If he was detail, she was over-all picture.

He read her snippets as they pushed up 95.

They discussed and debated.

“There’s one here that reads like our case, except for the murder weapon. Twenty-two caliber, back of the head for that. But in the car, from the back.”

“Already in the car, like we reconstructed on Potter. She had eight out of thirty-four before we added Potter? That ain’t just bad luck, Bobby. She—if the PI’s right on this Nikki Bennett—travels for work. Pick a target, hit the target, leave town.”

“Statistically—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She spared him a glance. “Not typical female weapons or methods. Female serial killers are rare birds. Sometimes you catch yourself a rare bird, Bobby.”

“Sometimes you do. She’s requested the locals get a warrant for Bennett’s travel schedule. We’ll add our weight there.” He pulled on his ear. “The motive’s thin.”

“Not thin so much as nuts. Straight revenge goes after the Rizzos—mother, daughter, and the nanny. Nuts decides all the women who banged the drum with daddy are complicit, so they all have to pay.”

“It’s a lot of years, Lola. A lot of patience. No mention of poems or threats, except the Rizzo girl.”

“She’s about thirty, Bobbie. That’s past ‘girl,’ my friend. She’s the one who matters most, so she gets the poems.”

“Shared blood,” he agreed.

“Make the connection, torment her some. Stupid, but it’s ego, too. We’ll be getting off this god-cursed road shortly.”

“I’m going to reach out to the lead investigator in DC. Maybe we have a conversation there, too, while we’re up here.”

He located the number in the file. It surprised him when the DC cop picked up on the first ring.

“Detective Bower.”

“Detective Bower, this is Detective Morestead, Richmond PD. We’re investigating a homicide, and believe we’ve made a connection to a case you’re working on. We’re on our way now to speak with a PI in Georgetown. Rachael McNee.”

Lola glanced over when her partner’s shoulders inched back. She knew his body language. Something’s up. And nothing good.

“When?” He started scribbling on the pad in his lap he’d used to make personal notes on the files. “Where is she now? We’ll meet you there.” He glanced at the GPS, recalculated. “Fifteen minutes.”

“There’s another one?” Lola asked when he ended the call.

“The PI took four bullets right outside her office. Maybe a half hour after I talked to her.”

“She dead?”

“Not yet. I’m going to program in the hospital. She’s in surgery.”

JJ made a stop at Reagan National Airport to dump the car in long-term parking, and steal another. He stuffed his tied Hefty bag of bloody gear in a trash can.

Though he hated giving up his smooth ride, the fucking cops had his sister’s name, so they had the car.

Time for a change.

He got lucky with an aging, basic van with no alarm system. He broke in, transferred his bags, his weapons, his tools. Since hot-wiring the piece of shit was child’s play, he headed out again inside ten minutes.

He’d need to gas up, he noted. And he’d find a safer spot to switch out the tags. Better safe than sorry!

Maybe he’d pull off at a truck stop, or a rest stop, grab some snacks, catch a few z’s. He still had a couple of his handy pills to give him a boost, but he had time, so maybe the z’s.

No real hurry, and he wanted to savor his moments. Cops, as he’d proven time and time again, were too stupid to put the slice and dice of a reporter—news reader, that’s all she’d been—down in Virginia together with the bang-bang of a PI in DC.

They’d chase their tails on both while he drove up to bumfuck and had some quality time with his father’s bastard.

His father’s killer.

He used his phone to locate a truck stop along the way. He had a fondness for truck stops, for the long-haul truckers. More than once he’d asked one to mail a letter to his sweetheart at their next stop. Just a little game they played, he’d tell them, and pay for their coffee.

He didn’t have a poem to mail this time. But maybe he’d write one. One final poem, and leave it with her bloody, broken body.

Yeah, he would. That’s just what he’d do! And that poem would be published in newspapers, on the Internet. Bitches like the one he’d just killed would recite it solemnly into the TV screens.

He’d be famous. Make his father proud!

So he should sign it this time. Not his name, of course. A title.

The Bard, he thought. His father had loved Shakespeare like a brother, so that was like honoring his old man.

He’d get himself some steak and eggs, some hash browns, some good, strong truck-stop coffee, and write his finest poem yet.

He’d read it to the bitch before he finished her.

When he’d finished, when he’d taken some good pictures of her dead body, her bitch face, he’d make a quick trip back to the old homestead to deal with sister number one.

No poem for her, he thought. Just a bullet in the brain. Quick and easy.

A shame, he mused, he wouldn’t have that well to tap for more money down the road, but she knew too much. And women couldn’t keep their bitch mouths from flapping.

Besides, plenty of valuables in the house to take with him.

Then, like a long-haul trucker, he’d head back to Wyoming. He’d pick off the rest of the bitches on his list at his leisure.

Spread them out, like always.

A man didn’t rush his life’s work.

While JJ tucked into his steak and eggs, Morestead and Deeks got off the hospital elevator. They both recognized cop in the man pacing a few feet away.

Morestead reached for his badge. “Detective Bower?”

“No.” The man, burly in a T-shirt and mom jeans, gave them the hard eye. “Sergeant Mooney. It’s my niece, my sister’s girl, up in surgery. Bower and Wochowski stepped out.”

“We’re sorry about your niece, Sergeant,” Deeks began and told him their names. “Do you know her status?”

“Don’t know a damn fucking thing except she took four bullets. They got ’em out, and they’re in Evidence. Two in the chest.” He tapped a fist on his own. “Called it in herself, that’s what she did. That’s what she’s made of.”

“Is there a suspect?”

The hard eye shifted, hot now, to Morestead. “Don’t stand there asking stupid questions. You’re coming up to talk to her ’cause you connected the dots. Or she connected them for you. You Homicide boys don’t get a damn warrant for Bennett, I’m heading out myself, waking up a judge, and I will goddamn get one myself.”

“Sergeant.” Deeks spoke softly—one of her skills. “We caught this case less than eighteen hours ago. It looks like my partner was the last person to speak with your niece before this happened. She did connect those dots for us, and we read her files, which she sent to us, on the way here. If Bower and Wochowski are unable to secure a warrant to bring Nikki Bennett in for questioning, for a search of her home, her office, her vehicles, we will do so.”