"When I'm done."

Two hours later Mary was sitting in her car, which she'd maneuvered into a better position. From her new vantage point, she could see both the front and back areas of the auto repair shop.

It was getting dark by the time she spotted Hitchcock leaving the building. She pulled up beside him as he made his way along the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans, walking in the direction of the bus stop.

She reached across the seat and opened the passenger door. "Get in."

He stopped and looked at her.

"Get in the car," she repeated. "I'll give you a ride to wherever you're going."

He opened the door wider and dropped into the passenger seat. She sped away from the curb before he could change his mind.

"Aren't you afraid to have me sitting beside you? When I could just reach over like this-?"

He put his hand to her throat, pressing his fingers against her trachea-just hard enough to make her gasp and pull back, a survival instinct.

She knocked his hand away. Intense, blinding pain knifed through her injured shoulder. She swerved to the right and slammed on the brakes, stopping in a parking space.

He laughed at the loss of control he'd caused. "A lot of women don't want anything to do with a guy who's been in prison. Except for your sister."

The pain in her shoulder didn't subside, and she visualized ripped muscles and nerves. She tried to push her physical discomfort aside to focus on the man next to her. The son of a bitch was baiting her, toying with her. He smelled like grease, and oil, and hot metal. She imagined him behind heavy iron bars painted with layer upon layer of institutional green.

"You've probably heard about the three murders that have recently taken place in the area." A good agent never jumped in with the prime question. A good agent went for the slow build, getting the suspect to relax, gaining confidence-then hit him. She didn't have the luxury of that kind of strategy. Hitchcock could bolt at any second.

He laughed and shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable. "I've wanted to tell you something for a long time. Your friend, Fiona. She liked to portray herself as a goody-goody, somebody as pure as a nun, but let me tell you, she was no nun. But then maybe you knew that. Maybe you were whoring it up, too."

He was trying to throw her off, distract her from the real reason she'd come.

"Are you like your sister?" He reached over and put a hand on her bare knee. His fingers were rough and hot. "Do you get off on guys that've been in prison?"

A drop of sweat trickled down her forehead, catching on an eyebrow. It took an amazing amount of willpower to keep from pulling out her gun.

"Get your hand off me."

He removed it, but not before giving her knee a little caress. "Behavioral Science, right?"

How much had Gillian told him about her?

"That means you hunt down serial killers, right?" When she didn't answer, he repeated his question. "Right?"

"Yes."

"Child molesters? How about child molesters?"

"Those too."

"I have a theory about why people like you go into such disturbing fields," he said. "Want to hear it?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

"Because you're obsessed with death."

She wasn't going to let some killer psychoanalyze her. "If I'm obsessed, it's with finding the people who are causing death."

"No, you're obsessed with death itself. You have to see it, have to be around it."

"Is that the way you feel? Is that how you've come to this theory? Because you've killed?"

"I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about you. How old were you when you found your friend's dead body?"

He was talking about it so calmly, as if it were something he'd read about, not participated in.

She wanted to look away, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on him. "Seventeen."

"An impressionable age, wouldn't you say? A time when everything can turn upside down, when good can suddenly be bad, and bad good."

Not wanting to miss the opportunity to keep him going, she allowed herself to be pulled into the conversation. "Seventeen is the age you were when you killed Fiona Portman," she said.

"I think that once somebody sees death, feels death, sees death's emptiness, they want more. Suddenly life's biggest mystery is an even bigger mystery. And that mystery is something you were a part of and want to be a part of again."

Was this his twisted way of telling her he'd killed the three girls? Was it a sick plea for help? "Are you seeing a psychiatrist?" she asked, hoping she wouldn't lose him by introducing a new topic.

"Not since I got out of prison. I don't need one. Haven't you heard? I'm a new man."

"You should be under psychiatric care."

"I've had enough of shrinks."

"Do you have urges to see dead bodies?" she asked carefully.

"Right now I'm imagining what you'd look like dead."

"Is that a threat?"

"How many dead people have you seen in your life? Other than Fiona Portman? I'll bet you've seen a lot."

"Too many."

"How many?"

"Over a hundred."

"I'll bet you like that, don't you?"

"Of course not."

"Oh, come on. Why don't you admit that when you aren't around death, you aren't whole? You aren't complete?"

His intelligence and the skill with which he manipulated the conversation surprised her.

"Did you have anything to do with the recent murders?" Her stomach knotted at the question.

His attitude suddenly changed. "Fuck you." He was through with the game.

She'd been in a lot of dangerous situations in the course of her career, and had prided herself on remaining unflappable. This was different. After joining the FBI, she'd become tough and hard and fearless. But returning to your past had a way of screwing things up. Had a way of poking holes in that new person until pretty soon you were leaking like a sieve.

The old Mary was sitting on the seat next to Gavin Hitchcock. The old frightened, weak, young, vulnerable Mary.

"I've heard enough of your bullshit." Without another word, he got out and walked away, his shoulders hunched in his saggy, brown corduroy jacket.

Gavin Hitchcock sat down on the bus stop bench. He'd missed the 6:50, thanks to the woman pulling away from the curb and disappearing down University. He usually drove to work, but he'd run out of gas money and had been forced to take public transportation. Everything was fucked.

Mary Cantrell. He remembered her from the trial. Remembered her white face, her big eyes. Sitting there stone-faced, describing everything so graphically that a juror puked and another one fainted. He'd always figured it was the passionless eloquence of her testimony that won the jury over and lost him all sympathy.

He'd been intrigued with her just now because she was Gillian's sister. Otherwise he wouldn't have bothered talking to her, and he certainly wouldn't have gotten in her car.

His bus finally showed up. It pulled to the curb, and he got on.

It wasn't crowded. It was just him, a few homeless people, and the crazy lady who worked the night shift at a nursing home preparing food for the next day. She never quit talking. Now she was engaged in a onesided conversation with the bus driver, who'd driven the route long enough to know not to give her any encouragement by answering.

She finally gave up and moved to another seat, close to a homeless guy who was on his way to nowhere.

She was going on about the road construction, and how the buses were always behind, and how she had to leave home an hour early because yesterday she was late for work. Blah, blah, blah.

"Hey, lady," Gavin said, raising his voice to be heard above the shifting gears.

She looked at him, eyes alert and eager now that she had a participating audience.