The faces of the victims took up another screen.

The girls were of all descriptions. Light. Dark. Some pretty. Some fairly plain. Scholars. Athletes. Some thin. Some not. All high school girls. All unreasonably, tragically dead.

“We should put out the word about these no-name phone calls,” said Mo. “Talk to the school principals again. Do a TV campaign about fake text messages with personal info.”

“Saying we’re right about this,” Justine countered, “as soon as we broadcast a warning about texts from unlisted phones, the killer is going to change his pattern. And then we’ll be nowhere again. He might even accelerate the murders further. We know he likes publicity.”

“About what you said, Justine,” Sci said in his usual nasal monotone. “The different profiles. How could a man who would set a girl on fire do it only once? How could that same person shoot someone from fifty yards away?”

“What are you thinking, Sci?”

“What if it’s more than one piece of shit? What if it’s more than one killer?”

Chapter 14

RUDOLPH CROCKER was hiding out in a toilet stall in the eighth-floor men’s room at Wilshire Pacific Partners, a private equity firm, when his cell phone vibrated. He had been fantasizing about a new temp, Carmen Rodriguez, who had a perfect rack, beautiful brown eyes, and was practically brain-dead. He was thinking about asking her out on a date, preferably an all-nighter.

He fished the phone out of his jacket pocket, saw that the call was being forwarded from his direct line. It was Franklin Dale, senior partner, one of “the ancients.” Crocker answered, and Dale invited him to have a drink after work.

Crocker had been an equities analyst for over a year. He’d done his work diligently while at the same time keeping his head down. His concept was to be one of those bright young men with a huge future in number crunching, a dull and steady sort of worker who kept the portfolio safe, the profits flowing, and his light hidden safely under a bushel.