Part 70 (1/2)

I had, of course. Maybe that's why I got the vibe.

”Sarah, where are you?” I called out.

”In here,” she said from the library off the living room.

She was standing behind a mahogany desk, staring down at a large open book she'd pulled from the shelves. It was a world atlas. She'd found her map.

”Well, I'm pretty sure you're not planning your vacation,” I said.

I was more right than I knew. In fact, at that moment, I was more right than we both knew.

Sarah was looking at a map of the United States, finding all the locations where Ned Sinclair had killed. She'd already circled the towns with a felt-tip pen.

”Sorry,” she said as I reached the desk. ”Couldn't help myself. Think Breslow will forgive me?”

I looked around at what must have been a thousand books on the shelves. ”I'm guessing no one's going to notice,” I said. ”So tell me: what's the problem? What's bothering you?”

”I can't figure out why Sinclair keeps skipping over John O'Haras who are closer to his last murder,” she said. ”That means there has to be something else. Another pattern.”

”Was that the case with the latest one, in Casper?”

”Yeah. Driesen had already checked. He told me there were at least four O'Haras who were closer to his last victim,” she said. ”Why does Sinclair travel hundreds of miles more than he has to? Just to throw us off?”

”Maybe he scouts those closer O'Haras and determines he can't isolate them, that it's too risky,” I said.

”So he moves on down the line?”

”That would easily explain it.”

”I know,” she said. ”That's the part that bothers me, John. It's too easy. There's something we're not seeing, a pattern inside the pattern.”

”But that's all he's shown us so far. One pattern after another,” I said. ”All the victims have the same name? Pattern. He kills moving from west to east? Pattern. He leaves behind a clue with each victim? Pattern.”

Sarah's eyes immediately went wide. She stared back down at the map.

”Oh, my G.o.d!” she said. ”That's it!”

”What is?”

She reached for the felt-tip on the desk. ”The forest for the trees,” she said. ”The whole reason he's doing it in this particular way.”

”Because he wants to kill me.”

”Yeah. But why?”

”It's what you first told me, how you put it all together,” I said. ”He blames me for his sister's death.”