“Yeah, well, I figured since I know who’s behind this, I should share my thoughts, even though Charlotte’s convinced we’re all being tracked by drones now.”

“I’m listening,” Marty says.

“So am I,” Luke adds.

“I found a Dylan Cody who served in the United States Marine Corps before becoming a Navy SEAL. He was stationed with Seal Team Three out of Coronado, but not for very long.”

“Let me guess. He got lured away by something lucrative and more private,” Luke says.

“Not quite. He was accepted to Harvard University, where he pursued a concentration in chemical and physical biology before graduating with honors. Then he went on to get his PhD.”

“Concentration?” Marty asks. “I thought they were called majors.”

“Really?” Luke asks. “That’s where your focus goes right now?”

Kayla seems pleased by Luke’s remark, which pleases Luke. He’s not interested in trying to win somebody else over today.

“What’d he get his PhD in?” Luke asks.

“Neuroscience. Shortly thereafter he was hired by a company called Graydon Pharmaceuticals. Ever heard of them? It doesn’t matter. You’ve probably been prescribed at least two of their drugs in your lifetime.”

“I knew a drug company was behind this,” Luke says.

“What’d he do there?” Marty asks.

“Nothing,” Kayla says, as if she doesn’t believe her own answer. “Brilliant guy. Gorgeous. Hired out of Harvard. A veteran of Special Forces. I mean, drug companies are all about marketing, and this one hires Superman in scrubs and then never lets him appear at a public function on Graydon’s behalf. You’d think they would’ve made him the face of something.”

“Or he was working on something they didn’t want anyone to know about,” Luke says.

“Sounds about right,” Marty adds.

“What about before then?” Luke asks.

“Before Graydon?”

“No, before the marines.”

“That’s when I got called off,” Kayla says. “So what do you think? You think this intel’s good enough for a drop-in even though she didn’t want me digging?”

“For your own safety,” Marty points out.

“That’s not why she called you off today,” Luke says.

Kayla’s eyebrows go up. Marty gives him a similar expression.

“I mean, maybe it’s part of it, but it’s not the only reason.”

If Charley’s refusing help from someone this smart and capable, maybe letting Kayla and Marty in on her plans is for her own good.

Yeah, and remember what she did the last time you tried to do something you thought was for her own good?

“I’m listening,” Kayla says.

“So am I,” Marty adds.

Sorry, Charley.

“She’s cutting you out so she doesn’t have to tell you what she’s planning to do.”

A little while later, they’re all seated inside Marty’s trailer, and Charlotte’s looking at him like she wants to punch a hole through his chest the way she did that truck’s grill.

Is the three-hour window thing for real, he wonders, or was she just trying to ease his rattled nerves?

At Luke’s request, they’ve powered off their cell phones and placed them inside Marty’s mailbox at the mouth of the driveway. A skilled hacker, he explained, could use their handheld devices to listen in on everything they’re saying. Kayla didn’t disagree, Charlotte didn’t have a strong opinion since she was still without a new cell phone, and Marty, whose bookshelf includes titles like Alien Conspiracy, Secrets of the Trilateral Commission, and Loch Ness Unchained, already had a little piece of paper taped over the camera on his desktop computer. He still shut the thing down and powered off his Wi-Fi network as well.

“I don’t get it,” Marty says for the second time. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest, nicotine gum forgotten in one corner of his mouth.

Is he acting dumb? Maybe he’s just in shock. Charley couldn’t have been any clearer.

“What’s not to get?” Kayla asks. She’s on one end of the love seat, bent elbow braced against the arm, resting her face in her open palm as if it’s the only thing keeping her head from falling apart.

“The plan,” Marty says. “What’s the plan? I mean, it’s one thing to want to go after this guy. But how are you going to find him?”

“That’s your brother’s job, right?” Kayla asks Luke.

“You think your brother’s going to be able to find out who’s killed those women with just a few keystrokes?” Marty asks.

“No, I don’t,” he answers.

“And why not?” He’s touched ice blocks warmer than Charley’s voice.

“He’s good, but he’s not that good.”

“Says who?” Charley asks.

“Says me.”

“He found a white-collar criminal living under an assumed name in Australia and he hacked a satellite to do it.”

“Fundamentally, he knew who he was looking for,” Luke responded, “and he exploited a back door in a telecommunications company, a back door the company has since publicly acknowledged and closed.”

“Sounds pretty skilled to me,” Kayla says.

“Everything about this is different. Back then, he had his target’s height, weight, everything about his mannerisms, physical appearance, and tics. It may sound irrelevant, but that’s all pivotal in a hack because it allows you to predict what passwords they pick, how they might try to move money. Possible aliases.”

“Who’s the expert in hacking again?” Marty asks.

“I looked into it some because I wanted to know how my brother had destroyed his life.”

“You don’t know he’s destroyed his life,” Marty says. “He could be in Tahiti covered in swimsuit models right now.”

“Yeah, ’cause he was always a big hit with swimsuit models. The point is, the only way Bailey’s been able to pull off something like this is when he had a body of knowledge about a specific individual. He doesn’t have that here. He’s got a ghost, just like the cops. Whatever methods he does use to try to find the Mask Maker, there’s no reason to believe they’ll be any better than what LAPD’s using right now.”

“They could be faster,” Kayla says, “given that he won’t have to deal with warrants and all.”

“The best he’ll be able to do is hack LAPD and get you as much of the case file as he can. Maybe the BSU profile on the guy if there is one.”

“Well, that’s super illegal,” Kayla mutters, but she’s staring at the floor vacantly, as if strict concepts of legality don’t mean as much to her as they did the day before but she’s still obligated to reference them now and then.

“BSU?” Marty asks.

“Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI,” Kayla says. “They deal with serial killers.”

“They try to deal with serial killers,” Charley says.

“What does that mean?” Luke asks.

“It means two agents from BSU probably flew to LA on the taxpayer’s dime and spent a few days in their hotel rooms using trendy pop psychology to write some superficial ‘profile’”—she mimes air quotes—“based on a shallow reading of the crime scenes. Now the local cops are leaning on that profile instead of doing their jobs, which is actually investigating the evidence they have. In the process, they’ll eliminate way too many potential suspects so they can trim their workload and the ‘profile’”—she fires off another set of air quotes—“will give them permission to do it.”

“That’s a lot of air quotes there, Trigger,” Marty says.

“And a pretty rash dismissal of an esteemed unit of the FBI,” Luke says.

“Really?” Charley asks. “You’re going to start defending the FBI?”

“Look, I get it. You’re mad at me for telling them you want to—”

“No, I’m sick of people getting tingly over BSU because of Clarice Starling, OK? Have any of you ever read the FBI profile of the Bannings? A crystal ball would have been more help.”

“I heard they used those, too,” Kayla says.

“Charley,” Luke says, “FBI profiling is a very valid—”

“The profile ruled out all women, for Christ’s sake. It was a female serial killer.”

“To be fair, she was working in conjunction with a male sexual predator, who connected up with many of the points made in the profile,” Luke says.

“And he wasn’t committing the murders. She was. And by ruling out all women, the profile blinded the local cops to something they should have seen before.”

“Which was what?” Kayla asks.

“There were no signs of struggle at most of the abduction sites because the victims, mostly women traveling alone, trusted their abductor. More than they would have trusted any lone man traveling on a back road or hiking through the woods. And they trusted him because he had a woman with him. If the profile had been right, and Daniel Banning, or some sick freak just like him, was acting alone, there’s a chance my mother never would have rolled down her car window so fast.”

“You don’t know that, Charley,” Marty says. “Come on. She had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, and she was with a baby. She needed any help she could get.”

“And what about the two girls they beat in their motel room?” Kayla asks.