John Stallings sat at his barren desk staring at his notes. He’d talked to four pharmaceutical drug pushers since noon. Three were converted crack dealers, and one, a little creep named Peep Morans, had dealt Vicodin to Maria when she had fallen off the wagon. None of them had any great leads but knew to keep their eyes open. Peep Morans had a series of hiding spots he used to spy on women, and Stallings had figured out where three of them were. When the pervert ran from him earlier in the day he didn’t bother to chase him. Instead he drove to the hiding spot in the direction the dealer had run. The skeevy dealer had provided a few more names and areas where dealers pushed prescription drugs. That’s how big cases tended to flow. One lead pointed a detective to three more until finally you had a break in the case. It could be tedious, but it was necessary, and in a case like this, where women were being killed, no one wanted to overlook a lead no matter how insignificant. Morans had mentioned a dealer named “Ernie” who hung out with the runaway population a lot and might have some info for Stallings. Ernie was now high on his list of priorities.

The squad bay was empty, as other detectives had their own leads and assignments. He heard someone come in through the back door and a moment later saw Patty Levine giggling at something Tony Mazzetti said. Patty giggling was not a sound Stallings was used to, and the fact that she found something that ass said funny was downright unnerving.

Both the detectives stopped midstride, like a cheating couple caught in public, when they noticed Stallings.

Mazzetti put on a politician’s smile. “Stall, turn up anything?”

He just shook his head.

Patty looked from Mazzetti to Stallings and said, “I have to get my stuff together for tomorrow.”

“Whaddya got tomorrow?” asked Stallings.

“Talking to a geologist at UF about the decorative sand found on the bodies.”

Mazzetti said, “You look beat, Stall. You should go home and get some rest. We’ll keep plugging away here.”

Suddenly, as if by Mazzetti’s suggestion, he did feel the weight of exhaustion wash over him. He’d been on a wide swing of emotions since yesterday morning, and maybe a little time with Charlie would put things in perspective. He just nodded and closed up his notepad, then walked right out of the Land That Time Forgot without a good-bye to anyone.

Fifteen minutes later he was still sitting in his car trying to get himself in the right frame of mind to go home. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to see them; he didn’t want them to see him wound up in his job. Disconnected. That’s how his father was even when he was sober. Drunk, he was too connected. Regardless, Stallings had made a commitment not to show up at the house when his mind was still on work. Too many cops did that and ended up with fucked-up families and kids who spent more time in rehab than they did in school.

So he sat, with the engine idling, trying to figure out what had upset him so much. Initially he had thought it was his meeting with Peep Morans and the memories the parasite brought up for Stallings. The day he’d found Maria, passed out on the bathroom floor, and her admission on the way to the hospital of her serious habit. She mentioned a man named Peep from Union Street, and that night Stallings did a little off-the-books law enforcement. It wouldn’t be the first time he failed to report crimes related to his wife. She needed protecting, and he was prepared to do it. That night, when he had the pusher from downtown cornered, he came as close as he ever had to killing someone out of anger. And it was because he had let his emotions and frustration carry him away. He hoped he knew a little more about himself now.

As he sat in the car he saw his friend Rick Ellis lumbering across the lot in his uniform. His gut was swaying as he walked, but he was still capable of inspiring respect just by his sheer size.

Stalling lowered the window and waved to the big sergeant, who turned his bulk like a giant cruise ship, easing toward Stallings’s car.

“Hey, Stall, you guys holding up all right?”

“It’s tiring. Big cases, big problems.”

“That’s why I like road patrol. No cases, no problems. And mine don’t lead the news. The goddamn TV reporters are all over this one. Times like this I bet you wish you were just a flunky firefighter.”

Stallings smiled and nodded. “The thought has crossed my mind now and then.”

Ellis said, “What are you guys working on specifically?”

“Mazzetti was out at the community college today. We identified the first victim and she was a student there.”

“No shit. Did he turn up anything?”

“Few friends, no real leads.”

“What’re you working on?”

“I’m checking in the homeless and runaway communities to see if anyone has noticed anything.”

“Seems like that’s a smart assignment. Those folks wouldn’t talk to most cops.”

“They’re not saying much to me either.”

“Something will break soon enough. I’m glad the bosses were smart enough to bring you in on something like this.”

This is the kind of conversation Stallings needed right now. Just chatting with an old friend who had positive things to say.

After a few more minutes of conversation about the details of the Bag Man case they said their good-byes.

Feeling pretty good now, Stallings started to put the car in gear when he saw something that threw his whole mood off track; Mazzetti and Patty walked out the side door together and the body language said they weren’t going out on a lead.

This was troubling.

It was dark out when William Dremmel parked his tan minivan about three blocks from the restaurant where young Stacey Hines worked. He could just see the restaurant’s back door and had pulled a distributor wire on Stacey’s beat-up Escort. In his simple but ingenious plan, he’d offer her a ride, explaining that he had a mechanic friend who would look at it tomorrow for free. That would work with a waitress who had just lost a roommate and was probably facing money troubles.

His idea to appear more appealing by showing off Lori still probably worked with Stacey, but it had unintended consequences. While driving her back to work, Lori laid a barrage of questions on him about his interest in Stacey. Lori was smart and immediately picked up on the fact that Dremmel was interested in the cute waitress. Of course she had no idea what kind of interest he had, but she saw the sparks.

What had confounded him was that he’d completely missed the fact that Lori might hold those kinds of feelings. If she was jealous, then she must view him as more than a friend. Now he’d have to watch how he acted around her at work.

His research was the most important thing. He’d come too far to let a personal relationship throw him off track. He focused all of his energy on Stacey now. Any time now she’d walk through the back door, find her car wouldn’t crank, and he would start his van and ease into the situation that would move his research ahead and satisfy his obsession with the young woman. He knew all there was to know about her from his research. No medical treatment since she’d been in Florida. That may have been because she was still on her parent’s insurance and she didn’t want them to be able to track her down.

This was the right time. He couldn’t risk the roommate telling her parents where she lived when she got back to Ohio. He could picture Stacey’s father racing down and forcing his twenty-one-year-old daughter to return to the Midwest.

He froze when the back door did open a few inches. He started the van and turned the wheel so he could glide out onto the street, checking the mirrors to make sure the road was clear. The door opened enough for him to see Stacey’s profile as she turned back and spoke to someone inside the kitchen.

His heart raced as a surge of excitement coursed through his body. An erection blossomed and his hands trembled with anticipation. He loved this feeling almost as much as the actual lab work where he could hold the girls and watch their bodies show the effects of the different drugs. Drugs that he had administered. No one else held that kind of power. No one else went as far in research. He wanted to pound the wheel to let off the building pressure.

Stacey stepped out of the door onto the low landing in front of her car.

William Dremmel pulled from the curb and started down the street toward his prize.

Patty Levine gazed up at Tony Mazzetti’s dark, beautiful eyes. This was not the guy other people saw. Leaning against the wall next to her condo’s front door, he had a boyish smile as they played the timeless game of who’s going to say good-bye first. Normally the game, or any cute little ritual like it, would’ve made Patty sick to her stomach, but she so rarely had the chance to participate herself, she allowed the indulgence.

They had grabbed a quick dinner and did talk about the case. No cop could work on a case like this without letting it invade every part of his or her life. But unlike TV cops, real ones had lives off camera and couldn’t work twenty-four hours a day. Especially Patty, who even now could feel the pain in her knee and back shoot up through her from standing in hard shoes all day. A couple of Percocets would knock it out.

She had declined alcohol at dinner as Mazzetti drank two glasses of moderately expensive pinot noir. She knew it gave him the impression that she was a health fanatic, but in reality she worried about how alcohol would interact with all the prescriptions she took, so she hadn’t had a drink in more than six years. It added to her perception as an ex-jock around the Sheriff’s Office.

Tony Mazzetti was no athletic slouch himself. He’d spent a lot of time in the gym, and it showed with his wide shoulders and the biceps she couldn’t fit both hands around.

They danced around the good-bye to their impromptu date. She’d promised herself never to let the stress of a case push her too close to a coworker. With married John Stallings it was never really an issue. Besides, the senior detective treated her like a kid sister more than anything else, and she liked it that way. Now she’d been caught in the trap she’d seen too many female cops fall into. Was she interested in Mazzetti because he was an intelligent, funny, perceptive man or because there were no other options? Or was it the Bag Man case? Hell, she wished there was a pill she could take to figure this shit out. Instead she reached her hands around Mazzetti’s muscular neck and laid a kiss on him like she hadn’t had a real kiss in over a year. Which she hadn’t.

The next move was all his.