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wanted him to be innocent. Why did she care? She absolutely had to bring her emotions under control.
    As she left the building, she made an impulsive decision to check the FBI computer files on Dane Clark right away. There was no chance she would sleep until she had some idea of the kind of man she was dealing with. He knows Tess , replayed in her mind as she drove to the federal building.
    Jill showed her identification to the guard, then punched in the security code to enter the corridor where her office was located. She dropped her tape-recorded report on the Du Bois murder in her secretary’s in-file. The action started her mind churning again: No prints. No blood-spatter. Possible set-up. Suspect, Dane Clark, caught at the scene. Bloody knife nearby. He had the opportunity. Still, what about motive?
    The killer’s motive wasn’t clear. The connecting threads seemed to center around beautiful models. But was there something deeper, more insidious?
    Jill scanned the computer files for about thirty minutes and learned that Dane had won top awards for his stories and the only mark against him was that he’d been jailed twice for refusing to reveal his sources.
    She frowned at a reference code indicating another related file, but she couldn’t bring it up. The dull ache in her head had eased, but her eyes stung from fatigue. After a half dozen attempts to locate the file, she exited the computer, making a mental note to have Leo check it out for her. If anyone could retrieve a lost record, he could.
    Jill left her office feeling somewhat relived. Nothing in Dane’s file justified suspicion. Could everything he’d said have been true? It came back to the same question. If so, who had set him up? And why?
    She climbed into her car, strapped on the seatbelt and headed out of the lot. She nodded to the night guard, then pulled out onto street. It started to drizzle but not enough to need her windshield wipers. Jill flipped on her recorder and made a verbal note to call Gary. She’d have him go to the newspaper office and check out Dane’s personnel files, ask around about him—any murder stories he’d worked on, what his boss and coworkers thought of him—the works. Psychologically speaking, she wanted to know the reporter better than he knew himself.
    Jill usually enjoyed driving in the drizzle, threading her way through the streets as traffic signs and neon lights glittered on the wet pavement, but tonight she could only see the image of Tess’ picture in the file with all those murdered models. And it had been in Dane Clark’s filing cabinet.
    Suddenly she was eager to get to the safety of her small home in the suburbs of Saratoga, longed to feel the serenity of the walls around her. She doubted that sleeping would be possible, but still she had to try. To catch this killer she needed a sharp, rested mind.
    A black van turned onto the freeway entrance ramp behind her. There were hardly any cars, and she and the van had their lane all to themselves.
    Her mind was a jumble of questions. If Dane wasn’t the killer, then someone had cleverly set the stage to throw her off his trail. She and her team had gone over the studio with meticulous care. Other than being caught at the scene and having those incriminating pictures in his file, nothing else pointed to Dane. What more did she need? Those things alone were enough to keep him cooling his heels in jail for a while.
    The black van stayed behind her all the way to the off ramp and exited when she did. Could the driver be following her? Jill went a little faster, then quickly jerked the wheel and turned onto her own street. The van turned also. She didn’t remember ever seeing it in her neighborhood. It didn’t make sense for it to share the same route all the way from the center of the city. She slowed in preparation to turn into her driveway. On impulse she drove past her house. The car followed and matched its speed to hers, maintaining its distance as they