CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The parking lot of Crossroads Community Church was mostly empty, a strip of cracked asphalt with a low concrete curb separating it from the lawn.
Miles and Vic walked across the grass toward their car without speaking, giving the conversation with Gladding a few moments to settle.
But Miles felt like his brain was burning with the new theory he had put together in the pastor’s office.
He stopped near the front bumper and looked back at the church. The frosted plate glass caught the afternoon light and threw it back in a flat, diffuse way that gave off an uneasy feeling. But he was no longer looking at the glass as his thoughts once again started to churn.
"Both of them," he said. "Celestine and Song."
Vic looked at him from the other side of the hood. She studied him for a moment as if he had just told a riddle. Which he sort of had. "What about them?" she asked.
"They both provided guidance. Spiritual guidance, comfort, something in that territory.
" He pulled his keys from his pocket but didn't unlock the car yet.
"Celestine's reviews were all about how she listened. And then Song being a youth pastor…a guy who hung out at bars not to drink but to look for so-called lost people…it’s all the same.
Gladding just described twenty years of Song doing it for troubled kids.
That's not incidental. That's the through line. "
"The killer called them false light," Vic said, her eyes widening a bit as she saw where Miles was headed with this. "He called Celestine a charlatan."
"Right. But I think the framework is more specific than…
than anti-spiritualism. He's not just targeting people who use neon.
He's targeting people who claim to enlighten. I think this one is going to stray from the usual Kane disciple profile. Maybe in this case, it’s going to be a little more personal.
I mean…think about it… the word is almost literal.
Enlighten. Like neon. These are people who hold themselves out as sources of guidance, as people who can illuminate something for you.
And this killer believes they're faking it.
That they're performing luminosity to draw in believers. "
Vic was quiet for a moment. "But Song wasn't performing anything. Gladding just made that very clear."
"I know. And that's what tells us the framework isn't fact-based.
The killer isn't making accurate assessments.
He's making ideological ones. In their mind, there’s something that has convinced them and an entire category of people is false, and they're selecting within that category.
But what it means for us is that the victim profile has a shape.
Spiritual counselors, healers, wellness coaches, anyone who markets themselves as someone who can guide or enlighten you. That's the pool he's drawing from."
"In a city that has a lot of those," Vic said.
"Which is exactly why we need a list." He finally unlocked the car and got in, his mental gears still spinning. "Let's call Kowalski. For all we know, local PD might already have a list like that assembled."
He called from the driver's seat, the call picked up by Bluetooth. They remained in the church parking lot, the car idling while the air conditioning came up. Kowalski picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, agents,” he said after introductions. “Something I can help you with?”
"Do you by any chance have a comprehensive list of spiritual counselors in Austin?" Miles asked. "Healers, wellness coaches, life coaches with a spiritual angle…anyone who could fit a target profile of people who market themselves as providers of enlightenment or guidance?"
There was a pause on Kowalski's end, followed by a short sound that wasn't quite a laugh but close enough. "No, not that I know of," he said. "But give me about half an hour and I can probably have something for you. Swing by the precinct. I’ll send you the address."
"Perfect,” Miles said. “We’ll see you soon.”
The precinct address came over just ten seconds later.
As Miles headed that way, he was shocked to see that it had somehow already come to be 12:25 in the afternoon.
It was one of those strange days where he felt that they’d gotten nothing done, but there was also no sense of the day getting away from them.
The sensation was even stronger by the time they arrived at the precinct on Eighth Street sixteen minutes later.
With the help of a receptionist, they found Kowalski waiting in the hallway outside of a small conference room near the back of the building.
He had a folder under his arm and a look on his face that said he was satisfied with himself in the restrained way of someone who had pulled something off faster than expected.
"Come on in," he said, and pushed the door open with his shoulder. “It’s not the best digs, but on short notice, not too bad.”
“Oh, I’ve worked in worse,” Vic said.
Kowalski wasted no time, spreading the contents of the folder across the table between them: a sheaf of printed pages, clipped together in sections. The top sheet was a cover summary he had typed up himself, Miles could tell by the font, which was not the department's standard template.
"Ninety-seven names," Kowalski said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from them. "That’s what we’re looking at with that list you asked me to put together.
What we've got here is a composite. I had someone pull the city's business licensing database and filtered it for any active registration that lists spiritual services, alternative wellness, metaphysical consulting, or energy work as the primary business category.
That gave us a base list." He tapped the first clipped section.
"Then we layered in Yelp and Google—super unique, I know,” he said with a small laugh.
“A lot of these operations are small enough that they're not formally licensed under the right category, or they're running out of a home studio.
They're findable online but not necessarily in the city's own records.
So, the two lists together are more complete than either one alone. "
He moved to the second section, a thicker stack.
"This part is the actual entries. Each one has the business name, the owner's name if we could pull it, the address, and a two-line description pulled from either their business registration or their online presence. Wherever we could get it. One of my people also has access to a city directory database through a law enforcement portal. It’s an old-school resource, but it fills in gaps.
A few of these names came entirely from that, businesses that have been operating for years and never really built an online footprint. "
He set the folder down and leaned back. "It's not perfect.
There are probably people who should be on this list who aren't, because they don't advertise and they don't register properly and they just run their thing quietly out of a back room somewhere.
But for what we could pull in thirty minutes, I think it's workable. We’ve got psychics, tarot readers, reiki practitioners, crystal healers, chakra alignment," Kowalski said, running a finger down the first column.
"Life coaches with any kind of spiritual or metaphysical language in their marketing.
A few yoga studios that advertise spiritual wellness alongside the physical.
Anywhere the pitch involves guiding someone toward clarity, awakening, higher consciousness.
That kind of language." He looked at Miles across the table.
"I tried to stay broad rather than narrow, because I'd rather pull it down than miss someone. "
"That's the right call," Miles said. “This is amazing work.”
And it truly was. He couldn’t help but think of Agent Kim. This was pretty much her level of work and research.
He pulled the list toward him and Vic leaned in from the other side. "If we can't get it down to a workable number, we're going to be making phone calls to all ninety-seven of them, warning them to stay away from their transformers, and that's going to take a while."
"It's going to be monotonous regardless," Kowalski said, pulling a chair around and sitting at the corner of the table. "But let's see what we can cut."
They worked through it together, each of them with a copy on their laptop screens while the printed version sat between them. Miles read the descriptions aloud while Vic pulled up websites, and Kowalski flagged entries against what he knew from local context.
The first cuts were straightforward. Several entries were yoga studios with no meaningful spiritual or enlightenment language in their marketing.
They cut those. A couple were churches or faith-based counseling organizations with denominational affiliations, which didn't fit the killer's framework of false or performed luminosity.
Those came off. A meditation center focused on secular mindfulness with no spiritual claims was pulled for the same reason.
"This one here," Kowalski said, pointing to an entry about twenty names down.
"Quantum Healing Center on South First. I know the place.
It's primarily a massage therapy and physical therapy clinic that added some wellness branding about two years ago. Their neon sign is a basic OPEN sign. No elaborate custom work, unless it somewhere inside the building. And it doesn’t strike me as that sort of place. "
"Pull it?" Vic said.
"Pull it," Miles said.
The neon question complicated things in a useful direction.
The killer's targets had both been chosen in part because of their visible neon presence, and his access had depended on there being sign equipment to tamper with.
Entries with no meaningful neon presence were lower probability targets, not impossible, but lower.
They flagged rather than eliminated those, creating a secondary tier to return to if the primary list still ran too long.
Roughly forty minutes in, they had the list down to fifty-eight names. Miles leaned back in his chair and studied the page in front of him.
"These are all people who use neon prominently in their business presentation and market themselves with enlightenment or guidance language," he said. "Anything in the top ten you'd flag specifically, Kowalski? Anyone with a higher profile, a bigger sign, a more prominent location?"
Kowalski studied the reduced list for a moment.
"The top three on the street presence alone would be the Celestine spot, obviously, which is already gone.
Then there's a woman on East Sixth who runs what she calls an aura photography and healing studio. There’s a big custom sign, a prominent location, and she's been written up in a few local lifestyle pieces.
And there's a wellness center on South Congress, six blocks south of the Celestine shop, that has a full window display of neon pieces.
They run a high-end clientele, expensive sessions, spiritual life coaching and energy work. "
Miles wrote both addresses on his phone.
"We'll start there when we contact them.
" Miles looked at the list again. Yes, they had narrowed it by nearly half, but they were still talking about nearly fifty people.
His gut pulled at him gently, and before he knew he was going to say it, he said, "I'm going to reach out to Kim and send her this list. She can work remotely and it'll speed up the process considerably. "
Vic nodded and then, looking to Kowalski, she said, “Agent Kim is pretty much a research wizard.”
Miles stood, took the printed list, and walked out to the precinct lobby. It was quieter than the bullpen, a waiting area with a front desk staffed by a civilian officer on a call. Miles took a spot near the window, the afternoon light coming in at a low angle, and called Sarah.
She picked up on the first ring. "Hey," she said, and her voice had the particular warmth she seemed to reserve for when it was just him.
"Hey. I need to read you in on where we are. We’re going to need a bit of an assist here if you can manage it.”
“What have you got?”
He ran her through it, the theory about the victim profile, the list they'd compiled, and the fifty remaining names. She asked two sharp questions partway through and he answered them. It was all very professional—very cut-and-dry and to the point. When he finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"That's solid," she said. "I can start an hour or so from now. I’ve got some other small, task force-related fires I need to put out first.”
"I'll send our list as soon as I'm back at the table." He paused, and then, for no specific reason except that the lobby was quiet and he was tired and she was the person he actually wanted to talk to, he said: "How are you doing?"
She was quiet for a moment that lasted slightly longer than it should have. "I'm fine," she said. "I'm just…" She stopped and tried again. "Can I be real?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I miss you,” she said flatly. “I know that's a strange thing to say given that we're also talking every day for work, but it's not the same."
Miles wasn’t sure how to respond. He looked at the front desk officer, who was still on the phone and paying him no attention.
"I think about you a lot when you're not here," Sarah continued, and her voice was careful and unhurried, as if she had been deciding whether to say it for a while and had now decided. "More than makes sense given the circumstances."
"It makes sense to me," Miles said. He was aware of how he sounded, and he didn't walk it back. "I think about you, too. Probably more than I let on."
“Well, how about that?” she said. He could hear the grin in her voice. "What does that mean?"
"It means I'm not sure what to do with it yet. But I'm not pretending it isn't there." He leaned against the window frame and looked out at the street. "When I get back, maybe we should actually talk about it. Not around it.”
"I'd like that," Sarah said. He could hear something relax in her voice, a slight loosening. "I'd really like that, Miles."
"Okay," he said. "Then that's what we'll do."
There was a brief, comfortable silence between them, the kind that didn't require filling.
"Send me that list," she said.
"Will do. Thanks, Agent Kim.”
“Shut up.”
He ended the call and stood in the quiet of the lobby for a moment, holding the phone. He gave himself exactly ten seconds to bask in that one positive note of the day—as well as the expectation of what that conversation might lead to.
But then he took a deep breath, turned around, and got right back to work.