Disappointment rang in the man’s voice. Obviously Bundy had been a huge letdown. The fucker probably mourned after Bundy’s execution.

The hummer stopped at an Eisenhower-era folding table in front of Cal. Alarm spiked up Cal’s spine. It was a table of torture. It looked like the hummer had walked through his garage and randomly picked items to spread on the table. Hammers, rakes, a wrench, a long hose. With horrific, inspired ways, the man had adapted them to create pain.

Except the shotgun. Cal had recognized it immediately. It was his own, taken from his personal collection of guns. His heart rate spiked as the man’s hand stroked the barrel, lingering. He passed over it and moved to another item. Cal watched him open a small pink shoebox and his stomach heaved with bitter fear.

A headband?

The hummer lifted out a girl’s blue headband and gently caressed it. A soft smile graced his face and his eyes developed a distracted look of sweet memory.

“I kept this one. But I can let go of it whenever I want. It can’t control me. I’m a slave to nothing and no one.” He dropped it back in the box, crushing the lid into place.

The sweet look was gone, replaced with angry determination.

He’s fucking crazy.

“Thanks for telling me where your badge was.”

You’re welcome, asshole. Thanks for leaving me two usable fingers.

“This is just the beginning of my plan. I’m going to make the cops tear around like starving mice in a maze, searching for the cheese as I move it from corner to corner.” His eyes widened as he paced rapidly in front of the table, using Cal as his audience. “They’ll think they’re closing in on me and then I’ll vanish. They won’t have enough intelligence or control to keep up. And you and your badge are just the beginning. Well, actually you’re the second stage. I set the first stage with your badge where they can’t miss it.”

The man’s eyes took on an icy, empty cast as he halted and studied the tools on the table. Cal stiffened. He knew that look.

Humming again, the man chose the black rubber mallet, hefted it in his hands, tested its weight, and turned toward Cal.

By early evening, the police badge from the Lakefield skeletal recovery had led the detectives to a fresh murder scene.

Retired cop Calvin Trenton was dead. He’d been tortured brutally.

At the brick Oregon State Police building in downtown Portland, Detective Mason Callahan sat at his desk, deep in thought. His body, his mind, and his heart were exhausted. Mason picked at the desk’s peeling paint as he stared at the grisly photos of Trenton, letting his anger fuel his determination to find the fucker who’d committed this act of evil. Evil was the only word to describe the murder. The bastard had tortured the cop, broken his legs, and then strangled him, dumping the dead body back in Trenton’s own bed.

And neatly pulled the covers up to the victim’s chin.

It was as if the killer was taunting the police. Mason jammed a pencil in his automatic sharpener, let it whir, and then pulled it out. A perfect point.

He studied the fresh tip as the smell of wood and lead touched his nose. What would happen if he shoved it in the killer’s eye?

One of Trenton’s eyes had been destroyed.

Calvin Trenton had been off the job for five years. Divorced for twenty, he’d lived with his current companion, a big Rottweiler mix. Police had found the protective dog camped under Trenton’s bed. The dog had snapped and growled at anyone who’d tried to approach the body. Animal control had to be brought in before anyone could reach the corpse.

Two of the responding cops had shed tears as they gaped at Trenton in his bed, unable to act because of the sharp teeth of the dog. Trenton just lay there, obviously dead, and the cops couldn’t do anything but stare.

Mason didn’t like coincidences, and this new case had too fucking many. He liked his cases to be neat and tidy, but that was usually the exception instead of the rule. This case was pureed clam chowder.

He tipped back in his chair, tapping the pencil on the edge of his desk, and studied his big dry-erase chart for the tenth time in ten minutes. Suzanne Mills’s name sat directly in the center in blue ink with red arrows pointing out from her name to four other names. Green arrows made connections between the names on the periphery. So far he knew:

One of the forensics workers, Dr. Lacey Campbell, knew Suzanne Mills and identified her at the recovery site.

Mills was a victim of the Co-Ed Slayer, Dave DeCosta, a decade ago.

Dr. Campbell nearly became a victim of DeCosta a decade ago.

Jack Harper owned the building where Suzanne Mills had been found.

Jack Harper just happened to be standing there as the anthropologist walked up with Trenton’s police badge.

Jack Harper recognized Cal Trenton’s police badge.

Years ago, Jack Harper had partnered with Calvin Trenton on the Lakefield police force.

The chart was a mess of colorful crisscrossing arrows. But nothing made sense.

Why had Cal Trenton’s murder been purposefully linked to Suzanne Mills’s bones?

Mason eyed Lacey Campbell’s name. He dropped his pencil, grabbed a dry-erase marker, and drew a green dotted arrow to Calvin Trenton and stared at his work. His gut told him there was a connection. He just had to find it.

He needed to interview Dr. Campbell again.

Mason’s stomach churned. He’d put the Co-Ed Slayer case to bed years ago, and now it was trying to crawl out from under the covers.

He deliberately pulled his strained gaze from the drawing and glanced at his partner, who was deep in concentration in front of his computer screen. If Mason said a word, Ray would never hear it. The man had extreme linear focus. One thing at a time was how the detective worked, but damn, Ray was thorough and sharp. Ray’s big shoulders strained the seams of his suit jacket, his power tie askew—a sure sign the precise man was as frustrated as Mason about the case.