The fee for the house turned out to be $1,000, so I got $4,000 back in chips that I would probably lose on another night. So in reality I was down the cash. Fortunately, it’s not all that bad of a walk back home.

I got back to my building and found my tail parked out front. I waved hello to them to let them know I was back and entered my building and rode the elevator up to my floor.

Once in my condo I closed the window coverings and brought the place to near darkness. I got myself a beer and sat down in my chair in an attempt to fully comprehend what had happened.

I was inclined to believe that the painting was commissioned by one of the victims. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple; if you’re a methodical and smart killer like this one was you don’t play games with the evidence. You touch nothing, you add nothing, you take nothing away that you didn’t bring. Doing any of those things gets you caught because those are behaviors that profilers understand. The people at the FBI have written books on these behaviors.

I had no evidence to even back up the idea that the killer knew what I looked like. After all, we had both done the “look the other way” routine back at the massage parlor, and you certainly wouldn’t know anything about my scars from that little encounter.

But it was hard to believe that the first and second killings both included me in some fashion as a coincidence. Impossible to believe in fact. That would leave one inescapable fact; that the killer knew me or knew of me.

And the odds were pretty good that I knew the killer as well. Probably not a friend as I don’t have a lot of those. Someone I put away or at least tried to? Nothing came to mind. As many theories as I could come up with I could shoot them all down easily. I was ready to go get into bed when my cell phone rang.

“Hello?” I asked.

‘You did me the courtesy of a warning so I will do you the same,” came the voice on the other end.

I sat up in the chair, bolt awake. “Mr. Feng,” I said.

“Mr. Carter, in about an hour the police will receive an anonymous tip to visit an apartment in West Portal. When they arrive they will find a number of items that are related to the painting you showed me.”

“I thought you were going to go directly to the police with this.”

“We are, but there is something you should know because your life is about to get more complicated.”

I gulped but said nothing.

“Mr. Carter,” Mr. Feng said after a moment’s silence, “one of our girls is missing. She paints.”