For tonight’s show, Carmen Garcia—chicly businesslike in black slacks and a gray silk blouse, her dark hair pulled up in a tight bun—was about to do the live segment intro. This would be followed by a long walking shot sans teleprompter—she’d memorized a full page of script—and Carmen could not remember ever feeling more nervous. She prayed it didn’t show, or else her meteoric rise might be quickly followed by the same kind of fall….

As the assistant director counted down to the second, Carmen sent herself a mixed signal: Stay calm…and energy up!

“I’m Carmen Garcia. Welcome to Killer TV on the road with Crime Seen!”

Hathaway, on Steadicam this time, followed Carmen down the institutional hallway, as did Nancy Hughes with her boom.

“We’re on our way to a conference room at the Rolla, North Dakota, sheriff’s office, where our team’s set up shop. We are investigating the two-year-old murders of Nola and Katie Hanson—wife and daughter of then–county comptroller Burl Hanson, who later took his own life, becoming the killer’s third victim.”

Hathaway followed her in as she moved along and around the big table dominating the room. Behind her, easels held bulletin boards arrayed with crime scene photos from the Hanson house (the most explicit had come down for the broadcast).

Cameraman Phil Dingle was already in the room, capturing tighter one- and two-shots of the others at the table—Laurene Chase poring over more crime scene photos, Jenny Blake hunkered over her laptop, Billy Choi sitting before a computer as well. Both Hathaway and Dingle’s shots were being uploaded by the satellite truck for director Stu Phillips back in LA to work his (and his staff’s) magic.

Carmen stopped next to Choi. “Bullets from the Ferguson home in Placida, Florida, match bullets from the Hanson murders here in Rolla. Firearms and tool mark examiner Billy Choi has been working on this evidence…. Billy?”

The firearms expert with the perfect hair wore the now-familiar Crime Seen! lab coat over an open-collar blue shirt and navy slacks.

“Carmen, using NIBIN…” A pop-up defined NIBIN for new viewers. “…we’d already matched the bullets from the two crime scenes. But look at the slides of the two—the striations are a perfect match. These bullets were fired from a vintage Browning nine-millimeter automatic.”

“You can be certain of the make of the weapon?”

“Oh yes—the striations are made by the rifling in the barrel. Glocks, Sig Sauers, and the like have barrels struck on a mandrel, with no rifling. The Browning’s rifling gives us a way to identify it. The killer may have picked up the shell casings…but we can still get a match through the bullets themselves.”

“But this is a different gun than the one used in the murders at the Harrow home?”

“It is,” Choi admitted. “The Harrow murders and, we now know, at least one other set of murders were committed with a .357 revolver.”

“And what’s next?”

“Because of Jenny’s discovery, I’ll be looking for matches among several other gun attacks across the United States.”

“Thank you, Billy.”

Carmen turned to Jenny and asked, “What was the discovery you made?”

Her name and area of expertise superimposed at the bottom of the screen, Jenny wore not her usual T-shirt and jeans, but dress slacks and a silky blouse, her blonde hair tied back in a loose ponytail. In real life, she rarely wore makeup, but this was television and she was mildly glamorized, still looking painfully shy…but steady.

By punching some keys on her computer, Jenny brought up a map of the United States with red stars scattered around. “These mark different towns where attacks may be related to those we’ve been investigating.”

Dingle got in close on the map, showing the audience the twenty-two different towns where attacks on the families of civil servants had occurred over the last nine years.

Jenny and Carmen went on explaining the theory, as scripted, while halfway across the country, in the office of Sheriff Roberto Tomasa, the rest of the team—Harrow, Pall, and Anderson—sat before a monitor studying the map as they waited for Carmen to throw the show to them.

Till now, these attacks had been a list of names, addresses, and dates on a page. Now, displayed on a map, they started to carry weight, graphically indicating the possible extent of the killer’s carnage, and his travels. Texas, Nevada, California, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio—the red stars seemed to be everywhere. All this, plus the Iowa, Florida, North Dakota, and New Mexico murders.

Chris Anderson could only shake his head in frustration that these statistics made feeling the true weight of the tragedy so elusive.

At twenty-seven, the blond, boy-band handsome chemist had himself pegged as the youngest member of the team, with the possible exception of computer cutie Jenny Blake, and perhaps segment host Carmen Garcia (although she wasn’t, technically, a member of the team).

Turning to Pall, Anderson asked, “We could use a print-out of that map, don’tcha think, Michael?”

“I do,” the short, muscular Pall said.

“Sheriff?” Anderson said, turning to Sheriff Tomasa, who stood off to one side, waiting for Harrow to interview him during the upcoming segment.

“Yes, son?”

“Can you get someone to get me a fold-out map of the United States?”

Tomasa glanced at Harrow, to see if he had time to honor this request, and the host nodded. Then the sheriff made a quick cell phone call to one of his deputies.

Harrow called over to Anderson: “What is it, Chris?”

“I don’t know yet, sir, not for sure,” Anderson said, voice lazy, eyes alert. “There’s somethin’ about all those towns, but I can’t quite put it together….”

Sound man Ingram was counting down, and they all turned their attention to the show at hand.

Harrow introduced a short segment that included, from the bottom of the gravel drive, pieces of his encounter with Archie Gershon. The audio from Hathaway’s camera hadn’t picked up anything worth using, so Harrow had prerecorded a voiceover explanation, saying that the recluse had given them a significant lead—the license number of the perp’s vehicle.

Back on camera, Harrow said, “Meet Michael Pall, one of the premier scientists in law enforcement.”

Pall’s thick black comma of hair hung Superman-style, his black glasses giving him the right professorial look, a white shirt and dark tie peaking from beneath his Crime Seen! lab coat. The sleeves of the white jacket seemed stretched to the limit by the compact man’s muscles.

Pall was, Anderson knew, a zealot about his workouts. Even with their hours mostly spent on the bus, in the semi-situated lab or in a motel, Pall always seemed to find a place and the time to lift weights. The guy was a good twenty years older than Anderson, but had more energy than a crate of Red Bull and no apparent need for sleep.

“So, Dr. Pall,” Harrow was saying, “what can you tell us about the license number Mr. Gershon gave us?”

Looking at Harrow and not the camera—as he’d been taught in the crash course in TV technique the network had provided—Pall said, “Oklahoma plate registered to a Honda Accord owned by a seventy-year-old woman in a little town called Clinton.”

“Probably not our suspect,” Harrow said.

“No, but when the Oklahoma Highway Patrol got to her house, they found the license plate on her Fusion was actually a Kansas plate, and the woman hadn’t noticed the switch.”

“She hadn’t noticed that her car had a license plate from a different state?”

Pall shrugged. “The OHP discovered that the only plate that had been switched was the rear, and it had just escaped her attention.”

“Was that the plate from the truck Gershon saw?”

“No—the Kansas plate was registered to a Dodge van belonging to an out-of-work female bartender in Pratt.”

“And the license plate on that van?”

“We haven’t found it yet,” Pall said. “The bartender’s ex-boyfriend said she packed up her stuff and hit the road to find work. No forwarding address, no nothing.”

Off-camera, a deputy came in and handed Anderson a fold-out map of the country. The chemist continued to listen while he quietly unfolded the map and compared it to the list of crime scenes.

Harrow was asking Pall, “But she was driving the van when she left?”

“She was.”

Anderson got a Sharpie out of his pocket, then started marking the different towns around the country where attacks had occurred.

Harrow said, “Mr. Gershon said our suspect was likely a man.”

Pall nodded. “We have two puzzle pieces. That they don’t fit together doesn’t mean that we’re not closer to solving the puzzle.”

Anderson looked up at the boss. Even though Harrow knew all this before they went on the air, and the dialogue had been loosely scripted (no prompter, but essentially canned), the host still looked gravely disappointed.

Was that just good acting? Anderson wondered.

Turning to the young chemist, who rose from his chair, Harrow introduced him to the viewing audience.

Anderson tried to keep his breathing even as he did his best to ignore the black hole in the center of the camera. He was also conscious of the hovering boom mike, but managed not to look up at it.

“Chris, have we had any luck matching the tire marks from this crime to the ones Billy Choi sent you from North Dakota?”

“They don’t match—at least not completely.”

Harrow appeared confused (for the sake of the TV audience, anyway). “What do you mean, ‘not completely’? Either they match or they don’t, right?”

Harrow had set this up for Anderson to look good, and the young man appreciated it.

“The tires in North Dakota were nearly bald, Mr. Harrow. Though the tires here in New Mexico show some wear, they’re nowhere near the same age as the Dakota tires.”

“So they don’t match.”

“That’s right, sir—they have the same tread design, which means they’re the same brand, Michelin, and they’re the same size, 275/70R18. It’s possible that the suspect has changed out the old tires for new ones on the same vehicle.”

“Are there other possibilities?”

“Sure. There could be two separate suspects, who both own light pickups that have the same brand tires—one worn, one fairly new. But if you believe that…and remember we have two separate gun matches…then the killer in North Dakota killed a public servant’s family in Florida, and a different killer murdered the families of George Reid here…and yours, Mr. Harrow, in Iowa.”

“That would make one hell of a coincidence.”

“Yes, sir, it would. Particularly since forensics evidence indicates the same gardening implement was used in the removal of the wedding-ring fingers of both Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. Reid. Distinctive characteristics of one garden-shear blade, and plant DNA, make that conclusive.”

“Thanks, Chris,” Harrow said, moving slightly to let Arroyo get the sheriff into the shot, so the boss could interview him.

With his part finished, Anderson dropped back into the chair, Sharpie in hand, as he went back to the list and the map.

He had something—he didn’t know what—but he had something.