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I’ve been around them all my life, and really wanted to do something else.”
    â€œWhat if I’m a lawyer?”
    Steve paused. “I’ll take your money.”
    He smiled. “Rest easy. I’m a mathematician, sort of. Self-taught. This all came from computer games.”
    â€œOf course. I thought the name sounded familiar.”
    The maid brought out a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. She set it on a glass-covered wrought iron table.
    â€œThank you, Selma.” To Steve: “If you biked here, you must be thirsty.” They sat down and he poured two glasses.
    â€œYou’ve heard of Hunter.”
    â€œThe assistant governor?” Slimeball.
    â€œNo. The serial killer.”
    â€œOh, of course.”
    He rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. “Five years ago . . . almost six now . . . my only son was his first victim.”
    â€œMy god. I’m sorry.”
    â€œThey found, the Georgia police”—his voice cracked—“they found his, his skin and insides. He’d been dressed out like a rabbit or a deer.”
    â€œI’ve read about that. I had no idea it had happened to you.”
    â€œWe paid a lot to keep our identity secret. We thought it might have been a kidnapping, for ransom, that went awry. I had two younger daughters to protect.”
    â€œThey’re not here?” The place had a bachelor feel.
    â€œNo, they live with their mother up north. The marriage sort of fell apart. Understandable.”
    â€œThe police weren’t able to . . .”
    â€œNo, nothing. Of course it’s federal now. Homeland Security and the FBI. They have no leads at all. And I just found out there was a new one, the twelfth, last week. A jogger in Alabama.”
    â€œI didn’t know.”
    â€œNobody does. The man had no family, so they kept it under wraps. If the murderer is after publicity, they think maybe not getting it might make him do something stupid.”
    â€œI read that he’s pretty . . . not stupid.”
    â€œHe’s never left prints or DNA. He’s left tire tracks, but no two are the same.
    â€œI’ll give you the FBI dossier, everything they gave me. I don’t want to look at it anymore. Pictures.”
    â€œSo . . . what do you want me to do? Find him when the FBI can’t?”
    â€œBasically, well, I want you to be a lure.”
    â€œLure him to you?”
    â€œTo yourself. And then capture or kill him.”
    â€œWhy would he want to come after me?”
    â€œEveryone he’s killed was alone, on a country road or path. All athletes, either jogging or running or, like my son, biking. All in Florida or Georgia or Alabama.”
    â€œI bike sixty miles a day in Florida. He hasn’t come after me yet.”
    â€œMy son and three others seem to have been on the same trail. It can’t be a coincidence.”
    â€œWhat trail?”
    â€œIt’s the Southern Tier Trail, three thousand miles of back roads and bike paths from St. Augustine to San Diego. Thousands of people bike it every year.”
    â€œYou’d think the authorities would have it staked out. Parts of it.”
    â€œYou’d think. But they call it ‘weak circumstantial evidence.’ None of them died near the trail, but they all were on or near it the day they died. My son’s bike was found right off the trail outside Tallahassee, but he was taken to a remote part of Georgia to be killed.”
    â€œWell, I’m not a criminal lawyer. But I’d call it circumstantial evidence myself.”
    â€œWhatever, I’ll pay you two thousand dollars a week to ride that trail by yourself, alone and apparently vulnerable, but armed. A hundred thousand if you capture the bastard. Two hundred if he’s killed. It beats picking up cans off the road.”
    It was a crazy idea, but hell, the man could afford an expensive hobby. A quest.