"How can you know so much-and yet so little of value?"

Bishop was silent.

LeMott shook his head, his mouth twisting. Blinking for the first time in too long, even looking away, however briefly. "Sorry. God knows and I know you've poured more than your energy and time into trying to find this bastard and stop him. Just… help me to understand how it's possible for us to do nothing except sit and wait for him to kill again."

Once more, Bishop chose his words with care. "Officially, there isn't much else I can do. All the hard evidence we've been able to find on this killer has been in Boston; all the victims we can be certain died by his hand lived and worked in Boston; all the tips and leads generated have been in Boston, and the task force is still following up on those, probably will be for months.

"My team has been ordered to remain in Boston and continue working with the task force for the duration. Unless and until we have strong evidence, solid evidence, that he's surfaced elsewhere, Boston is where we stay."

"I'd call that a waste of Bureau resources."

"Officially, it's being called the opposite. The city is still on edge, the national media is still there in force, and all the media-from TV and newspaper editorials to internet blogs-call daily for more to be done to catch this killer before he targets another young woman. And the fact that his most recent victim was the daughter of a U.S. senator is virtually guaranteed to keep that spotlight very bright and that fire burning hot. For a very long time."

"Jobs are at stake."

"Yes."

"There's a new Director," LeMott said.

"Yes." Bishop's wide shoulders rose and fell in a faint shrug. "Politics. He's been brought in to fix what's wrong with the Bureau, to improve the very negative image a string of disastrous cases has left in the public's mind. Removing top agents from an investigation the entire country is watching wouldn't, from his point of view, be the best of moves."