Sure, there was a small chance this man might be the killer, but Wyatt wasn’t sold on the idea, and he knew how dangerous it would be for them to believe it. Then, if another murder happened tonight, they would be lagging miles behind the real killer again.

  He was always a man of action, someone who liked to get going and seize the initiative. He thought best on his feet and had always perceived himself as someone who could outwit and outmaneuver the bad guys. But right now, he felt as if he was being left in the killer’s dust. It was frustrating and demoralizing.

  Knowing he had to keep a positive outlook and that a good attitude won half the battle, he couldn't let his feelings show.

  "We keep looking," he said, looking up at Juliette. "We keep searching until we find a lead. We can't give up now, not when there’s a likelihood he has an alibi, and he’s just stringing us along and being obstructive."

  Juliette nodded.

  "Let's go find Sierra," she said. But she sounded discouraged and couldn't keep that note of defeat and annoyance out of her own voice.

  "It's not like we haven’t found leads," Wyatt said as they trailed out of the interview room, joining Sierra in the corridor and heading for the back office. “It’s just that none of them have worked out.”

  Wyatt tried to give himself a serious pep talk along the way. He was working with two bright, sharp, and highly skilled individuals who had a range of abilities that complemented his own. He had a wife who believed in him and who'd made the move with him to this new home base in Europe.

  Why did he feel he was the weak link at the moment?

  "We can try to track him via the helium sales," Juliette said. "I guess that's our only lead."

  "It's not really a lead, though, because there are quite a few of these places, and they're very cagey about giving out customer details," Sierra said. "I made a start on that while you were still interviewing Alessandro."

  Sierra opened the door to the back office and they all filed in, taking seats around the desk.

  "What did you find?"

  "They don't want to share information. And when I questioned more carefully, it turns out that a few of them have had break-ins recently. Stolen stock," Sierra said, her voice serious.

  "So he's not only been buying up helium, he's also been stealing?"

  "Exactly. I believe that a few of the places did report the crimes for insurance purposes, but having been paid out for the losses, they're not keen to have any further conversations on the matter."

  This killer had been careful and cagey and he'd clearly planned well, Wyatt saw.

  "But we can't give up," Wyatt said firmly, his mind working through the possibilities. "We need to find a way to get through to someone who knows something. Maybe there's an employee at one of these places who's seen something. Someone could have been bribed to turn a blind eye. There are still possibilities."

  The problem was that this killer must have been stockpiling helium for months. He had been playing the long game, and if he was as careful as Wyatt suspected, he would have covered his tracks very thoroughly. He wasn't holding out a lot of hope.

  However, there was one thing he hadn't accounted for - their determination to catch him.

  "We need to keep digging," Wyatt said, leaning forward. "We need to find any connection between the stolen helium and our suspect. Look into the old case files, see if there is any lead we can follow."

  He knew that it would take a lot of groundwork to do this. He always equated this kind of research with finding a needle in a haystack. The needle was there, and if you tried hard enough, then ninety percent of the time you would find it.

  "The problem is the time it will take," he acknowledged. He really didn't want to be negative, but they were looking at a job that would take weeks. Each business owner would have to be interviewed, camera footage obtained - if it even still existed - the police reports examined, and the employees questioned all over again. And of course, the added challenge was that most of these businesses would be Italian-speaking - and all the police reports would be in Italian.

  "I really need to make a start on the language issue," he said. "I feel bad that I don't speak Italian, or French, or any other of the languages I'll need to do my job effectively."

  "What's important is that we work together and play to each other's strengths. We'll find a way to make this work," Juliette consoled him, but Wyatt shook his head. "As of tomorrow, or whenever this case is finished, I'm signing up for a language course."

  It was unlike him to feel ashamed or inadequate through lack of skill, but he couldn't help it at this moment. He felt like he was letting the team down.

  Sierra looked unhappy, too.

  "I know I can translate things in a flash, but it's not the same as speaking face to face. I also need to start learning another language, Wyatt. I'm wondering what would be better: French or Spanish? I know a word or two of Spanish."

  "I guess any one will do to make a start. I'm going with French because we're based there," Wyatt said. "You know, I'm proud of being American and I really love my country, but I'm realizing that I need to expand my skill set and my languages if I'm going to do a good job in fighting crime here. That's my challenge and I'm up for it," he said.

  "And I guess we just have to do the hard work now," Sierra sighed.

  But now, Wyatt saw Juliette looked as if she'd had an idea.

  "You know, Wyatt, I think you've just reminded us of something important," she said.

  He stared at her, surprised. "I have?"

  "Something I think we haven't been taking seriously enough yet or putting enough thought into. And what you just said has made me think."

  "What? What have we missed?"

  "We haven't been focusing enough on Americans."

  Wyatt nodded. They had lost focus on that. The first victim had said the killer was American, and they'd been keeping that in their minds, but they had not pursued that angle as aggressively as they could have. Mostly because there had been other angles that had seemed really promising but then fizzled out.

  Now, they were back to this probable fact.

  "I agree," Wyatt said, feeling a renewed sense of purpose. "We need to look into any Americans that have been in the area recently or that have a connection to the helium thefts."

  This was something concrete to work on. Something they could focus on and make progress with. He leaned forward in his seat, ready to start brainstorming.

  But Juliette had other ideas.

  "I want to look for other crimes involving balloons," she said. "Involving people being sent up into the air."

  "What, here? In Naples?" Wyatt frowned, not understanding her. Hadn't the police already checked for that?

  Juliette shook her head. "I'm not thinking of Naples. I'm thinking that if our killer is American, he might have lived in the States for years. And if so, that’s where he might have a record."

  Wyatt stared at her, light now dawning, and hope along with it.

  "The FBI databases," he said. "And the local police reports. They'll have the answers. Ebury could get onto that, and give us the lead we need within minutes."

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Juliette felt full of new motivation as she got in touch with her boss, Ebury, back in the Manhattan FBI headquarters. She checked the time before dialing, calculating that it would be six a.m. in the States. Ebury was an early bird, and with any luck, he'd have answers sooner than later.

  "We need your help," she said as soon as he picked up, sounding alert and worried.

  "What's up, Juliette? How can we help?" He paused. "I've already had two calls from the Italian authorities. One late last night, US time, and one an hour ago, US time. They're sounding seriously panicked. They want more personnel here."

  Juliette sighed. This was not reflecting well on her or her team. Now, her poor colleagues back home were getting calls throughout the night because she hadn’t been fast enough.

  "We don't need more personnel," she said, trying to keep calm. "We have the expertise. We're short on background clues and that's where I hope you can do some research."

  "I have two agents here at work already," Ebury said. "We’re ready to support you around the clock. Anything I can do, we can get done now."

  "Good, because we need you to pull up any records you have of crimes involving balloons or people being lifted into the air in the United States," Juliette said. "We're looking for any connection to our killer, who we suspect is American."

  There was a pause on the line, and Juliette could hear the sound of typing in the background.

  "Okay, I've got my agents working on it right now," Ebury said. "But can you give me any more specifics? A name, a location, anything like that?"

  Juliette shook her head, even though she knew he couldn't see her. "We don't have any specific areas at the moment, but we believe the killer has been stockpiling helium for months, and he's been planning this in huge detail. So, we're theorizing that his background might be American, and he's since moved here. Maybe to open a new hunting ground or maybe because he wants to get away from his roots. That's why we need to find any connections to crimes involving balloons or people being lifted into the air."

  There was another pause, longer this time, before Ebury spoke again. "I'll get my agents to start digging, but this could take some time. We're going to have to contact every single state and ask them to look in their archives for any crime similar to what you've described."

  Put like that, she could see the immensity of the job, and why it was going to be time consuming even if all resources were focused on it.

  “I know it’s a big job. I’m sorry. But if there’s a connection, we need to follow it.”

  “I’ll keep you in the loop,” Ebury promised, before hanging up.

  "They're going to work on it," Juliette said to her team. "In the meantime, is there anything else we have that could help? Anything at all?" She glanced from one of her teammates to the other. "How about that direction, with the balloon scraps? You were working on that, Sierra. Did that get any results?"

  Sierra pulled her laptop toward her. "I was doing calculations and with such a massive amount of information to process, it was going to take a couple of hours."

  "Is it still working?"

  "Yes. It's running in the background."

  "Let's see if it's come up with anything."

  Sierra opened her laptop and pulled up the program she had been working on. She began to type in a few commands and a map appeared on the screen.

  "Here," she said, pointing at the screen. "It's identified a few potential locations where the balloons could have come from based on wind variations and also the distance of the starting point."

  "I think we should go out and explore those sites," Juliette said. "There's nothing else for us to do while we wait for Ebury to get back to us. That could take a couple of hours or more. And in the meantime, perhaps we can find out where he started from. He might have left some evidence behind."

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, Wyatt was driving carefully through the narrow streets of Naples' Old Town. Juliette was looking at the map, and scanning the surrounding area to see if any likely places were nearby. Sierra was in the back seat, trying to narrow down the parameters in her software as they drove. What had looked like a possibility on the map, was turning into far too large an area now that they were in the crowded, compact city with a thousand different twists and turns, nooks, and crannies.

  This was the very first starting point of the strip Sierra had demarcated, and it was interesting.

  "This looks like a bar and restaurant area," Juliette said, looking at the establishments surrounding the small square they were in, and lining the street.

  "Those hotels look seedy, for sure," Sierra said, wrinkling her nose as she stared at the neon-lined facade of the establishment opposite. This wasn't quite Naples' red light district, Juliette thought, with her memories of Europe allowing her to get some perspective. But it was most definitely Naples' pick-up joint, and it was a place where, most likely, hordes of drunken locals and tourists merged.

  Now, the killer must have let his victim fly from somewhere nearby, but the problem was that there was a warren of streets and alleyways in the neighborhood. It was the perfect hiding spot for someone with nefarious intentions. Everyone nearby would be drunk, the police would most likely be turning a blind eye to the goings on, and she was sure, at night, it was pretty noisy too.

  But on the other hand, to fill that many balloons would take a lot of canisters, and moving them would be very time consuming. So she was going to go with his base being somewhere nearby, in the shaded area of the map. It covered a few miles in length, and a few blocks of the city in width.

  Wyatt slowed the car down as they approached an alleyway on their right. "This looks like a possible place, if I’ve gotten it right," he said, gesturing toward the narrow passage and then looking again at Sierra’s map.

  Juliette nodded and pointed to a nearby parking spot. "Park here," she said, pulling out her flashlight. "Let's see if we can find any clues. Sierra, I think you stay in the car and see if you can fine tune these parameters. Let’s stay in phone contact."

  They stepped out of the car and made their way down the dimly lit alleyway. The ground was littered with trash and broken glass, and the stench of urine and garbage mixed in the air. Juliette wrinkled her nose in disgust but pressed on, shining her light on the walls and any potential hiding spots.

  They continued combing the area, but she already had a sense of doubt about the outcome, because there were too many locked doors, too many hidden courtyards within these mazes of apartments and shops. He could have rented a place and dragged his victims to the roof.

  But one thing was sure, he couldn't have carried the victim far, because Claudio’s wife had said he was taken from a pick-up bar, and that would indisputably have been in this area.

  Then again, he might have had a car. It would be easier to transport a victim than a whole lot of helium canisters, so she was going to go with the victim having been moved, if he was taken from here. How far, was the question.

  "Here?" Wyatt called her over to a corner where there was a bunch of cardboard boxes stacked haphazardly against the wall. Juliette felt her heart race as she approached, wondering what they could find.

  But the boxes seemed to have stored only alcohol, although they were now partly damp and rotted.

  "Let's go back to the car, and drive further, and keep looking," Juliette said, feeling a sense of disappointment as she retraced her steps. She shone her flashlight on the walls again, trying to search for any clues.

  As she assessed the likely starting point for this man's deadly airborne journey, Juliette started thinking about the killer. Why had he chosen these men? They were all slight, short, and now that she thought about it, their features were not dissimilar. Was he trying to kill someone he knew, who haunted him? Were these murders a way of trying to slay his own personal ghosts?

  Or was the killer just a sadistic monster who enjoyed the power he had over his victims? Juliette shuddered at the thought, pushing it aside in favor of focusing on her surroundings.

  She had always prided herself on being able to read people, to understand their motivations and their desires. But this killer was an enigma, a puzzle that she couldn't quite solve. All she had was this evidence, and it would have to be enough. What could she figure out from looking at this place, and imagining what it would have been like the night before?

  "I think he's seeking lookalikes," she decided. This pick-up place was where one might scan crowds of many, looking for one. And if he was seeking someone in particular, there would surely be easier places to take them. He must have taken a risk by coming here. Looking at it and imagining what it must have been like at the time this man would have been here was helping her visualize the scenario.

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the killer's motives were likely deeply personal. He was targeting specific types of men, and the way he was killing them was almost ritualistic. She couldn't help but wonder what kind of trauma he must have experienced to drive him to such extreme measures.

  If only they could find some sign of him. Or maybe Sierra had managed to pinpoint a more accurate starting point.

  But at that moment, as she and Wyatt reached the car, she had something better.

  Her phone rang again and glancing down, she saw it was Ebury.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  "You got something?" In her eagerness, Juliette didn't even say hello to her boss. She'd completely bypassed that nicety. All her focus was on the killer.

  She was so sure there was going to be a positive answer that she never, for a moment, believed there'd be nothing. But then, a pang of disappointment went through her as she heard the flatness in his voice.

  "We've gone back five years. On all the databases. Nationally. There's nothing, Hart. No record of anything like what you are describing."

  Juliette took this in, feeling flabbergasted. She'd been so sure. She stared at the others, who were looking at her expectantly.

  "Nothing," she mouthed. Wyatt's eyes widened. Sierra grimaced in a horrified way.

  "But how is that possible?" Sierra asked. "There has to be something. He can't just appear out of thin air."

  "Maybe he's not from the States," Wyatt suggested, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe he's from another country, or he's never been caught before."

  Juliette nodded slowly, considering his words. It was possible, of course. The killer could have come from anywhere, and if he was smart enough to cover his tracks, he could have avoided detection for years. A dying victim was not an accurate witness and a native Italian speaker could have misheard what he believed to be an American accent.