I think my eyes might have crossed. “Wait. This case has been coded already?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So this isn't an isolated incident?” I could hear the tension in my own voice. Had Burnswithheld that information from me, or hadn't he known himself?

“No. This is at least the second murder, Dr. Cross. Too early to classify it as anything, butthere's an indication of solo activity, an organized approach, possibly psychosis. Andmaybe some level of ritual by the same person at each of the two murder sites. We alsobelieve the killer is a woman, which makes this very unusual.” So Page did know a thingor two. Meanwhile, I couldn't help feeling duped by Burns. Why couldn't he have justtold me the truth? We were scarcely off of the Disneyland property, and already thismurder case was a whole lot more complicated than he'd made it seem.

“Son of a bitch,” I said between gritted teeth. I was getting tired of being played, andmaybe tired of the Bureau, too. But maybe I was just in a bad mood because I'd beenpulled away from my vacation.

Page stiffened. “Is there a problem?”

It would have been easy to blow off a little steam withhim, but I wasn't ready to start bonding with Agent Page yet.

The whole idea was to float through this case as unattachedas possible.

“No big problem. Nothing to do with you, anyway. Let'sget over to the murder scene. I'm only supposed to take aquick look.”

“Yes, sir.”

I caught Page's blue eyes in the rearview mirror. “Youdon't have to call me sir. I'm not your dad,” I said. Then Igrinned, just in case he couldn't tell it was a joke.

Chapter 1 2

___________________HERE WE GO AGAIN The president has asked for ourhelp. . . I want to hear your take on what happened. Mytake? That was a laugh. My take was that I was being usedand I didn't like it. Also, I hated it when I whined like this.