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By Root 380 0

reports. The tape was found to be clear of fingerprints but several hairs and microscopic fibers were collected from the underside adhesive. The hair was determined to have belonged to the victim. The fibers were held pending further orders for analysis. McCaleb knew this meant there was a time and cost constraint. The fibers would not be analyzed until the investigation reached a point where there were fibers from a suspect’s possessions that also could be analyzed and compared. Otherwise, the costly and time-consuming analysis of the collected fibers would be for nothing. McCaleb had seen this sort of investigative prioritizing before. It was a routine in local law enforcement not to take expensive steps until necessary. But he was a bit surprised that it had not been deemed necessary in this case. He concluded that Gunn’s background as a one-time murder suspect might have dropped him into a lower class of victim, one for which the extra step is not taken. Maybe, McCaleb thought, this was why Jaye Winston had come to him. She hadn’t said anything about paying him for his time — not that he could accept a monetary payment anyway.

He moved on to an addendum report that had been filed by Winston. She had taken a photograph of the tape and the message to a linguistics professor at UCLA who had identified the words as Latin. She was then referred to a retired Catholic priest who lived in the rectory at St. Catherine’s in Hollywood and had taught Latin at the church’s school for two decades until it was dropped from the curriculum in the early seventies. He easily translated the message for Winston.

As McCaleb read the translation he felt the feathery run of adrenaline rise up his spine to his neck. His skin tightened and he felt a sensation that came close to lightheadedness.

Cave Cave Dus Videt

Cave Cave D(omin)us Videt

Beware Beware God Sees

“Holy shit,” McCaleb said quietly to himself.

It was not said as an exclamation. Rather, it was the phrase he and fellow bureau profilers had used to informally classify cases in which religious overtures were part of the evidence. When God was discovered to be part of the probable motivation for a crime, it became a “holy shit” case when spoken of in casual conversation. It also changed things significantly, for God’s work was never done. When a killer was out there using His name as part of the imprint of a crime, it often meant there would be more crimes. It was said in the bureau profiling offices that God’s killers never stopped of their own volition. They had to be stopped. McCaleb now understood Jaye Winston’s apprehension about letting this case gather dust. If Edward Gunn was the first known victim, then somebody else was likely in the sights of the killer right now.

McCaleb scribbled down a translation of the killer’s message and some other thoughts. He wrote Victim Acquisition and underlined it twice.

He looked back at Winston’s report and noticed that at the bottom of the page containing the translation there was a paragraph marked with an asterisk.

*Father Ryan stated that the word “Dus” as seen on the duct tape was a short form of “Deus” or “Dominus” primarily found in medieval Bibles as well as church carvings and other artwork.

McCaleb leaned back in his chair and drank from the water bottle. He found this final paragraph the most interesting of the whole package. The information it contained could be a means by which the killer might be isolated in a small group and then found. Initially the pool of potential suspects was huge — it would essentially include anyone who had had access to Edward Gunn on New Year’s Eve. But the information from Father Ryan narrowed it significantly to those who had knowledge of medieval Latin, or someone who had gotten the word Dus and possibly the whole message from something he had seen.

Perhaps something in a church.

5

McCaleb was too jazzed by what he had read and seen to think about sleep. It was four-thirty and he knew he would complete this night awake and in the office. It was probably too early in Quantico, Virginia,