Conduit
held them for more than 36 hours, so start
with new reports and move up to a week.”
    “I’m on it,” Shawn said. He waved goodbye to Lionel and jogged
toward his car.
    Lionel looked past Shawn at the Channel 12 news van pulling
up alongside the ditch, followed closely by Channel 10. “Damn,” Lionel
muttered.
    He grabbed his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and called
Bill Evans, the head of the crime scene unit collecting evidence. When Bill
answered, Lionel said, “The vultures are swarming. Tell Perry to put a rush on
it. Finish the photos of the victim and get that poor girl out of the open.”
    He slipped the phone into his pocket and started toward his
car. Lionel remembered the other call he needed to make and took the phone back
out. Number five was the speed dial for Monroe & Reid Investigators.
    As his call rang through, he wasn’t sure what to expect from
Emily, wasn’t even sure he trusted her unusual detective skills, but he didn’t
know what else to do. For weeks, they had watched the killer carve out his
message on victims that he tortured for hours before their bodies relinquished their
hold on life.
    At his car, he rested the phone against his shoulder and flipped
open his notepad. He added the last letter to the others he wrote down at five
previous crime scenes. The addition of the last letter completed the message. Lionel
just needed to figure out what it meant.
    Hear me.

Chapter Three
    Nestled in the corner of an L-shaped
strip mall, Ristorante Italiano had not been updated since opening its doors
almost four decades earlier. White paint flaked off two wrought iron benches in
front of the restaurant. The outside walls boasted a fading mural of
vine-covered picket fences, wine bottles, and random bunches of white and red
grapes. According to online reviews, the food quality had also deteriorated
under new management.
    In front of a cheap, ceramic planter filled with a dying mix
of flowers, Jillian Waters wrapped her arms around her lunch date’s neck. Several
inches shorter than Jillian, the man raised his head up for a kiss, and she
returned his affection.
    Watching their kiss from his vantage point in the parking
lot, David Noakes shook his head in disgust. Her date’s selfish kiss took pleasure
away from her, without offering anything in return. The awkward kiss continued,
and David frowned. The taste of garlic and bumping noses ensured Jillian would not
experience passion in her last kiss before she died.
    Passion belonged in every step of life. David took pride in inserting
passion into each moment of his work, and he would make sure Jillian experienced
the ultimate passion before she took her final breath. Though intended for
Emily Monroe, his passion would pass through and consume Jillian until she
embodied it.
    Jillian stepped away from her date and walked in the
opposite direction toward her black Eclipse. The smile clinging to her lips
indicated she found the poor kiss satisfactory. David thought it a sad thing
for Jillian to settle for less than perfection in a kiss.
    For a moment, he considered Jillian unworthy of his work. It
wasn’t the first time he’d had doubts about her. Over the past several days,
she had exhibited many undesirable traits.
    But as soon as he came in contact with Jillian, he recognized
her as a conduit, and a strong one at that. Jillian could channel his abilities
and direct them toward Emily, allowing him to connect with her. Born with the
gift he needed to exploit to reach Emily, he could not deny Jillian the
opportunity to participate in his work because she had bad taste in men.
    Jillian stumbled on her high heel. She recovered before
falling to the asphalt, but continued down the row of cars with a slight limp
that pushed the smile away from her mouth and added one to his. Sprained ankles
made the dirty side of his work easier.
    Tomorrow morning, while Jillian finished her early shift at
the coffee shop, David would wait in her small apartment for
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