rooms. "Okay, how can I help?"
I studied him. "First, let me congratulate you," I said, to his sparkling image in the glasses. "I almost didn't figure out how you were doing it, and without that, we'd never have caught you."
He froze for a moment, just as he had the night we checked in, then sighed. "God-damn. If you don't mind my asking, how'd you figure it?"
"Partly the timing of the killings, partly luck, and just a few little things that nagged at me," I said, making sure I was not blocked in and had at least two ways to run. "Baker's theory on what you were doing wasn't bad—and it was actually close, in some ways—but when we came up with nothing on that, I started thinking it was a complete bust. But then there had to be some explanation for the pattern. So I was thinking . . . why? If you're not moving from life to life, what's the point of the pattern of one person disappearing, one person being found?"
He nodded, sitting down on a crate some distance away. Apparently he really did want to hear the explanation. "Go on."
I was careful to avoid staring directly into his eyes; despite assurances that an alert