Page 31 of Wrong Door

The defeatist thoughts made him realize that no matter how hard they worked and no matter how many leads they found, it was always like this. They caught the killer after the third death or the fourth, always after, and then they went home without knowing where Kane was. And now, here in Savannah, it was even worse. Cord had a head start and there was no way of knowing how many others he had already poisoned. It could be anyone on Pruitt’s list…or it could be people that weren’t on the list at all. And with the absolute lack of any real leads, all of the bureau resources in the world may not help them wrap this one.

"Miles."

Vic's voice made him jump a bit, yanking him out of his thoughts. She was watching him from across the table with the direct, patient attention.

“Yeah?”

"Talk to me," she said.

“About what?”

"You've been zoned out for the past fifteen minutes. Do you need a break?"

He thought about deflecting and assessed the return on it and decided against it. "No, I’m just looking at this list and I can't find a way in. We can't predict who he picks next and even if we could, he likely planted the chromium days or weeks ago and it would be too late anyway. And while I'm sitting here not finding a way in, he's out there with a month's rent paid and his equipment packed and three people already dead." He stopped and saw that she was waiting patiently, giving him the floor. He figured if he’d already started, he may as well finish.

"Kane is still out there," Miles said. "We catch these disciples after three or four murders every time, and Kane just waits and produces another one. Cord was in our system for four months and it didn’t matter. We had him flagged and he’s killing anyway.” He looked at the whiteboard and said, "It feels like we're running in place."

Vic was quiet for a moment, processing it all as she sipped from her cold coffee. "You're not wrong about the bigger picture," she said. "We haven't caught Kane yet. That's true. Well…I mean, we did one time, but he managed to get out.”

“Another strike,” Miles muttered.

"But we're not chasing Kane right now. We're in Savannah, and there is a man here who has not finished what he started, which means no matter how bleak it might seem, we do still have a chance to stop him.”

Miles got to his feet and stretched his back, finally taking his eyes away from the board.

"All right," he said. “So…we know that we can't catch him by chasing him. He's been invisible in this city for weeks, even on security cameras it seems. He moved through Nadia Ostroff's studio and Hale's supply chain and Patrice Odom's garden without producing a useful witness until we already knew his name. If chasing him through a list of more than three hundred names is how we get to him, then so be it."

Pruitt had come back into the room at some point and was standing near the door, listening without interrupting.

"He can't be predicted, and his method of murder is planted long before the actual death," Miles said. He was working through it now, the shape of it assembling from what he knew about the color wheels and the canvas he had carried out of the garage in the pre-dawn light. "He is genuinely, irresistibly drawn to color and light. He’s obsessed with it. And that painting from the storage unit proves it. All the studying and color theory…it paid off. And if it’s color that he’s trying to preserve or save…"

“What?” Pruitt asked.

“I don’t know,” Miles said. “If we can’t chase him, maybe we bring him to us. Lure him out somehow.”

“How?” Pruitt asked. “By painting? Arranging flowers?”

“No,” Vic said, her eyes widening as she now hitched on to the idea. “It would have to be something big. Something grand and in-your-face. Something he’d not be able to miss and feel drawn to.”

Miles turned to Pruitt, snapped his fingers, and said, "A public demonstration.”

“Of…of art? Like an art show?”

“Sure. Sort of. But…something that would be hard to miss. Like…chromatic science framed as an art installation.”

“Like a celebration of some kind?”

“Maybe. But how would we—”

The idea had fully latched itself to Miles’ brain now and with each word he spoke, more of it came into view. And though he understood it seemed like a ridiculous idea, he thought that might be what it was going to take in order to catch Cord.

“Your list proves that Savannah is a city that loves its art,” he said. “So, we can somehow stage an event or to sort of frame something as a celebration of art or light…something like that.”

“We’d still need to get the word out, though,” Vic said. “And who the hell would fund it?”

“Not sure. We can make some calls and figure out those sorts of logistics.”

Vic shrugged and said, “Theoretically, it could work.”