"Damn it! He's dead." He shone his light around. "Oh, shit!"

"What!"

"He's got a noose tourniquet around his neck."

"Don't tell me…"

King pulled back the tarp some more and shone his light down the dead man's arm. "And his watch is set to five, and there's a black arrow drawn on the floor pointing right to it."

Michelle directed her light to Junior's features. "He hasn't been dead long, Sean."

"I know; he's still warm." King froze. "What was that?"

Michelle looked behind her, her light making arcs through the darkness. "What?"

"I thought I heard footsteps."

"I didn't hear anything-" Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the red laser dot appear on King's head. Its meaning was crystal clear to the firearm-savvy Maxwell. "Sean, don't move," she said hoarsely. "You're red-lighted."

"I'm wha-" But then it dawned on him what she was saying. The laser aim tracker could be followed at any moment by a bullet that would hit precisely where the dot was: in this case his brain.

As she watched, the red dot slowly moved to Michelle's gun, flitting there like some deadly wasp ready to sting. This message was also clear. She hesitated, debating whether to chance it, turn and fire. She glanced at King. He'd obviously seen the dot's location too and, reading her thoughts about trying to get off a shot, shook his head in a definite no.

She reluctantly put down her gun on the floor, pushing it away with her foot. When the red dot appeared on her flashlight, she turned it off and placed it on the floor. King slowly followed suit. The red dot then appeared on her chest and moved up and down her body, seemingly in a teasing manner, as though the person aiming the laser were fondling her.

Michelle was growing more and more irritated and beginning to gauge how far she'd have to jump to grab her weapon. While she was calculating the odds of getting off a shot before the other guy did, she failed to notice that the red dot had disappeared.

Finally realizing it, she looked at King's image in the shadowy darkness.

"Is he gone?" she said softly.

"Don't know," King whispered back. "I don't hear anything."

That changed moments later when they heard the gunshots. They both hit the floor, Michelle crawling desperately toward where she thought her gun was. One inch, one foot. Come on! Come on! As her fingers closed around the metal, she stopped and listened.

"Sean, are you okay?"

Seconds went by and there was nothing.

"Sean!" she whispered desperately, her hopes bottoming out when he didn't answer.

"I'm okay," he finally said.

"Damn it, you almost gave me a heart attack. Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I fell on top of Junior, that's why!"

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

They waited a few more minutes. When they heard a car start up in the distance, Michelle leaped to her feet, grabbed a light and raced out, King right on her heels.

They slid into the Lexus.

"Call 911," said King. "Tell them to get the roads around here shut down as fast as possible. And then get hold of Todd."

Michelle was already on the phone.

King hit the gas and the car lumbered forward. The ride was so bumpy it knocked the phone out of Michelle's hand. He hit the brakes.

They looked at each other.

"Damn it, he shot out the tires," said King in disbelief. "That's what the gunshots were about. Let me see if I can still drive it." After a hundred feet it was very clear that if they drove over five miles an hour, they'd soon break an axle.

Michelle jumped out of the car and shone the light at the flattened front and rear tires on her side. She ran back and examined Junior's truck. There were two tires shot out there as well. Michelle called 911, gave them the information, then called Todd while King slumped against his car.

When she was finished, she came over to him and said, "Todd and his men are on their way."

"That's good to know," he said quietly.

"You never know; they might get lucky and nail the guy, Sean."

"The good guys are rarely that lucky." He crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at the half-built house.

Michelle slapped her hand against the car's hood. "God, I feel like the biggest rookie in the world for letting that guy get the drop on us. I can't believe we were probably ten feet from this maniac. Ten feet! And he got away." She grew silent, staring at the ground before glancing over at her partner. "Okay, talk to me, what are you thinking?"

He didn't answer right away. When he spoke, his voice quivered slightly. "I'm thinking that tonight three little kids lost their father and a wife her husband. And I'm just wondering when it's going to stop."

"Not until someone stops him."

King never took his eyes off the unfinished house. "Well, starting right now, that's our full-time job."

CHAPTER 43

AS KING HAD PREDICTED, THE police arrived too late to catch Junior's killer. When news of yet another murder became public, the entire area fell into a complete frenzy. The mayor of Wrightsburg, in a stunning show of no confidence in either Todd Williams or the FBI, demanded that the National Guard be called out and martial law declared. Fortunately, no one granted that request. The national news machine had descended on Wrightsburg and its environs with an enormous appetite for detail, no matter how trivial or irrelevant to the investigation. The large media trucks and their sky antennae and news jockeys with wireless mikes in hand became as ubiquitous as the sprouting spring buds. The only people happy about this situation were the local restaurateurs, innkeepers and conspiracy buffs, who could be heard spouting endless theories. Nearly everyone was grabbing for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Todd Williams was inundated by the journalistic deluge, as was Chip Bailey. Even King and Michelle failed to entirely escape the flood, watching in dismay as details of their previous high-profile investigative exploits were dredged up and made part of the current story.

More law enforcement resources were called in, both federal and state, and King wondered if the additional manpower was helping or hurting the investigation. The latter seemed to be the case as everyone jockeyed for position.

The letter finally came. It proclaimed that the killer of Junior Deaver was now imitating the clown prince of darkness, at least in serial killer circles: John Wayne Gacy. And you thought he only killed young men and boys, the message tauntingly read. Now you know he doesn't mind knocking off big fat rednecks like Junior Deaver.

They were all at another early morning task force meeting at the police station. The large conference room had been turned into a war room of sorts with banks of computers and telephones manned twenty-four/ seven, charts, maps, stacks of files, highly specialized personnel running down all leads, tons of coffee and doughnuts and not one viable suspect anywhere in sight.

"Gacy strangled many of his victims using that ligature technique," explained Chip Bailey.

"You certainly know your serial killers," said Michelle.

"I should. I've spent years tracking them down."

"And in prison the big, jolly fellow started doing paintings of clowns," added King, "which accounts for the mask, just in case we couldn't figure it out solely from the hangman's tourniquet."

"And Junior's watch was definitely set to five o'clock," said Michelle. "So either our serial murderer can't count or whoever killed Bobby Battle was a copycat."

"I think we can assume there are two killers out there," conceded Bailey. "Although there's an outside possibility that there's only one killer and he's messing with the numbers for some reason."