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“That old thing again,” Turner said, tossing his tiny foam ball at the tiny basketball net affixed to his desk. As usual, he missed.

“It’s useful,” Josie said. “Unlike you.”

Gretchen laughed. Noah gave her a look that said: don’t wind Turner up.

Josie wiped her dusty hands on her pants. “Where are the photos I asked you to pull from the Last Kiss Killer files?”

Turner tossed his ball again and it ricocheted off the rim of the basket and landed on Noah’s desk.

“Probably still in their files,” he said. “You know, Quinn, you didn’t even say please.”

Noah picked up the ball and threw it back across the desks, making a basket with ease. “Do you and I need to have a discussion, Detective?”

Turner stared at the little net as if Noah had just performed a miracle. “How many warnings do I have now?”

“You’re on the precipice of a written reprimand, so tread carefully.”

With one of the heaviest sighs Josie had ever heard, Turner pushed himself out of his chair and rifled through the many, many piles of paperwork on his desk until he came up with a stack of photos. Josie was so shocked, she didn’t even respond when he circled the desks and handed them to her.

“I don’t have any yarn though,” he said, glancing at the corkboard.

“Oh, shut up,” Josie said.

He surprised her again when he started pulling push pins from where they were clustered in the corner of the corkboard and handing them to her one by one. Within minutes, they had photos of each one of the Last Kiss Killer’s victims as well as pictures from the crime scenes hung up, including photos from Sylvia’s initial attack. Gretchen stood and took Josie’s place, affixing index cards above each set that included the women’s names, ages, where they’d lived, and the dates they’d been killed. Wordlessly, Turner took the stack from her and handed her each one as she needed it.

Josie and Noah exchanged a look as they watched the two work in silence. Not a single insult hurled. She suspected it was just because Turner didn’t want to risk pissing Gretchen off while he was within punching distance.

Once everything was in place, the four of them sat at their desks and studied the board. The only sounds in the room were the ancient air conditioner burbling and Turner’s fingers tapping against his blotter. “How about it, Quinn? You saw Sylvia West before her house burned down. Was it the same scene as these?”

Josie stood and moved closer to the board, taking her time to study the photos from each scene. They were eerie in their similarities. So precise. Each woman in the center of her bed, facing the ceiling, legs straight, arms at her sides, ligature marks on her neck, and lipstick smeared across her mouth. So different from the candid photos Trinity had gathered from different periods in each woman’s life in which they were smiling, happy, hopeful.

“Well?” Turner prodded.

She’d only glimpsed Sylvia for a few seconds, but the image was burned into her consciousness. “It was basically the same except that Sylvia’s dress was torn and her hair was messed up. Like he’d been pulling it.”

She went back to her desk and picked up a stack of reports she’d printed out, flipping through them. “The other women showed evidence of struggling. Broken fingernails, scratches around the ligature marks where they tried to pry it off, some bruising on their arms, legs or back which is probably from them flailing or falling during the assaults. But look at these pictures. Not a hair out of place.”

The only scene that indicated a violent struggle was from the attack on Sylvia—which she had survived. The photos the Tredyffrin Township Police Department had taken showed the chair she’d talked about in her interview with Trinity. All around it lay broken and damaged things: a lamp, an end table, the television, a drinking glass. Books, magazines and other items were strewn across the carpet. The remote control had been crushed, as had a pair of glasses. Like her living room here in Denton, it was free of the piles of possessions she kept in every other room of her home.

Noah stretched back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “He didn’t have time to stage Sylvia after he killed her.”

“Which is a big departure for him,” Gretchen said.

“He’s definitely organized,” Josie agreed. “Neat. Look at the bedrooms.”

Besides the meticulous positioning of the bodies—with the exception of Sylvia—the women’s bedrooms were tidy. Everything was in its place. Had all of the other women kept their bedrooms that neat, or had he straightened them up? Regardless, if there had been a struggle, he had cleaned up the mess before he left.

“What about the lipstick?” asked Gretchen. “Did we get anywhere with that?”

Josie shifted the piles of paperwork on her desk around until she found another report. “The killer used the same type on all his victims. The shade is called Devil Divine from Luxe Glimmer, the cosmetics company that Alanna Jarrett worked for. It’s from their Scarlet Radiance line.”

“Did he take it from her house?” Noah asked.

“There was no way for the detectives to tell. She was living alone at the time except for her eight-year-old son who was there part-time. There was no one who could tell them if any of her makeup was missing, but there were no tubes of it in her house so he could have found it there, used it on her, and taken it with him. Speaking of the tubes.” Josie found a color photo of the internet listing for Devil Divine. She had checked and the design of the tube hadn’t changed from fifteen years ago. She stood and walked over to the corkboard, pinning it in the center of all the other items.

Turner tossed his ball at the net and missed. “Fancy.”

The tube was red with a heart embossed on it. A golden halo hovered above it at the top of the cap. A black devil’s tail snaked out from the apex, wrapping around the casing. Its tip hung over flames drawn at the base. From Josie’s perusal of the website, one of the hallmarks of Luxe Glimmer’s brand was the unique design of their cosmetics cases.