A few moments later, there was a click. The cofounder of and coding genius behind Paladin said in a soft voice, “Dr. Cross, what a pleasure. This is Ryan Malcomb. Steven speaks highly of you.”

  “And we speak highly of him and your company. Paladin was a big help to us last year, and I wanted to tell you I’m going through formal channels to get approval for one of your precision data sifts.”

  Don’t ask me to explain exactly how these sifts worked. But the results were sometimes remarkable. Paladin’s search algorithms had laser-focused our investigation into the Alejandro cartel the year before, and the director of Homeland Security had recently stated that the company had helped identify multiple terrorist plots that were thwarted as a result.

  There was a pause. “Of course we’d love to help. What are you looking to sift?”

  “Any data generated around the murders of three families down here.”

  “I heard about that on NPR yesterday. The killer sounds insane.”

  “At some level, I agree.”

  “You’ll need federal wiretap approval on all cellular, GPS, video, and computer data you provide us. Then the algorithms will do the grunt work, and we’ll let you know what we’ve found when we find it.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “And thanks.”

  “We’re here to help.”

  He hung up. I felt like we were going to get a break and fast. Paladin’s strong suit was its ability to use supercomputers and artificial intelligence to identify similarities and anomalies in given sets of data. They might find, for example, that one cell phone was active near all three crime scenes. Or that there were similar messages going out over computers active in the area. In essence, Paladin’s unique methods identified needles in the haystack of data that surrounds modern life.

  I called Ned Mahoney over at Bureau headquarters and asked him to start the request process; he said it would take several hours to get to the attention of the right people at the highest levels of the agency.

  “I’ve got something coming your way in the meantime,” Mahoney said. “Footage from the Elliotts’ backyard security camera.”

  “Got it,” Sampson said a second after I hung up.

  I came around the desk and stood behind him, watching a dark figure climb over the Elliotts’ back fence, land in a crouch, then aim a laser pointer at the camera, blinding it.

  “Back up. I want to see that moment when he lands, just before—”

  Mahoney was ahead of us because the video ended with a magnified and enhanced still from the video showing us the killer for the first time. He was crouched at the moment of landing and dressed in black hazmat gear head to toe, including a hood, an industrial respirator mask with dual filters, and night-vision goggles.

  “No identifying features whatsoever,” Sampson said.

  “But it’s him,” I said. “And we were right. He’s using hazmat gear to keep his DNA closely contained.”

  “He’s wearing the night-vision goggles, and he uses the laser to blind the camera,” Sampson said. “Wouldn’t it blind him?”

  “If he had the goggles turned on, but he doesn’t,” I said. “Otherwise we’d see a smoky green in the lenses.”

  John nodded. “He comes over the fence prepared. Goggles off. Laser in hand.”

  “And he knows right where that camera is,” I said. “Which means he’s scouted the place before, which means he may be on other cameras in the vicinity earlier.”

  “I’ll start looking for any footage in the area for the three days prior.”

  The phone on my desk rang. I’m not often in the downtown office, so most people know to call me on my cell.

  I went around and answered. “Alex Cross.”

  “This is Sergeant Baker at the front desk, Dr. Cross.”

  I’d known Baker for ten years. “Hello, Leslie. Missed you this morning. How are you?”

  “I just started my shift and I’m fine,” she said, sounding happy that I’d asked. “Say, there’s a lady in the lobby here who’d like to talk to you or Detective Sampson.”

  “If you’ve seen the news, you know we’re pretty swamped.”

  “I told her that, but she’s insistent, says she thinks she knows who the killer is.”

  I closed my eyes a moment and moaned because the more high profile a case was, the more crazies with crackpot theories we had coming at us.

  “I know,” Baker said. “But she’s convinced.”

  “Are we talking nutcase?”

  “No, she’s sharp upstairs. And dressed to kill.”

  Chapter

  14

  A few minutes later, the elevator opened, and I agreed with Sergeant Baker’s fashion assessment. The woman before me was slim, tall, and beautiful in tight black leather pants, purple stiletto heels, a black blouse with a diving neckline, and pearls.

  My first guess was that she was a model of some sort. Or had been. She smiled and stuck out her hand. “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Dr. Cross. I’m Suzanne Liu.”

  I shook her hand. “You have information about the family killings, Ms. Liu?”

  “Suzanne, please, and I do,” she said, staring at me evenly. “I also have three other big cases you should be looking at. Or the FBI should.”

  “Three?” I said. “We’ve run the MO of the killer through databases around the world and have not—”

  “These are completely different,” she said. “But I believe that the various killings are ultimately the work of one person.”

  I took in her body language, her tone of voice, and her confident posture and decided she did not seem crazy. “Who?”

  Liu looked around at the police officers and detectives streaming by us, going to the elevators and the bullpen. “Isn’t there somewhere quieter so I can explain fully? This is sensitive. I believe the killer is someone in the public eye—a celebrity, you could say.”

  Inwardly, I groaned. It sounded nuts. But I saw the same confidence, the same even gaze and authority in her voice.

  “Follow me,” I said and led her back to our desks, introduced her to Sampson, and asked him to join us in a conference room.

  When I closed the door, I said, “Suzanne thinks she knows the identity of the Family Man. She believes he’s a celebrity and that he has also murdered other people.”

  I could see John struggling not to roll his eyes.

  Liu seemed not to notice as she took a seat and put down her sleek silver briefcase. “It just makes too much sense when I think about it and I wanted you both to know.”

  Sampson growled, “Time out. Who are you exactly, ma’am, and how did you find all this information?”

  She seemed a bit taken aback by John’s rough demeanor but said, “I’m a book editor in New York. You can Google me. I was recently fired from my job at Alabaster Publishing for not keeping a superstar writer in the fold. He went free agent and found a better offer, and now I’m out of a job, which has given me lots of time to think about things.”

  Sampson and I traded glances. He played bad cop better than I did.

  He leaned across the table. “Suzanne, can you please get to the point and tell us who you believe the killer is?”

  Liu looked at her lap a moment and swallowed. Her voice was shaky when she said, “I think the killer is my former superstar writer Thomas Tull.”

  Our reaction was clear and the same.

  “I knew you’d be shocked,” she said.

  “Thomas Tull?” I said. “The guy who writes the crime books?”

  “I’ve seen him a bunch of times on television,” Sampson said. “Always comes across as a straight shooter to me.”

  “To me too,” Liu replied. “And we worked together for ten years. I was his editor. You heard about the size of the deal for his next book?”

  “We’ve been kind of busy to keep up on things like that,” I said.

  “Well, it hasn’t been formally announced, but I know for certain that the advance was huge, and the book is about this case—your case, the Family Man case. He’s doing research here in Washington, DC, now.”

  “Tull is?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” she said. “He was here in DC last night. He’s rented a town house in Georgetown. Don’t you see? He had the opportunity and the motive.”

  Her voice had gotten higher, her delivery quicker, and her eyes just a little wilder.

  “To kill the Elliotts?” Sampson asked, incredulous.

  “Yes,” she snapped. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “What’s the motive?” I asked.

  The editor flipped open her briefcase and came out with three thick paperbacks, all by Thomas Tull: Electric, Noon in Berlin, and Doctor’s Orders. Liu tapped them with her fingernails. “Here’s your motive.”

  “I’m not following you,” Sampson said.

  “You’ve read them, of course.”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  I shook my head.

  “They are all great, different, and intricate stories in their own right,” she said. “But in some ways, they are the same. There’s a series of baffling murders. Intrigue. Drama. Very little evidence. The police are getting nowhere, and suddenly the author insinuates himself into the investigation, helps the cops, gets crazy access, then writes a blockbuster.”

  Sampson said, “He helped in the investigations?”

  Liu lifted her chin. “Thomas’s role is debatable. Some say he was involved in framing and railroading the men who were convicted.”

  Chapter

  15

  Sampson seemed amused. “Those are some strong accusations you’re throwing around about the author whose books you edited.”

  Liu sat back. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about that? I haven’t talked to a lawyer, but does that make me an accessory after the fact?”

  “You’re getting ahead of yourself by a mile, Suzanne,” I said, gesturing at the three paperbacks. “Why do you think he’s the real killer in these books?”

  She’d obviously been thinking about this. But from the way Liu stared at the table, as if seeing long-ago events spin by, I could tell she was still confused, still not quite convinced herself.

  “It helps to start at the beginning,” I said.

  “Maybe it started in the Marines,” Liu said at last. “After high school, Thomas enlisted as shore police. The end of his second tour, he joined the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Did you know that?”

  I shrugged. “I may have read it somewhere.”

  “Anyway, while Thomas was posted at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, there were several prostitutes murdered in northern San Diego County. You can look it up. Anyway, the San Diego sheriff’s investigators had no clues. The killer was that good, that clean.”

  Sampson checked his watch. “Where’s this going, Suzanne?”

  That irritated her. “To Thomas Tull, if you’ll be patient a moment. Most of northern San Diego County borders the Marine base. The second body was found in a canyon area about a hundred yards inside the boundary of Camp Pendleton, which got Thomas involved.”

  “Okay. Did he solve the murders?” I asked.

  “He did indeed,” she said. “The case made him. Writing about it in his admission essay is what got him into Harvard when he finally left the Marines and NCIS.”

  “How old was he at that point?” Sampson asked, picking up a pen.

  Liu thought about that. “Thirty?”

  “Kind of late to be starting college,” I said.

  The editor said Thomas had been a mediocre student in high school with little or no desire for higher education. Eight years in the Marines changed his mind. He wanted to study writing at Harvard because he thought the prestige of having a degree from that college would help his career in the long run.

  “Did it?” Sampson asked.

  Liu tapped the book on the left, Electric.

  “Harvard helped Thomas long before he got his degree. He was able to get inside the investigation while he was living in Cambridge and attending classes.”

  She said Tull was a sophomore when he got interested in the murders, all of which involved electrocutions. He started going around Cambridge and the surrounding towns asking questions.

  “He’s good at that, I have to tell you,” Liu said. “Thomas has this ability to disarm people and get them to tell him things. Do you know that the three killers he wrote about in these books all love Thomas? They do. They consider him a friend, a good one, someone who’s on their side, even if he had a role in their convictions.”

  “C’mon,” I said.

  “It’s true,” she insisted. “They all say they were framed. They all maintain their innocence to this day. They say the police, the prosecutors, and the book had it wrong. And yet they consider Thomas their buddy. And to a man, they expect he will prove their innocence someday and rewrite their stories to reflect it.”

  That was unusual and I said so, adding, “I’m still not seeing the basis for you thinking Tull is a killer.”

  The editor hesitated before returning to her briefcase and coming out with a sheaf of paper about an inch thick. She set it on the table in front of us. “This is a copy of the book proposal he circulated in New York recently.”

  In the middle of the first page were the words Family Man, by Thomas Tull. At the bottom was NDA in effect, followed by Suzanne Liu’s name, initials, and a date.

  “Nondisclosure agreement?” I said. “You’re breaking it?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” Liu said. “Look at the last two pages. Forty and forty-one. There are things there about the case that he could not have known when he wrote them. Things about the Carpenters and the Elliotts. See the date? He wrote this before they were killed.”

  I picked up the document and flipped through it to page 40, which was headed “The Future.” Sampson moved closer to read.

  Up to that point, the book proposal had focused on the Landau killings, which had taken place six months ago, and the Hodges killings, which occurred eight months before that. There seemed no doubt in Tull’s mind that the killer would strike again and at shorter and shorter intervals.

  I looked up at Liu. “If you’re talking about Tull predicting a shortening of the cycle, we predicted the same thing. Most serial killers follow this trend over time.”

  “They do,” Sampson said.

  “Keep reading,” the editor said. “Last paragraph on page forty, first paragraph on forty-one.”

  Chapter

  16

  I read the paragraphs out loud. “‘No one can say who the next victims will be, what family will be chosen, and how many generations will be wiped out. We don’t know if the killer will stick to the pattern or change. Will he shut down his operations in the DC area and move to other hunting grounds? We don’t know. And we don’t know if he’ll keep shooting his victims execution-style, high through the head. And what links the targets? What’s the connection? Will he continue to kill only white families? Or will he change his racial profile and attack Black families? Hispanics? Asian-Americans?’”

  I turned the page and kept reading. “‘As I conclude this proposal, we just don’t know the answers to these questions and many others. But no matter who the Family Man targets or where and how he kills them, I will leave no stone unturned, no angle unpursued. I will go where the police fear to tread, without friend or favor, in pursuit of this story and the killer, who I believe wears hazmat clothing of some type. After all, who doesn’t leave DNA behind them these days?’”

  “See?” Liu said when I finished. “He predicted the change in racial target and the hazmat suit. Is that what you believe the killer’s wearing?”

  I nodded. “But we’ve suspected that for a while. Since the Landau case. He could have talked to someone in the department about it.”

  “Or he was being logical,” Sampson said. “I mean, how else would you do it?”

  Liu turned frustrated. “What about the Elliotts? Black dad. Hispanic wife. Blended kids? That fits.”

  “I suppose,” I said, unconvinced. “The way I read it, Tull has no idea what the future holds, which is where we are as well. He’s speculating here so editors like you will cut him some slack if his theories about the case fall apart.”

  “I agree,” Sampson said. “It reads like the man knows he’s selling something that might not pan out the way this proposal suggests.”

  “It’s more than that,” Liu said, her voice rising. “Do you know he owns guns? Lots of them? He almost always carries one.”

  “He was a Marine and an NCIS investigator,” I said. “I can’t imagine him not carrying a weapon.”

  “But—”

  “Hear me out, Suzanne. I appreciate you coming all this way to talk to us, but I’m not seeing a shred of evidence to back up your suspicions.”

  “They’re not suspicions!”

  “They are,” Sampson said. “I’m sorry, but you sound like a former editor who is pissed at Tull because he took a bigger offer than yours and it got you fired.”

  “That has nothing to do with it!” she said, standing up, slamming the lid of her briefcase down, and locking it.

  “I think it has more than a little bit to do with it,” I said.

  She gestured at the paperbacks angrily. “If you don’t believe me, read the books. Ask yourself how Thomas Tull could have known all these things. How could he have seen what no one else did? I was his editor and I always wondered. So did our legal department. Thomas had answers for every question we threw at him, but to be honest, I always came away feeling like there was more to his part in the story than he was letting on.”

  We said nothing. Liu shook her finger at the three paperbacks. “My gut says there are things in those books that are not right, Dr. Cross. Maybe I don’t know enough about criminal investigation, or maybe I’m too close to the narrative to see them. But someone like you, an even better investigator than Thomas—you just might spot the holes in his books when you read them for the first time.”