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He said again, “Listen to me. Promise you won’t leave the hotel.”

Finally she said, “Oh, all right. I promise.”

He really hoped she wasn’t a liar.

He called his sister on his cell phone on his way back to Bryant Street, listened to her arrangements for their brother’s funeral.

Michael was dead. They were actually talking about burying him. Dane couldn’t stand it. Instead of going to the Hall of Justice, he drove back to St. Bartholomew’s, at his sister’s request, to see that everything was being handled. Father Binney, red-eyed, a slight tremor in his veiny white hands, had spoken to Bishop Koshlap and Archbishop Lugano. Everything had been arranged, everyone notified. Father Michael Joseph’s funeral would take place at St. Bartholomew’s on Friday afternoon, since there was another funeral already scheduled for the morning, and the wake Wednesday evening. “I am so sorry,” he said over and over. “If only I hadn’t talked him into seeing that man, that monster. I’m so very sorry.”

Dane wished he could tell Father Binney again that he wasn’t at fault here, that it was the monster who had murdered four people here in San Francisco, but the words just wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

He drove too quickly to the Hall of Justice and was pulled over just south of Market by a motorcycle cop.

When he handed over his FBI shield, the officer just stared down at it, laughed, then said, “Hey, you on a big case?”

Dane just nodded.

“No ticket this time, Special Agent. Just watch the speed.”

Dane thanked the officer and continued to speed to the Hall of Justice, despite the choking traffic.

He was shown into the task force room, which was actually the conference room next to the chief’s office. Kreider’s assistant, Maggie, told him the chief wanted lots of say on this one, wanted to be the first one to know if anything broke.

There were fifteen people crowded in the room. Dane stood leaning against the back wall and listened to Delion finish up.

“. . . Okay, everyone knows the drill. The guy who just came in, over by the door, is Special Agent Dane Carver, FBI. His brother was Father Michael Joseph. He’s not here as a Fed, just as a cop, and so he’s a part of this hunt. Anybody got anything to say? No? Okay, that’s it.”

Dane looked up at the time line thumbtacked to the wall, at the photos of the four people murdered. Chief Kreider squeezed Dane’s shoulder on his way out.

Delion said to Dane, “I’ll bet our guys even have their moms working on this thing, Dane. We’ll nail the guy, you’ll see. Now, we’re scheduled to see the medical examiner. Dr. Boyd promised he’d do Valerie Striker first thing. How’s Ms. Jones?”

“She’s fine. She swore to me she wouldn’t leave the hotel.”

An eyebrow went up. “You believed her?”

“Short of locking her up, I really didn’t have a choice, but yeah, I do.”

“You get her cleaned up?”

“Oh yes. She looks like a grad student.”

“A grad student? You know, maybe that’s a possibility. She looks brainy, speaks real well.”

Dane shook his head. “She’s smart, she’s too scared to hide that. Graduate student? She seems a bit old for that, but who knows?”

Delion said, “I’m told by my sister—she’s a professor of anthropology over at UC Davis—that there’s a lot of cutthroat stuff in academia, more vicious, she says, than the business world. Of course, she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about but do you think our girl could be running from a badass professor?”

“Could be,” Dane said, and burst out laughing, just couldn’t help himself. “A killer professor. I like that, Delion. Let’s stop by and see whose fingerprints are on this glass.”

“Ms. Jones?”

“Yes, a beautiful clear thumb. If she won’t tell us who she is, just maybe her prints are on file. You never know. And, Delion, thanks for making me laugh.”

“No problemo.”

Dr. Boyd met them at the morgue counter. “Valerie Striker was garrotted,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

Dane said, “Can you give us a time, sir?”

“It’s difficult, but I’d say