When Vicki came back into the room, and looked at Leighton sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, eating a sliver of pizza, and peering intently at the screen of her iPad, Vicki felt a sudden of rush of emotion. This quiet, dignified man, who listened to blues and kept a tidy house, was helping her messed up mission, when he had enough hidden pain of his own to deal with. Part of her wanted to thank him somehow - to make it better.

She crossed the room, and sat on the floor purposely next to Leighton, handing him one of the beers.

‘Look at this,’ he said, tilting the screen so Vicki could see it. ‘There are others missing here who were from all over the country but were last seen along the Route 66. The devil’s in the detail.’

‘How many more are there?’

‘Looks like another seven,’ Leighton said, as he dragged his hand over the scrub of grey stubble on his face.

‘You want me to lay the coins on the map?’ Vicki asked.

‘Sure, grab the jar, and I’ll call them out to you’

By the time the pizza was finished, and the two bottles of beer drained, Vicki and Leighton sat on opposite sides of the table, looking at a scattering of silver coins peppering the map in a roughly rectangular pattern. The shape stretched like a fractured speech bubble from Riverside northwards, then east to Needles, then south through Lake Havasu City, then west to Blythe, and back along to Riverside again.

It looked to Leighton as if the sites marked out a simple, circular route. Most serial killers would produce a map of victims more chaotic than this one. It therefore seemed the regularity of the pattern was down to the specific journey taken by the bus. This meant it was conceivable there were two or three killers out there. A private bus would provide access and opportunity to victims.

‘What are you thinking?’ Vicki asked.

‘About the criminals.’

‘What about them?’

‘They will most likely be organized, non-social…’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well, a disorganised killer leaves a trail of chaos from opportunistic attacks; an organised killer is careful. Their trail is neat and tidy, latex gloves, controlled violence, and the victims are preselected. This map doesn’t suggest chaos.’

‘Well, if you’re right, could they just stop what they’re doing, vanish back into the world?’

‘It’s unlikely - most of them only stop in one of three instances - they either get caught - which happens less than most people imagine - or, more often, they kill themselves. That allows them to retain their sense of control right till the end.’

‘Or?’

‘Huh?’

‘You said there were three instances. What’s the other one?’

Leighton pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to hell Gretsch was right, and this was just a dumb fantasy. ‘They sometimes burn themselves out in a final frenzy. This,’ he said, and nodded at the thirty-two coins on the table, ‘might only be the warm up act.’

‘We should inform someone.’

‘I already tried to call it in officially. They won’t listen.’

‘Why not?’

‘I screwed up a few years back.’ Leighton sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose again. ‘That’s how I ended up working homicide.’

‘I thought you moved because of your daughter’s accident.’

‘It was partly the reason. The night Kenna died, I was first at the scene. Nice twist of fate, huh?’

Vicki put her hand on his.

‘It’s stupid how the stuff you want to forget stays with you the most. The rain was battering down, and it was dark. Tony stayed in the cruiser, calling the accident in. I remember hurrying over the wet road to this small red Honda, and how I had to shield my eyes against the flames coming from the cracked engine …’

‘Leighton, you don’t need to tell me.’

‘It’s okay, you should know. At first, I didn’t realise it was her car, but as I got closer, I saw the license plate. I just remember screaming her name, and pulling in the door handle. Got this in the process.’ Leighton turned over his right hand, revealing shiny patches of white skin where the pads of his fingers had been fused to the hot metal.

‘The smoke was too thick to see inside, but I knew she was already gone. I pulled the door open, but I just made it worse - the rush of air sent the flames into an inferno. The blast knocked me off my feet. But, I saw her, in those seconds before the fire took her. It would have been better if I’d been the one who stayed in the cruiser. She was already dead, but still seated - her legs and hair already on fire. It was like seeing a cremation from the inside.

‘Oh, Leighton.’

‘Tony had to drag me away. I was hitting out at the poor guy, but he saved my life. The fuel tank blew, and the force of it slammed us both off the side of our cruiser. They wanted me to take the entire month off, but I had nothing else to do.’

‘You went back to work?’ Vicki struggled to hide the horror in her voice.

‘I did. And things were manageable for a couple of months, until that Sunday afternoon, when we came across a crushed SUV on the freeway. It had hit a patch of diesel and spun out. The driver was inside, banging on the glass. Tony was out of the cruiser in moments, but I couldn’t move. He was yelling to me for help, trying to pull the door open.’

Leighton paused, as he became consumed by his own dark memories.

‘Did he die?’

‘No.’ Leighton shook his head. ‘Tony got around the passenger side, and pulled him out that way. He was a good cop. After that, I was a pariah in Highway Patrol. Nobody wanted to work with me, and I couldn’t blame them, either. Anyway, that’s how I got transferred to homicide, but the force occupies a small world, and my reputation reached Homicide before I did. Most of the guys thought I was some kind of white elephant to drag around murder scenes with them.’

‘That must’ve been tough.’

‘Yeah, for me, and them. But, I’m a decent worker, and I slowly got results earned some respect … I think that pissed Gretsch off even more.’

‘Gretsch?’

‘The chief at Oceanside, and my boss for seven long years. He’s a determined career cop, who resented my presence there from the start. That was the reason I got pushed to retire early.’

‘You mean, it wasn’t your choice?’ Vicki asked, her eyes widening.

Leighton shook his head. ‘A few months back, Gretsch invited me into his office. He put his feet up on the desk and his hands behind his head. He smiled, and asked me how things were going. I remember noting it was the first time the man had ever smiled at me.’

‘What did you say to him?’

Leighton shrugged. ‘I said while dealing with murder could never really be described as enjoyable, I liked my job, and felt I had helped solve a number of cases, including the Black Mountain Ranch fiasco that got him the promotion to chief.’

‘Reno?’ Vicki frowned. ‘Not that thing about the meatpacking guy that was all over the news.’

‘Yeah, my noble chief got the credit for that one.’

‘What did he say, in the office, I mean?’

‘He said I had got lucky on that case, that I was over the hill, and my pyro-phobia made me liability.’

‘What an asshole.’

‘I asked what my options were. He told me I could choose to retire, or he could initiate a psych assessment and competency requirement. He already had the papers drawn up for either eventuality. He had them rubber-stamped and ready to go.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I signed the application for early retirement, and I left.’ Leighton sighed.

‘Why didn’t you fight it?’

‘The system’s bigger than one pain in the ass.’

‘But, surely, you could have done something!’

‘Maybe,’ Leighton said softly, but did not sound like he believed it. ‘I guess I just didn’t fancy having some stranger taking a walk through my head.’

The beeping noise from Vicki’s tablet broke the tension with a shrill alert. She swept her finger across the screen, and tapped an icon to life.