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“—then we’ll consider it might not be connected. At the moment, that’s the only motive we can think of. If you have a different idea …”

Hornfeldt chuckled bitterly. “You know I talked to my father, the day before I took Danny to Buffalo for the game. I asked him why he chose the victims that he did? Why did he go after an old woman, a bum, a college student, and two dockworkers? You know what he said to me? He said he would look up a random number on his phone and count the people he saw until it landed on that number. He would skip family and close friends that he absolutely wanted to keep alive, but other than that, it was just luck of the draw.”

“People don’t kill people for a reason, Special Agent. Maybe they think they do, but they don’t. If they kill people, it’s for one reason, the same reason my father gave. Power. That’s what it boils down to. Either they don’t have power in their lives, and they substitute murder for that feeling, or they’re just sick weirdos like my father who get a kick out of knowing they can kill people. It’s never about anything other than that.”

Faith and Michael remained silent for a while. Finally, Faith sighed and said, “Wait one moment.”

She dialed the Sunrise Inn in Buffalo. The concierge verified that a Mr. Richard Hornfeldt had checked in at 8:27 in the evening two nights ago and remained in his room with his son until nine in the morning, hours after Mr. McIlhenny’s body had been left at the Twin Cities Terminal four hundred miles away.

“Happy now?” Hornfeldt said when Faith hung up.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Hornfeldt,” Faith said. “Thank you for your time.”

She called Turk over to them. Danny protested and wrapped Turk in a bear hug, but with gentle coaxing from his father, he dejectedly allowed Turk to return to the agents.

“Get him a dog,” Faith said to Hornfeldt. “It’ll help Danny.” She met his eyes. “Not just Danny.”

Hornfeldt nodded. “I will. Good night, Special Agent.”

***

That night, Faith couldn’t sleep. She kept playing Hornfeldt’s words over and over in her mind.Either they don’t have power in their lives, and they substitute murder for that feeling, or they’re just sick weirdos like my father who get a kick out of knowing they can kill people.

Trammell had overpowered her. He had overpowered a lot of people. He had overpowered Special Agent Jack Preston. He had overpowered Turk as well. He certainly seemed to enjoy having power over people.

She thought about her most recent session with Doctor West. She had admitted that the worst part of her ordeal was not having control over the situation. Well, control was just a synonym of power. She felt powerless. Trammell had stolen that power from her, and she still hadn’t gotten it back.

She rolled out of bed and opened her laptop. Michael rolled over and grumbled something but fell back to sleep almost immediately. Faith turned the brightness down on her screen to keep from waking him again and logged into the FBI server.

She searched for the Donkey Killer copycat. The search came back with a message that said,RESTRICTED ACCESS. YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO VIEW THIS FILE. She frowned and searched for the Copycat Killer. Hundreds of entries surfaced, so she filtered by date and sorted them by most recent. Only three cases popped up in the past year, and none of them were related to the Donkey Killer.

She searched for Jethro Trammell and got the original Donkey Killer case. Ditto the Donkey Killer search. She tried Jethro Trammell copycat and got nothing. Growing irritated, she searched Jared Greenwood, then searched for the name of the three most recent victims.

Nothing.

She took a breath and released it slowly. Special agents weren’t just locked out of files. If she was denied access to the copycat killer case, it was because someone had blocked her. Could Clark have blocked her? She knew that field agents could choose to restrict access to cases they worked on, but she couldn’t remember if they could do that by themselves or if they needed authorization from their SAC.

Well, the Boss couldn’t know that Faith was digging, because if he did, then he’d have called her and chewed her out already. More likely, he would have hauled her ass back to Philadelphia and taken her badge and gun pending a clear psych eval.

So, Clark had figured out another way to block her. Or maybe he didn’t need permission after all. Either way, she couldn’t get in.

She sighed and slammed her laptop closed. Turk sat bolt upright, ears pricked. Michael rolled over and said, “Faith? What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Sorry. I almost dropped my laptop. I had to catch it.”

Michael sighed. “Jesus, Faith. I’m trying to sleep.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“What were you looking at anyway?”

“Nothing,” she said, setting her laptop on the nightstand and settling under the covers. “Good night, Michael.”

“Yeah. Night.”

Faith closed her eyes and, to her surprise, was able to sleep. This time, her nightmares weren’t of being tied to a chair and tortured by Trammell, but of Trammell and August Hornfeldt admiring her while she sat on a bench wearing a trench coat and fedora, palm upraised, and eyes covered with dark sunglasses.

“She’s purty, ain’t she?” Trammell asked Hornfeldt.

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