Riding the other Crime Seen! bus, J.C. Harrow got out his cell phone by the second ring.

“It’s Laurene.”

“What have you got?” he asked. She wouldn’t be calling just to be sociable.

She filled him in on the startling discovery Jenny Blake had made—twenty-two separate attacks in the past decade that matched their killer’s MO!

He said, “We have no idea how many might be related to our cases?”

“No,” Laurene said. “But I’m betting the number isn’t zero.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. We’ll have to look into all of them. Check to see how many of the murdered mothers were missing a wedding ring.”

Laurene’s pause seemed endless to Harrow.

Finally she asked, “J.C.—with this revelation…aren’t we going to have to turn this investigation over to the Feds?”

He desperately wanted to say no, but they both knew the answer to the question. Christ knew how many lives were at stake here….

“Of course, turn over what we have…but first, make copies of everything, and tell Jenny to e-mail me the list of all the crimes.”

“So we’re not backing off?”

“Hell, no. We are, however, going to let the Feds know what we think may be going on, and they can investigate or not, their choice, their pace. In the meantime, we’re full speed ahead.”

“That is good to hear,” Laurene said. “Where do you want to start?”

“Your team will gather what you can there, and I’ll start on the Socorro killings. Makes sense, ’cause I’m just outside of town.”

“You are?” she said, surprise in her voice. She hadn’t mentioned these latest killings, specifically. “You’re on top of those killings, then? The, uh…”

“Reid family,” Harrow finished.

“What are you, J.C., a frickin’ witch? How in the hell did you know that?”

“I got a phone call late last night.”

“From?”

“Kate Pierson with the New Mexico state crime lab. Know her, Laurene?”

“No. Why’d she call you?”

“She’s an old friend.”

“No, J.C. Why did she call you?”

“Missing wedding-ring finger. And get this—gun in the Reid killings was the same three fifty-seven used at my house.”

An even longer pause from Laurene.

“We are on the right track,” she said softly.

His voice was soft but had a tremor that threatened eruption. “I’m closer than I’ve ever been.”

“You know, J.C., if you strangle him on TV, the ratings will be great, but you might find yourself hosting the San Quentin Follies next season.”

Her grim humor made him laugh.

“I take your point, Laurene, and I do apologize for not filling you in sooner.”

“Apology not accepted. I’m supposed to be your number two.”

“You are. As for now, we’ll play ball with the Feds, all right…but let’s make sure we’re the ones who find this maniac.”

“It’ll be us, all right,” she said, and they signed off.

None of that had been caught on camera, and Harrow was glad of it. This was sensitive information.

Chris Anderson, seated across the aisle from Harrow, said, “Sir? We’re pullin’ up to the sheriff’s office.”

Harrow looked at his watch—just after 10 A.M. They’d already been on the road since finishing the show on Monday, and had driven all night, after Harrow got the call from Kate Pierson.

“Good,” Harrow said. “Let’s go.”

Soon Harrow found himself standing on a bright, sunny street in front of a new two-story county administration building with old-fashioned mission styling, a facility that housed both the sheriff’s office and the county’s other departments.

Up and down the street, pedestrians passing each other smiled, spoke, waved. Modest traffic moved smoothly along, and Harrow felt he’d stepped into some sort of Southwestern Norman Rockwell time warp. Or he would have if they hadn’t been here to investigate a triple homicide by the serial killer they were chasing….

Automatic doors whispered open, and Harrow entered the modern, efficient-looking office building that hid behind the mission facade. At a round modern light-wood desk to the left of the atrium lobby, a young uniformed deputy manned a guest sign-in book.

The kid—who had a butch haircut and a well-scrubbed fresh-out-of-the-academy look—was reading something on his computer screen.

“Help you?” he asked automatically, barely glancing.

“Son,” Harrow said gently, “if you want to grow up to be a policeman, you’re going to have to learn to be more observant.”

Now the kid looked up and saw before him Harrow with his posse of Anderson, DNA expert Michael Pall, Arroyo with camera, and Ingram with boom mike.

“Here to see Sheriff Tomasa,” Harrow said.

Agape, the deputy managed a nod. Then: “May I tell him who’s calling and why?”

“J.C. Harrow and crew from Crime Seen! Called ahead.”

Before long, the sheriff was there in the lobby, coming over to them with his hand extended to Harrow.

“Mr. Harrow,” he said, and they shook hands. “Roberto Tomasa. You spoke to my secretary on the phone.”

“Yes, sir. I know this is short notice.”

Harrow made the introductions and more handshaking followed, quick, perfunctory. The sheriff was burly, about forty, with an easy smile and a steel grip. His face had more pockmarks than old cement, and his nose may have had a shape once, but not for a long time. He had a bushy, droopy, damn near bandito mustache, giving his face the impression of a frown even as he grinned at Harrow, moving everyone to a discreet corner of the lobby.

“Normally we wouldn’t have much to say to a TV crew,” Tomasa said, “especially at so early a stage of the investigation.”

“I understand,” Harrow said.

“You were a sheriff yourself, weren’t you? Retired?”

“Yes. Was at the state crime lab, after that.”

Mischief danced in the sheriff’s eyes. “Also saved the President.”

“Guilty.”

White teeth flashed under the droopy black mustache. “Tell me why I should receive you in my office,” he said—no anger or bitterness in his tone.

“Weren’t you expecting us?”

“My secretary gave me your message, you were coming. That’s not an appointment, Mr. Harrow. And it sure isn’t an invitation.”

“Kate Pierson—”

“Is with the state crime lab. Not on my payroll. Doesn’t represent the Socorro County Sheriff’s office.”

“Uh oh,” Anderson murmured.

That drew a glance from Tomasa, but Harrow spoke up, locking eyes with the man. “Sheriff, we’re not here to step on any toes.”

“Good.”

“But I do think we can help you.”

“Kind as your offer is, Mr. Harrow, we have handled murders in Socorro County before.”

Harrow kept his tone easy-going, but his rhetoric amped up. “Sheriff, you know as well as I do that if this is a serial killer, you need all the help you can get.”

“The FBI, for example.”

“Yes, but they aren’t here. We are. I am. And if we’re up against who and what I think we are, we can all use help. We now believe the same murderer may be tied to as many as fifty-some homicides over the last nine years.”

That got Tomasa’s attention. “That seems impossible….”

“I wish it were,” Harrow said. “Kate Pierson, protocol be damned, called me because the bullets from your victims match the gun the killer used at my home. Also, the mutilation of the female vic’s left hand mirrors what we believe to be the killer’s current evolving, devolving M.O.”

Tomasa held up a hand. “Mr. Harrow, I am not unsympathetic to your feelings. But because you are emotionally involved in this matter, you have taken your search to an extreme…” He gestured toward the crew. “…that exceeds any accepted law enforcement conditions or ideals.”

“I’m not working in law enforcement. But I am still, in my way, a public servant—like the men whose families this perpetrator targets.”

“I understand your sincerity, Mr. Harrow. But I am working in law enforcement.”

“Did you see the broadcast Friday night?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Then you know I’ve recruited some of the best people in their respective forensics fields in the country, if not the world. Do you have the budget to assemble a team like that?”

Frowning in thought, Tomasa said nothing.

“Another thing, Sheriff—some people in this country don’t like to talk to the police, no matter why, no matter what, no matter when.”

“That much I know,” Tomasa admitted.

Harrow gave the sheriff the kind of world-weary smile law enforcement professionals often traded. “Funny thing is—a lot of those same people can’t wait to run their mouths in front of a TV camera. Like these we have here?”

And suddenly Tomasa roared with laughter that echoed through the atrium.

“All right,” the sheriff said. “You can talk to your friend Pierson and see the bullets and whatever else you want, with my blessing…but I need from you one thing.”

“Name it.”

“You must talk to one of Reid’s neighbors.”

“Well, no problem,” Harrow said.

“You say that now,” Tomasa said slyly, the bandito quality slipping through the droopy mustache, “only because you haven’t met Archie Gershon yet.”