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Faith and Michael glanced at each other. “Do you still want to search his place?” Michael asked.

“We can table that for now,” Faith said. “Buffalo is six-and-a-half hours away from New York City, figure eight with a stop for the kids to use the restroom and get some gas and lunch. We’ll come back then. In the meantime, we can follow up with the other jurors and the Metro Authority board. It’s probably not going to yield anything helpful, but I’ve been wrong about that before, and we don’t have any other leads.”

“We’re sure Hornfeldt didn’t do a runner?” Michael asked. “You want to put out an APB on the vehicle?”

“Good idea,” Faith said.

Michael called for the APB while Faith knelt next to Turk. “What do you think, boy?” she asked. “Do you think he’s the bad guy?”

Turk offered a noncommittal head toss, then resumed his watch on a squirrel who eyed him warily from the branches of an oak tree that stood on the sidewalk next to Hornfeldt’s house.

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” she said.

All signs pointed to Hornfeldt being the prime suspect, but Faith already felt unsure about that. His behavior indicated rage not cold calculation. If McIlhenny had been bludgeoned to death, Faith would feel much more strongly that Hornfeldt was responsible, but to poison him and then stage him somewhere public where he could easily be found? It didn’t make sense.

Then again, serial killers didn’t make sense, and in Hornfeldt’s case, at least, killing ran in the family.

CHAPTER SEVEN

He almost laughed but stopped himself. If he had, then the cops in the terminal might have noticed him laughing at their confusion and wondered what he thought was so funny. He almost laughed again thinking how silly it would be if he were caught because he found the police department’s incompetence funny.

The FBI was far less incompetent than the NYPD, at least according to his limited research on the topic, but he wasn’t worried about them. Law enforcement operated by finding things that stood out, things that shouldn’t be where or what they were.

He was invisible. Not the noticeable kind of invisible where something that clearly should be there wasn’t there, but the kind of invisible that looked exactly as it should and wasn’t at all interesting.

He wondered what his name would be when he killed enough that people started to sensationalize his killings. He supposed they could call him the Chameleon because he was invisible and disguised his victims. That would fit, he supposed, if one considered that his victims were dressed to be noticeably unnoticeable. He himself, however, wasn’t a chameleon, shifting colors but not shape to confuse poor-sighted predators.

He fancied himself more of a moth, specifically the peppered moth. The peppered moth didn’t change color. It was born with the perfect dull, mottled pattern of gray, white, and brown necessary to hide among the bark of trees located in industrial urban centers. It’s coloration perfectly matched the color of soot and bark and did so without resorting to trickery.

He was particularly proud of himself for making his victim just noticeable enough. It was a hard balance to strike, hiding him in plain sight but making him just obvious enough that anyone paying attention should have picked up on the fact that something was amiss.

Anyone paying attention. That was the key. People had to pay attention, but they didn’t. They never did. Unless it impacted them directly, people very easily blinded themselves to the plight of … well, pretty much everyone.

Like this homeless woman begging for change in the terminal. He watched in disgust and anger as no fewer than twenty people passed her by without so much as a glance.

One in particular grabbed his attention, a sharply dressed, up-and-coming Wall Streeter who didn’t ignore the homeless woman but glanced at her with naked contempt, as though it offended him that she would dare to suffer misfortune in his vicinity.

He recognized that young man, oh yes, he did. That young man, who when he purchased his newspaper every morning couldn’t be bothered to thank the shopkeeper. That young man who spent most of his time on his phone loudly bragging about his success in business and shoving past anyone he felt was traveling slower than they should.

This young man wasn’t just indifferent, but he was also callous. He didn’t consider the thoughts or feelings of others, except perhaps when it suited his financial ambitions.

Well, he would learn. He would see the errors of his ways. Or rather, others would and through his example, they would think long and hard about showing the same indifference.

He checked his watch, said goodbye to his coworkers, and headed for home. He passed the Wall Streeter without so much as a glance. His time would come soon enough.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“So, the Metro Authority is a bunch of dicks as we expected them to be,” Michael said, “but no sign they’re the killers, and anyway, they have solid alibis. They made a point of telling me they’d include my name in their complaint to the Bureau. I really hope they get the Boss’s number.”

Faith and Michael were eating dinner at the hotel. The sky was just starting to darken as the sun touched the western horizon. Faith could tell from Michael’s expression that his day had been just as fruitless as hers.

“You know the Boss will rip you a new one for getting him involved with politics,” she said.

“Yeah, but I can handle that,” Michael said. “These guys have no idea what they’re getting into.”

Faith chuckled briefly and said, “Well, I can’t offer much more help. The other jurors are all frightened, but they all had good alibis too. None of them seemed to think much of Chester either way, positive or negative. They seemed to like that he was uninvolved and wanted to go with the flow.”

“Go with the flow,” Michael said. “Gotta love jury by your peers.”

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