acknowledged the truth: she had butterflies in her stomach.

Why? Because after her display in the graveyard, she was nervous as all get out at the prospect of coming face-to-face with Garland again.

But he wasn’t in the apartment. That was both a relief and a worry. She didn’t have to see him right away, which gave her time to further build up her defenses; but on the other hand, the thought that he might already have been sucked away into eternity without either of them having so much as the chance to say good-bye was a prospect that, to her consternation, filled her with dismay.

You’re worried you won’t have the chance to say good-bye to Garland? This isn’t good.

As she showered and then deliberately pulled on what was probably her least sexy sleepwear—silky pink pajama pants and a matching camisole, which at least covered her legs—in anticipation of Garland’s showing up eventually, Charlie reluctantly did what she absolutely hated to do: she turned all her years of education and training inward and psychoanalyzed herself.

Because she had Daddy issues as a result of having the opposite-gender parent absent for almost her entire life, and because she had trust issues as a result of having an alcoholic and totally unreliable primary parental figure, she somewhere deep inside believed herself unworthy of being loved. Therefore, she chose to enter into relationships that were programmed from their outset to fail. She sabotaged them herself, subconsciously but consistently, by choosing a male partner who for some reason or another was incapable of forming a stable and lasting partnership bond.