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“This doesn’t really get us anywhere,” Gretchen said. “Any DNA? I know it’s hard to extract it from someone’s lips, but not impossible.”

“Nothing,” Josie said. “In the interview Sylvia gave Trinity, she said he kissed her the night of her attack, right before he smeared the lipstick away but no, there was never any DNA extracted from the victims’ mouths. Trace DNA was found in other parts of the victims’ apartments, but they didn’t get any hits. There were a bunch of different sets of unknown fingerprints at each scene. Some weren’t in AFIS; others just weren’t usable—too smeared. He might have worn gloves or tried to wipe down anything he touched. That would explain the smearing.”

“Figures,” said Turner.

“Wiping away a kiss,” Gretchen said. “It’s about rejection.”

“Rejection of him?” Turner asked. “Or the victim?”

“Him,” Josie said. “He feels rejected and he’s taking it out on these women. Maybe he had a partner who wiped away his kisses and he never got past it.”

“You and the LT,” Turner said. “You guys wipe off each other’s kisses?”

Josie, Gretchen, and Noah all groaned at the same time. Gretchen stood up and fished a dollar out of the pocket of her jeans. Depositing it into the jar on Turner’s desk, she said, “You’re a jackass. As usual.”

“What? I wanna know. I’m kind of wondering if it contributed to my divorce.” He grimaced as he scrubbed a hand over his beard. “I mean, do you two just walk around with saliva all over your faces all day?”

Gretchen arched a brow at him. “If you made any contributions to your divorce, that was the least of your problems, I’m sure.”

“Thanks for that,” Turner muttered.

“The wiping away kisses thing is not always as deep as a rejection,” Josie said before the two of them could start bickering. “It’s a sensory thing for some people.”

“Not for this guy, though,” Noah said. “This is all about him expressing his rage toward women—or just one woman—who rejected him in the past.”

“Threw his affection back in his face,” Gretchen agreed. “The bedroom element could play into that. A woman gets dressed and puts makeup on to go on a date. The man hopes the date will end in a sexual encounter—in her bedroom.”

“That could be why they’re always in their beds,” Noah said. “He didn’t get what he expected or wanted because she turned him away. Maybe the rejection came at the point of the good night kiss.”

“Or she didn’t want him to mess up her makeup,” Turner suggested.

Josie’s gaze went back to the crime scene photos. “There is an element of marring something otherwise beautiful, isn’t there? They’re all attractive women and they all look very put together except for the smeared lipstick. It’s garish, ugly.”

“Wait a minute,” Turner said. “Quinn, are you agreeing with⁠—”

“Shut up,” Josie said.

“That was rude.” He tapped his jar. “That was definitely worthy of a dollar.”

“Turner,” Noah said. “Shut up.”

Gretchen coughed and Josie could see that it was only to cover her snicker.

“Well, I don’t know where this gets us,” Turner complained. “So this guy’s killing innocent women because he couldn’t handle rejection. Prisons all over the country are bursting with little manbaby assholes who couldn’t handle the fact that no woman in her right mind would want to hop into bed with a misogynist psychopath rocking small dick energy.”

All three of them stared at him.

“Quinn,” he said, oblivious. “Did I get that slang right? Small dick energy?”

“I don’t know, Turner, and I’m not asking my fourteen-year-old about that one, so you’re on your own.”

“No DNA matches, no leads with the lipstick.” Noah stood up and grabbed a marker from a mug on his desk. He walked around to the other side of the corkboard which was a dry-erase board. “Let’s talk similarities among the victims.”

Josie heard the squeak of the marker against the shiny surface as Noah continued. “The victims are single. Live alone. Aged between thiry-four and forty-one. That’s not counting Sylvia’s age at the time of her death since she was forty-one when he initially attacked her. They’re always garroted with the same unidentified ligature.”

Josie scanned the photos again. “The ligature marks look the same with every victim. No patterned injuries. The going theory, according to the files, is he used a cord of some kind.”

“Same lipstick, same ligature.” Noah kept scribbling. “He might bring a kit with him. What else? They’re always left in their beds, staged neatly. No sign of a struggle other than on their persons. No sexual assault. No sign of breaking and entering.”