"You? Jesus, kid, there were a dozen cops in this place — including me."
Tony said, "Never mind who's to blame. The important thing is to find him before — before — "
"Before he kills her," Miranda said. Her voice was very steady, but her eyes were blind.
Tony didn't know what to say to her; he thought it was quite possibly the first and last time he'd ever see Miranda Knight literally paralyzed, unable to do anything except sit there at the conference table and stare at the wall. And he was very relieved when Bishop came back into the room; he had been absent only a few minutes, checking the building for any sign that might help them because he didn't trust anyone else to do it.
Going directly to Miranda, Bishop knelt before her, his hands lifting to rest gently on her knees.
She looked at him, saw him. "I promised to protect her." She was talking to him alone, oblivious to everyone else in the room. "I swore I'd always keep her safe."
"Bonnie is going to be all right, Miranda. We'll find her, and we'll do it before that bastard can hurt her."
"You can't promise," she said almost wistfully.
"Yes, I can," Bishop said. He leaned forward and kissed her, equally oblivious to the watching eyes, then got to his feet and faced the others, one hand remaining on her shoulder.
"We don't have much time, but I think we have a little," he told them. "I don't believe he'll kill her immediately — he made that mistake with the Penman boy and lost the opportunity to question him. And he made a similar mistake with Liz Hallowell."
"With Liz?" Alex frowned at him.
Bishop looked at him. "He thought she was the one who told us where to find Steve Penman, and he didn't take the time to be certain. That haunts him, I'm sure."
"Haunts him?" Alex exploded. "He's a cold-blooded killer without an ounce of conscience, and you claim he can be haunted by a mistake? A fucking mistake?"
Remaining calm, Bishop said, "What I claim is that this killer is an intelligent, complex psychopath with a very definite set of rituals and rules governing his life and behavior. Carelessness caused him to make one bad mistake, and panic caused him to make another; he won't be quick to make a third. He'll need to assure himself that Bonnie is the threat he believes her to be."
Miranda stirred. "How? How can he assure himself of that? You said it yourself — talking to the dead isn't an easy thing to prove."
"Which is why we have a little time," Bishop said, holding her gaze steadily. "But not much, Miranda."
For just a moment she seemed to waver, but then her shoulders squared, her mouth firmed, and she stood up. "We have to find out if Steve asked anybody about that pocketknife at the drugstore the day he disappeared.
We have the list of tire dealerships in the area to contact. We have to figure out if there's something, some place or action, linking all the missing kids together." She drew a breath. "And we have to find out how he could have discovered that it was Bonnie who was the threat — and how he knew she was here."
Alex gave a disgusted snort. "Hell, half the deputies out in the bullpen were discussing all the gossip this morning, and the consensus was that Bonnie being the one was as likely as anything else."
"A deputy didn't take her," Bishop said. "You're all accounted for. And Marsh is still safely locked in the interview room."
Alex said, "Granted, but anybody passing through could have heard all the talk, and we've had several visitors here at one time or another today."
Miranda stiffened suddenly. "John was here," she said slowly, looking at Bishop. "Remember? He said Justin had called him. And when we saw him, he was just coming from the direction of the bullpen. He could have heard them."
"We need more than supposition," Bishop reminded her. "We can't waste time chasing down blind alleys. Tony, track down somebody from the drugstore and find out about that knife, will you?"
"You bet." Tony picked up the bagged knife from the conference table and retreated to his desk to use the phone.
Remembering something else, Miranda said, "He was at Liz's store Saturday night before the storm. The gossip was starting up even then, so he could have heard the garbled version about Liz telling us where to find Steve's body. He had the opportunity to take Justin's Bible, and more than enough time to — to kill her and take her to her house before the snow got too bad."
"What about the profile?" Bishop asked her. "Does he live alone, or have a secure, isolated place where he'd feel safe?"
"He lives alone and has for years. Before that his father lived with him and was in very poor health virtually from the time John was a boy." Miranda spoke rapidly, frowning as she dredged up the facts she could recall. "His family home is a big, old house miles outside town, very isolated. He's been building a new place closer in, but says he'll never be able to cut his ties to the farm."
"He's the right age," Bishop said. "Old enough to have been doing this for fifteen years or more. Personality type could fit. Unusual to have a killer such as this one in a political office, far less a relatively high one, but it is possible. And he comes and goes here so freely as to attract little if any notice."
"He knew Lynet," Miranda said. "Dated her mother at one time, and not too long ago."
Seth, who had stepped away without comment to use one of the phones, hung up and said to Miranda, "I called the clinic. Dad said the mayor showed up there about an hour ago saying he just wanted to make sure everybody had weathered the storm. He went all through the place, said hello to the patients and nurses, even the kitchen staff."
"Looking for Bonnie," Miranda said.
"He asked about her. Very casual, said he thought she was there. Dad — Dad told him we were here."
Alex frowned. "Now that I think about it, I remember one of the guys saying this morning that he'd heard the story about Bonnie from somebody married to one of the nurses at the clinic. If MacBride overheard that, he would have known to look for her there."
Tony hung up his phone with a bang and turned to the others. "Got it. I haven't tracked down a clerk who waited on Steve Penman the day he disappeared, but the manager is in the store and was able to check his books. This knife is a collectible, and there were only three of them sold in Gladstone. The serial number on this one identifies it as the one sold last summer to Mayor MacBride."
With all the snow on the ground, there was no way it could be dark at three in the afternoon even in January, but a heavily overcast sky made it at least not quite as bright as it could have been. Bishop said he supposed they should be grateful for small favors.
Miranda frowned at the landscape spread out before them and said "Shit."
"We can't approach any way at all except on foot and even hope to get close without being seen," Bishop said.
"Then we go on foot." Miranda got out of the Jeep, wishing the snow didn't crunch so loudly underfoot, her gaze still fixed on the house barely visible through the thick forest of mostly pines all around it.
Bishop joined her. "How soon before you figure Alex tumbles to us being gone?"
"I'm counting on Tony to distract him as long as possible. There's no way I want him anywhere near here. He's just too wild to get his hands on Liz's killer. Much better for him and Seth to be concentrating on trying to find some connection to John in those files of missing kids."
Mildly, Bishop said, "We could have brought along another deputy or two."
"I don't trust anybody else to handle this," she said flatly.
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." He drew his weapon just as she had and checked it, thumbing off the safety. "I suggest we circle the house once we get under those trees, see what we can see without getting too close."
"Right."
They moved toward the house cautiously, careful of their footing in the deep snow, keeping to the shelter of trees and overgrown bushes wherever possible, and when they were close enough, they split up to bracket the house.