“Girls Night Out” had been cancelled, or anyway postponed, after Chris Anderson’s “target” breakthrough; but Carmen Garcia nonetheless did not get back to her motel room till after midnight. The team had worked through the afternoon and well into the evening—coming up with nothing worth bragging about—followed by a long dinner break at a Mexican restaurant recommended by Chief Walker, who seemed to be J.C.’s new best friend.

The Tex-Mex turned out to be delicious, though Carmen didn’t dare eat nearly as much as she’d have liked. Now that she was on-air talent, Carmen waged a never-ending, round-the-clock battle against gaining an ounce. She was spending far more time working out now, trailing Pall and mimicking the weightlifter’s regimen to some extent. Extra effort was spent on grooming, as well, and she occasionally rode in the hair/makeup Winnebago so that the girls could experiment and refine her look.

No longer a T-shirt and jeans girl in the public, Carmen—who attracted almost as many autograph seekers these days as Harrow himself—was careful to always wear a nice blouse and slacks or a skirt. Her Visa card might be taking a beating, but everyone seemed to look at her with admiring eyes now, even the boss, and she dug it. No longer the lowly PA, the “girl” with an office job, she was a woman with a career.

Even the seating chart at dinner seemed to reflect her newly exalted status. Harrow, of course, took the head of the table, Laurene Chase at the opposite end, the mommy and daddy chairs at the long table. Carmen, however, had gained the favored-nation status of sitting at Harrow’s right hand, Chief Walker across from her. With the crew thrown in too, that made eleven.

Everybody had chatted amiably while they waited for their dinner. Carmen listened to Harrow and the chief trade war stories, which was pretty fascinating stuff, but her eyes kept shifting down the table to where Jenny Blake and Chris Anderson were seated side by side.

Normally, Carmen might have considered this a random occurrence—only after their talk on the bus today, she wondered if Jenny hadn’t quietly orchestrated the arrangement. Still waters running deep and all.

While Anderson did 90 percent of the talking, Jenny was actually engaged in conversation with him, instead of merely staring at her plate, as she so often had in the past.

After dinner, the team trooped back to the Pratt police station and spent another four hours trying to discern whether the killer himself might be the bull’s-eye’s center…or would it be his ultimate quarry? Or was the target an entirely obscure message, so twisted in the unsub’s mind that using logic or psychology to unravel its meaning was a hopeless task?

They had been at it for a while, seemingly gaining only inches at a time, when Laurene Chase floated the notion that the bull’s-eye might mean nothing more than that the killer was targeting the whole country.

“Remember our ever-loving smiley face in the Helder case,” she said. “Turned out it didn’t mean shit, except to Helder and his sick sense of humor.”

Harrow lifted his eyebrows and then set them down, as if they were a heavy load. “You have a point, Laurene—we’ve been trying to assign a meaning to the bull’s-eye when what it means to the killer is the key.”

“I think,” Pall said, “he’s trying to tell us something—or, at least, show us something.”

Harrow’s eyes slitted. “Go on.”

“We have twenty-some crimes here. If we assume the ones that fit Anderson’s theory and line up roughly with the circles of the bull’s-eye, that’s still a lot of crimes…and a lot of time.”

Pall had their attention now. Nobody, not even Laurene, was quibbling about the efficacy of profiling.

“So much time,” he was saying, “so much planning—I can’t buy that there isn’t something behind it all. Something important to the unsub, anyway—something he’s trying to get across.”

“Helder took time,” Laurene said, “and planned. And his ‘message’ was just a big goofy smile.”

“Granted, but Helder’s crimes were a spree. He set eighteen bombs in Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. The last few weren’t even rigged to explode. The crazier he got, the more focus he lost. Our killer has never lost focus—he’s plotted and carried out maybe as many as four dozen murders over the course of almost a decade, and never really slipped, never started leaving clues he didn’t intend to leave.”

“Except,” Laurene said, “for the corn leaf.”

“Even that may have been intentional,” Pall said with a shrug.

“No clues he didn’t intend to leave,” Harrow echoed, like a mantra. “That means he’s used the same gun in Rolla, North Dakota, and Socorro, New Mexico, because he wanted us to know it was him. Why?”

Anderson said, “He’s filling in the bull’s-eye, sir. Finishing up. And he wants someone to recognize his work. Goin’ out of his way to make his message more clear.”

“Whatever the hell it is,” Laurene muttered.

“Meaning no joke, Chris, you might be on target,” Pall said. “What’s the point of going to all the trouble of creating this great big target, if no one recognizes it? It’s a ten-year performance art piece, remember…and if there’s no audience, why do it?”

The group stared at the broad-shouldered scientist.

“Granted it’s a psychotic performance art piece,” he said, offering an open palm.

Choi said, “Performance art’s by definition psychotic.”

Laurene said, “The Manhattan Art Council’s opinion heard.”

That got a chuckle from the entire team, even Choi.

Harrow, smiling, pushed his chair back and rose. “We’re getting punchy. Been a long day. Nothing wrong with our thinking that some sleep won’t cure.”

On the bus ride back to the motel, Carmen sat with Jenny Blake. The cute little computer guru smiled when Carmen joined her—the kid was starting to loosen up. A little.

“So—you and Chris,” Carmen said, as the bus door closed and the driver slipped the vehicle into gear. “What’s the story?”

Even in the near dark of the bus interior, Carmen could see Jenny’s smile had faded.

“Story?”

“At dinner. You two were talking.”

“So?”

“So…I want to hear everything—and don’t tell me you were talking business.”

Jenny glanced around. Choi and cameraman Hathaway were in back on the chaise lounges. Audio gal Nancy Hughes was in her usual seat near the front, apparently asleep. Laurene sat across the aisle and—even though Jenny didn’t seem to notice—Carmen was sure Harrow’s number two was only resting, and not asleep.

“We just talked,” Jenny said. “You know.”

“I don’t know.”

Jenny shrugged. “Stuff about where he grew up. Some stuff about where I grew up.”

“He seemed to be doing most of the talking.”

She nodded. “I like to listen to him.”

“Really?”

Another nod. “Like the sound of his voice. He’s quiet, and I’m kind of quiet, too…”

“No kidding.”

“…and he’s got that lilt, you know—that Southern thing?”

“Also big blue eyes.”

Jenny smiled again. She might have been blushing, but it was hard to tell in the dim lighting.

“Also big blue eyes,” she admitted.

Their parting words, as they stepped down off the bus, covered Carmen inviting Jenny to come over to her room, if she wanted to talk some more. Jenny had been noncommital, saying she’d probably just hit the sack, but her shrug said she might be considering the offer.

Now, alone in her hotel room, Carmen let down her hair, stripped off her jacket, and plopped onto the bed, where it was all she could do to not fall asleep atop the covers.

Still things to do though. She propped herself on an elbow and set the alarm for 6 A.M.—they were leaving for the police station just before eight tomorrow, but she needed time to get ready first, both personal and work prep.

She climbed off the bed, tugged her cell phone out of the pocket of the jacket she’d removed, then attached the charger cord and plugged it into an outlet in the bathroom.

Some people washed the day off, some people showered before facing the world come the morning, some did both. Carmen fell into the middle group, but she did scrub off her makeup and comb out her hair before bed.

She also kicked off the clothes from a very long day and snuggled into the Ozomatli T-shirt and gym shorts that she slept in. She’d just turned the bed back and was getting ready to slide in between cool sheets when she heard a knock on the door.

A smile tickled her lips.

So Jenny had changed her mind!

Tired as she was, Carmen considered herself the little blonde’s (self-appointed) fairy godmother, and she was eager to talk with Jenny…if Jenny wanted to talk to her.

So certain was she that it was Jenny knocking, Carmen didn’t think to check the peephole before jerking the door open.

When the portal was filled with a middle-aged man in a blue baseball cap, a Kansas Jayhawks sweatshirt, and jeans, Carmen was too stunned to move. But she noticed right away that he held something in his right hand.

He was smiling at her and neither spoke for an endless second, then Carmen knew the thing in his hand was a Taser. Before she could slam the door or scream or even think, the two little metal javelins fired, and she felt their sting as they bit into her chest.

She had only enough time to grunt from shock before her body rocked spasmodically and she melted to the floor in a puddle, aware only that he’d stepped over her and shut them in together before everything in her world spun wildly into a black vortex that sucked her in too.