The woman squeezed her eyes shut, but to her credit, she didn’t beg or wheedle. Enough, he thought and giggled. “Nah. I’m just playing around. Don’t worry, sug.”

Hot sweat prickled down the center of his back, ran down his flanks, and stood on his upper lip. Next time, I’ll wear shorts, like she did, he thought, knowing it for a lie. The woman wore skin-tight denim short-shorts and a skin-tight pink cotton T-shirt that left nothing to the imagination. He wore baggy camouflage cargo pants that stretched from his scuffed combat boots to the black T-shirt he wore under the unbuttoned second-hand olive drab fatigue shirt. Her outfit, he felt sure, guaranteed she’d get laid if she wanted to, while his hid the knife—and several other goodies he might use before their evening together ended. Her outfit allowed her to dance and cavort without getting overheated. His soaked in the heat like water into a sponge.

He waited, not moving a muscle, not even blinking, waiting for her to open her eyes, stretching his patience, his self-control to the limit. When she finally peeked up at him, he smiled, and with a practiced, graceful flick of the wrist, reversed the knife so that he held it out toward her hilt first. “Take it,” he said in a voice devoid of emotion, devoid of compassion, or anything human. “Go on, I want you to have it.”

Her gaze flicked to the mottled blade, flicked to his waist, then back to his wrist and crawled up his arm, slithered up his neck, danced across his face—only meeting his hard eyes for the briefest of moments before dropping and darting away toward First Avenue half a block away. A hard smile surfaced on his face—that half a block of shadow and sugar sand might as well have been a mile. She shook her head without returning her gaze to him, a muscle beneath her right eye jumping, twitching, the only outlet for her anxiety.

He softened his expression with conscious effort and smoothed his tone. “Go on,” he said softly. “Take it. You have nothing to fear—not from me.” When she didn’t move, he took half a step forward. “Really. I want you to have it.” When she still didn’t respond, didn’t reach for the knife, his smooth voice cracked wide open, his patience cracked like thin ice underfoot, and his soft expression turned thunderous. “Take it! Take it, or I’ll make you fucking scream!”

Again, her terrified gaze drifted to his face, and she bit her lower lip to stop its quivering. She lifted her hand, fingers shaking, but stopped only halfway to the knife. She peeked at him a third time—a rabbit looking up at a wolf.

“Don’t make me say it again!” he snapped. “Because if you do, I’ll say it with the fucking blade!” His harsh, staccato voice rolled around under the causeway arcing above their heads. He gave her a hard glare, and she reached for the hilt. He slapped it into her hand, and her fingers curled around it automatically. “There. Now you have the knife.” He let go, and the fourteen-inch blade dipped toward the dirt. “Careful,” he said. “That’s a hand-forged Damascus blade!”

Slowly, as if she feared he’d snatch it away if she moved too fast, she drew the knife to her chest, clutching the Bowie in a white-knuckled grip. She wrapped her other hand around it and aimed the clip point at his belly, though she couldn’t steady her hands enough to keep it from twitching and wandering.

A terrible grin spread across his face—a grin that would fit the face of any of the greatest villains on the planet. “There. You’re armed and I’m not. Now, we can have some fun. Doesn’t that sound good?” His spirit soared to strange heights, to locales both unfamiliar and unexpected. Happiness? Is that what this strange emotion is?

He had no idea. But the little game playing out in the hot, wet morning air made him feel…complete. None of the others had made him feel so good.

The woman darted a glance to the left and then to the right, but to the left lay a long, causeway-roofed black corridor of shadow all the way to Biscayne Bay, and to the right, a path through scrub brush and stunted trees and sugar sand and black, black shadows that led back to the First Avenue overpass—empty lanes, empty sidewalks. She stared up at him, slow anger creeping across her face, displacing her fear. “Help me!” she yelled.

He threw back his head and cackled at the moon. “Help!” he cried, mimicking her tone. “Help me! She’s got a knife! She’s going to stab me!” His shouts echoed around them like ravenous evil-eyed vultures, circling, circling, carrying on long past the point when the echoes should have faded.

She watched him through narrowed eyelids as he shouted and mocked her, slow fear leeching its way back into her expression, and her lips quivered as she asked, “What do you want?”

“Want?” He chuckled and did a little jig in the sand. “I just want to get to know you. Would that be so bad? I’ll be the first to admit I have a strange sense of humor, and I didn’t mean to scare you—well, I did, but like roller-coaster scared, not Jesus-fucking-Christ-he-is-a-psychopath scared.” He bent forward a little, staring down at her in faux concern. “I thought we’d make a cute couple. That’s why I picked you. That’s why I wanted to give you that knife. I have another just like it. A matched set.”

Her lip curled, and anger washed her face—quicker this time. “I thought you wanted…” She shook her head. “Not this sick fucking mind trip. I was ready to make love to you, to let you do whatever you wanted, but now?” She shook her head again and with more violence. “You’re fucked in the head. Fucking sick. I’m out of here.” She tried to sit up, but he planted a long-nailed hand on her forehead and pushed her back.

“That’s a little rude, don’t you think? A little insulting?” he asked in a whip-crack voice designed to cut deep. He stepped back, putting one worn-down combat boot next to the other, heels almost touching, then he squatted down, his groin an easy target if she were to kick. He rocked forward, slapping his hands down and gripping her legs tight. “My…father? It hardly matters. My mentor made the knives for me. Made them special. And for you, my dear—for this night—and when we’re done, it will take pride of place above…above his…” His voice trailed away, and a confused expression sidled across his face for a moment. But then he cocked his head to the side and let a little of his true nature creep into his expression. “How else can I see what you look like on the inside?” he asked in a tone that evoked burning brimstone, mental institutions, snake-pits from the nineteenth century, and a torturer’s workroom.

Her fingers squeezed the knife, trying to steady it as she raised it to point at his throat. The muscles of her right thigh bunched beneath her smooth, tanned skin, but neither her foot nor knee so much as twitched. She gasped and tried again, but not even her thigh muscle twitched on the second attempt.

He smirked at her, winked at her, leered down at her, then drummed grave-cold fingers on her foot. “Let’s get started, eh? This morning won’t last forever—more’s the pity.” A muscle in her cheek twitched, and he frowned at her until the movement stopped. His expression hardened, cold and dead, and his eyes bored into her own, glowing orange in the arc sodium light that slithered through the darkness from First Avenue. Concentration made merry in his eyes, and he peeled the fingers of her left hand slowly back, then flung the appendage away to slap at the dirt at her side. She grunted, but her hand stayed where it fell, and her expression became one of true terror, the expression of a woman who knows death has come to call. Her gaze begged, wheedled, pleaded with him, and slow anger stirred in his belly.

He took hold of her arm, and his face twisted with effort. Slowly, her right elbow began to bend. Her wrist twisted next, bringing the mottled belly of the Bowie around until that fine edge brushed against the pink cotton sheathing her belly. She screamed and tried to wriggle away from him, but it was as if her body had become part of the earth beneath her—as though she’d grown roots and they held her fast.

A lone car thump-thump-thumped across the concrete slabs over their heads. His fierce expression twisted into a madman’s grin, becoming savage, vicious. His head turned a little to the side, and he squeezed his eyes into slits, cheeks quivering, but whether from anticipation or effort, not even he knew.

He only knew the time for holding himself back, the time for pretending at emotions that were foreign, unknowable to him, had ended. He felt as if he knew her every frantic thought, her every blistering sensation, her every dread. He felt as if he’d become part of her, that he could taste her dire foreboding, her redoubtable certainty that she was about to die. He drank her terror like fine wine, ate her despondency like an hors d’oeuvre—just a taste, a nugget of flavor, a hint of what was to come.

The Bowie’s blade flicked across her pink-clad belly, parting the cotton as Moses did the waters, exposing delectable snow-white skin, so much at odds with the marvelous tan on her legs. The scalpel-sharp blade danced and weaved back and forth, back and forth, nipping her here, leaving a burning trail, biting her flesh there, another burning trail, another slice, another poke, constant motion, constantly increasing pain and terror, leaving red snakes in its meandering wake.

He shuddered as white-hot pain showed in her expression—a phantom pain dancing across his own belly. “Yessss,” he hissed. “Isn’t this glorious? Aren’t you having fun?”

With great, muscle-shaking effort, her lips parted, and her jaw creaked like wood about to break as her teeth opened. As her tongue twitched, he narrowed his eyes, snapping his head from side to side, and he slammed those pearly whites, her perfectly straight teeth that had cost her parents thousands, together with the force of a hammer striking an anvil. “No, no,” he whispered. “You’ve said enough.”

He cocked his head to the side, watching hot blood paint a portrait of pain on her flanks, drip, drip, dripping to the gray dirt, making it black, like his soul. “Oh, I think you can do better than this,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Her eyes widened, and a muffled moan escaped from deep within her chest.

“Well, I think so, and that’s really what matters. Don’t you agree, sugar?”

Tears pooled in her eyes as the knife flicked upward, the clip point moving toward her throat, slitting the pretty pink T-shirt to the collar, leaving blood welling from the shallow red line the Bowie had left from her belly button to her sternum.

“Well, that won’t do, will it?” he asked her. “It’s always awkward the first time you get naked with someone, right? Let’s get it out of the way, shall we? Like a band-aid.” He ripped her T-shirt away, exposing her breasts. With one tapered finger that seemed more claw than human appendage, he jabbed her right breast. “I was never much of a student,” he said. “Always too busy planning my next conquest, my next caper. And I just didn’t see the sense of a formal education given my nature, my abilities…my proclivities. Oh, well.” He shrugged, then leveled his gaze on her face and stared into her eyes, showing her his sharpened teeth. “Would you believe I don’t even know how those magical mounds work? I mean, what are they? Bags? Milk factories? Dirty pillows? What?” Beneath him, her eyes rounded until he could see white all the way around her hazel irises. Again, he flicked her right breast with a long finger, his long sharp nail leaving a scratch through her areola. “And what’s this part? Why is it a different color?”

Her lips quivered, and her eyes rolled like those of a horse trapped in its stall as the barn burned around it.

“Oh, I love this! You’re so much more fun than the others!” He drew her zipper the rest of the way down with a dainty hand, pinky finger extended like at a formal tea. “I really have no idea how I’ll get these off if you don’t help. What do you say? Hmm? Cooperation is the first step of teamwork, right?” He gave the open waistband a desultory tug. “I guess we could cut them off with our knife if you’d like.” The Bowie danced to the bottom of the zipper, more tears leaking down her cheeks, more red snakes cavorting on her belly.

He turned her hand, putting the flat of the wide Damascus blade on her lower belly, then slid it between her skin and the black lace peeking out from her fly. He grinned and winked at her, and her hand jerked, slicing through the thick denim, stabbing through it, ripping it to shreds as if the shorts were no more than tissue paper rather than thick denim. More blood welled from her butter-smooth skin, this time, a bright red arrow pointing at her sex.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said, already reaching down to tug the rest of her clothing away. He gazed down at her crotch for a full minute. “Maybe I should’ve just fucked you,” he mused. “You’re very pretty down there.”

A single sob wrenched its way through her throat and out between her teeth.

“Oh, fine!” he snapped. “I try to be nice, to pay you a compliment, and this is how you act?” He lifted her right hand, and grinned as it shook like a leaf, then rotated it so the tip of the Bowie rested beneath her right nipple. The point of the blade snicked back and forth, leaving tiny cuts and scrapes as she struggled against his hold. “Oh, you’ll ruin it.” He glared at her, and the blade steadied, grew still. “I’m dying to see what’s inside those beautiful bags of fun.” He laughed. “Well, that was poor form, wasn’t it, sugar? After all, we both know you’re the one who is dying.” He cocked his head as though a thought had just occurred to him. “I reckon that means it doesn’t really matter what the fuck you think. Right? I mean, that’s right, ain’t it, sugar?”

She jerked, her head rocked back, and a scream tore from her throat as the knife blade slid through her nipple. It plunged another quarter inch into her flesh, then he relented, rocking back on his heels, one hand going to his own chest. He grinned down at her. “Oh, my dark lord, that feels so good.”

He lifted the knife, drew it toward her face, skittering from side to side and flinging blood to and fro. The wide blade hovered over her lips for a moment before tweaking at the tip of her nose, leaving more blood. “This is really better than fucking, you know?”

He stood and smiled down at her. “Time for the real fun to start. You don’t mind, do you, sug?” He flicked his claw-like fingers, and the knife floated over her left eye. With another gesture, he dipped the Bowie into the kitten-soft flesh beneath her eye socket.

Time, it seemed to him, stopped for a while. Instead of seconds tick-tick-ticking, it was her life’s blood drip-drip-dripping as the knife lifted, cut, lifted again, stabbed down into soft, yielding flesh, and on and on and on—an eternity of torment for the woman, and eternity of ecstasy for him.

As the last of her life bled onto the sand, he frowned, the marvelous feeling already fading, already dissipating into the morass of his cold thoughts. Too soon, he thought. He grimaced and made her hand slash across her chest, chopping the wide-bladed knife into her breasts, but it wasn’t the same now that death had claimed her, and her nerves were no more than angel hair pasta. He dropped his head, a disappointed eight-year-old, and cried a little.

He gazed at her, supposing she’d been more than just beautiful while warm blood still powered her flesh. She’d probably dangled dozens of men on strings of lust, all wanting to peel those shorts away and penetrate her the way humans did—and the dark lord knew she was willing, after all. She’d said so. He sniffed and shrugged. He’d never seen the attraction of fucking. Rape, sure, but not fucking.

Not a living girl, anyway. His eyes dropped to her crotch, and a ghost of a smile flickered across his face again.

 

Chapter 2
The Agent’s Return

 

1

FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, Quantico, VA
Monday, 7:44 am

Yawning and ignoring the queasy, greasy feeling in his guts, Special Agent Gavin Gregory poured yet another cup of coffee—his fourth of the morning. The queasiness came from the other three cups, while the greasiness came from the jet lag earned by spending a month in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. His guts insisted it was the middle of the night, that all sane men should still be asleep. He glanced at the whiteboard the BAU used to track active cases as he stirred Splenda into his coffee, recognizing most of them, frowning at the death tolls that had risen while he lounged on the beach and made love to his wife. When his gaze slid to the case in green, his frown became a grimace—green represented a possible new series of murders.

He turned away, slurping bad coffee that no amount of sweetener could help. He’d seen the blank Agent In Charge box on the new case but denied the little voice in his head. Surely Pete won’t drop a new case in my lap the first day back. He thought he could even believe it…at least until he finished another cup of joe.

“Well, look at you,” said SAIC Pete Fielding. “As tan as a native Hawaiian and looking all kinds of rested.”  Gavin shook his head and sipped his coffee to hide his grin. Pete walked over and lay a hand on his shoulder. “All kidding aside, Gav, I hope the time helped you two.”

Nodding, Gavin pointed at the whiteboard with his coffee cup. “Same old song and dance while I was away.”

“It never stops.” Pete frowned, and his eyes danced over the names written in red on the board—the active cases. “But forget that for now. Let’s have a ‘welcome back’ chat.”

“That sounds ominous, boss.”

Pete chuckled. “Ominous? Me? I’m a teddy bear. Come on, it won’t take a minute.” He peered at Gavin over his glasses. “Besides, you don’t have anything pressing. Right?”

“Right you are, boss.” Gavin followed the SAIC into his office and took a seat while Pete closed the door, grinning at the phrase he’d lifted from his new reading obsession—the one Maddie had introduced him to on their trip.

“So. How was Hawaii, really?”

“Good. Relaxing.” For the most part, it was even true. He hadn’t had any dreams—nightmares—since that last one in the exam room of Kingdom Cross Psychiatric Hospital. But still…he had felt unknown eyes watching him at odd times during the trip. Paranoia, Maddie had called it.

“And you and Maddie?”

Gavin sipped his coffee. “We had a lot of time to talk. It was good. We worked some things out.” He chuckled and grinned. “Though, Maddie got me started on Joe Abercrombie’s books, and…well, I got a little obsessed.”

Pete nodded, a faint grin echoing Gavin’s. “The motel give you any trouble about the extra days?”

Gavin shook his head. “They were very accommodating. Thanks for that.”

“Glad to do it, Gav. It was the least I could do after that nightmare in Manhattan.” Pete pinned him with a probing stare. “Speaking of which… Everything is good about the…about all that you two shared?”

“You mean being kidnapped by a sociopath?” Gavin forced a grin to his lips and hoped it was convincing, though it felt anything but. “We had a few virtual sessions with a Bureau counselor. Maddie had the worst of it—he had her longer and was more intent on terrorizing her. She’s confused on some points, but she’s dealing with it.”

Pete nodded and dropped his gaze to his blotter. “And you?”

Gavin shrugged and took a sip of coffee to hide his unease. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Right. Now that we have that out of the way, maybe you can give me the real answer.”

Chuckling, Gavin nodded. Should’ve known Pete would see right through that, he thought. “I’m pissed, Pete. At myself, at The Smith, at those HRT guys”‍—‍he held up his free hand to forestall the objection Pete would feel obligated to raise‍—‍“I know there was nothing they could do, but dammit, I’m still mad at them.”

“Everyone understands that feeling—especially those Hostage Rescue Team guys. They’ve been pestering me about making a formal apology to you and Maddie for the entire six weeks you’ve been out.” He looked Gavin in the eye. “The real question is: How are you dealing with that anger?”

“The only way I can,” said Gavin with another shrug.

“Then I guess that will have to do…as long as you continue to deal with it.” Pete treated him to a stern gaze. “You will tell me if it gets out of hand, and I’ll get you more help…arrange a leave, whatever you need. You know the drill.”

“Of course.”

“Good, then that’s settled. Gloria wants you two to come for dinner. Sunday, or whatever day is better for you two.”

“Tell her thanks. I’ll have Maddie call her later.”

“Good.”

“Then…” Gavin stood up.

“There’s something else,” said Pete in a pensive voice.

“Uh oh. Am I grounded again, Dad?”

Pete gave him a half-smile and motioned him back to his seat. “I know you were pretty shaken up in the hospital, Gavin, but…” Looking uncomfortable, Fielding sighed and looked away.

“Spit it out, boss. I’m a big boy.”

Pete returned his gaze to Gavin’s. “It’s probably nothing. Let’s get that out in front of the rest of this.”

After a sip of coffee, Gavin nodded. “Sure.”

“I’ve had several calls from Kirk Haymond.”

Gavin arched his eyebrows. “What did he want?”

“He’s of the opinion that you and Detective Denders haven’t been completely forthcoming.”

His stomach dropped to somewhere near his ankles, but Gavin forced a smile to his lips and chuckled. “About what?”

“I can’t say that the same thought hasn’t crossed my mind, Gav. My gut tells me you held something back. The feeling started in your hospital room.”

Another sip of coffee bought him a couple of seconds of thought. What did Denders say when Haymond asked him this question? Damn it, I should have called Jim last night like I’d planned. He turned his free hand palm up and looked Pete in the eye. “Come on, Pete. You’ve known me for a long time. I don’t leave pertinent facts out of my reports.”

Pete nodded. “I know that, Gav.” He steepled his fingers in front of his face. “So… What impertinent facts did you leave out? Because that expression that danced across your mug just now confirmed to me that you did leave something out of your report.”

Gavin killed the last of his coffee and set his mug on Pete’s desk. “Okay, okay. Angel Kirk…”

“She’s in Dr. Esteves’ care in Kingdom Cross Psychiatric.”

“Good. She’s going to need all the help she can get, I think.”

Pete narrowed his eyes a bit. “What about her?”

After a deep breath, Gavin leaned forward in his chair and gazed at Pete earnestly. “Debbie—Dr. Esteves—knew the DNA evidence probably belonged to Angel. She and Kirk were good friends, see, and when Angel disappeared, she’d been traveling—tracking The Saint Mary Psycho in a way, his back trail. Esteves thought she’d run afoul of him, and when the DNA came back as female, she suspected he had Angel and was using her to throw us off the scent.” He relaxed back into the chair and put on his most convincing smile.

But Pete didn’t return the smile. He stared at Gavin, instead. “There’s more,” Pete said, and Gavin grimaced.

“Yeah. Okay.” He sighed, brushing a hand through his hair. “Okay. The Smith knew Debbie—or I should say it the other way around. Anyway, The Smith knew the patient known as Joe Doe—Debbie’s star patient. His real name is Tom Madsen, and he was a psychiatric technician in Millvale, Pennsylvania.”

“At that hospital you went to check out? Briar Patch?”

“Ridge. Briar Ridge State Mental Hospital. And, yes, that’s where Tom worked. A bunch of people disappeared there, including Tom. The… The Smith bragged about it when he had Maddie and me in that room…” He shuddered, unable to help it. “That’s how I learned Tom’s real name. He used Tom the same way he used Angel. Framed him up for The Smith’s first set of murders—maybe more. If we ran Tom’s DNA from the Virginia sequence, it would match. The Smith…he’s not like other serial killers, boss. He breaks all the rules. Switches up his ritual as it suits him. Changes identities like I change my socks. I‍—‍”

“You don’t think he’s done yet, do you? You don’t think he’ll stop.”

Gavin shook his head. “No. It’s just a gut feeling, but I think if he’s still able, he’ll keep killing. He really is diabolical, Pete. Not like most of them. A true criminal mastermind. The trick will be figuring out how he’s altered his routine, which crimes are him, and which are your garden variety serial killer.” He searched Pete’s emotionless face, trying to assess how well he was deflecting the question. “He…he told me that he killed others. He claimed he was The Saint Mary Psycho, that Madsen’s DNA would match those crimes, too. Also, claimed responsibility for The Hangman’s killings down in Texas.”

“You believe him?”

Gavin rocked his hand back and forth like a seesaw. “That’s what Angel was doing when he grabbed her—following his back trail, investigating those killers, checking to see if it was possible. Let’s just say that as of yet, I haven’t found a reason not to believe him. Not yet.”

Pete leaned back in his executive chair. “The marks.”

“Right.”

“But there are no other cases where the victims were marked with the Gaelic letter gay.”

Gavin shrugged. “He said differently. He went on to say we were looking in the wrong places, but maybe he was saying that to make us chase our tails. Those cases are old, and if the ME on the body didn’t catch the marks, decomp will have erased them.”

Pete shook his head. “Then what?”

“We need to screen new bodies for the mark—both on the small of the back and everywhere else. We need those MEs thinking outside the box we built for them by only saying the marks would be on the small of the back.” Gavin frowned. “And he might switch up his method of making the marks—burns or lacerations, anything. He could brand them or make incisions or find a new way of tattooing his marks. We’ll have to change the bulletin.”

“We can do that.” Pete leaned back in his chair, making it creak as he shifted his weight. He tilted his head to the side and gave Gavin a shrewd look. “Is that it, then? That’s all of what you’ve held back?”

What does he know? Gavin returned his gaze but said nothing. I really should’ve checked in with Jim. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Like I said, I’ve never withheld any pertinent facts from my reports.”

Again, Pete steepled his fingers, resting his elbows against his flanks and leaning back in the chair. “There are still many unanswered questions about how this case ended.”

Gavin shifted in his seat and frowned. “Pete, let’s stop playing this game. I’m not a perp. Just ask me what you want to know straight out.”

Fielding sighed and dropped his hands to his lap. “Help me see the sense of it, Gavin. You said The Smith freaked out and ran, but he had a vehicle right there, and instead of taking it, he dropped the keys and fled on foot? And he sedated the four of you. He easily could have thrown you in the back of the van, right? Instead, he left you all sleeping. For goodness’s sake, he didn’t even kill anyone. It seems…out of character.”

Forcing a smile and a chuckle, Gavin said, “Pete, if I could get inside The Smith’s head, we would’ve caught him way back in 2007.”

Pete rubbed his eyes with his middle finger and thumb, then pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were developing a world-class headache. “You know what I mean, Gavin. What spooked him? What made him panic?”

“I was sedated, remember? Memory’s gone all fuzzy.”

Pete nodded. “It just doesn’t make sense, Gavin.”

“Since when does anything make sense in this job? And The Smith cases are worse than most in that regard.”

“Yeah, I guess. But we try to make sense of it, right?” Pete leaned forward, resting his forearms on the blotter of his desk. “You know you can tell me anything, right, Gavin? I don’t care what it is. I know the kind of agent—the kind of man—you are. Whatever it is that you’re holding back, I can help you with it.”

“And if there was something pertinent, Pete, I would tell you. As it is…”

“Okay, then.”

They sat in silence for a moment, then Gavin said, “Are you going to tell me about the green case in Miami, or do I have to read about it in the papers?”

Pete shrugged. “So far, it’s only a blip on the radar. We haven’t received an official request from Miami-Dade PD yet. They’ve found the bodies of three mutilated women, and that’s where it gets strange. The ME says all the wounds were self-inflicted.”

“What, some kind of cult activity? Masochism gone wrong?”

“From what they tell me, the wounds are extreme. Horrendous. The ME says he can’t imagine anyone having the willpower to self-harm in the ways the bodies have been cut.”

“ME’s have been wrong before, and I’d think those cutters down at USP Lee might differ. But, if he can’t see them harming themselves, then someone else had to do the cutting, right?” Gavin picked up his empty coffee mug and waved it at the door. “I’m still on Hawaii time. I need another cup.”

“Right.”

“Think Miami is going to ask?”

“I do. I spoke with the lieutenant—Bobby Truxillo—running the task force a few minutes ago, and if it were up to him, we’d already have an official request. It’s politics. The mayor doesn’t want to look weak.” He gestured toward the door. “Go get your coffee but keep this little puzzle in the back of that huge brain of yours. Let your over-active imagination chew on it.”

Gavin nodded and got to his feet. He walked back to the coffee machine, but instead of pouring himself another cup, he set the mug on top of it and headed for the stairs.

Outside, a warm early-summer breeze caressed his cheek and ruffled his hair. He already had his cell phone out, opened to his contacts list, and as he strode away from the building, he tapped his thumb on Jim Denders’ picture.

It rang twice before Jim answered. “Well, if it isn’t the surfing FBI man,” he said in his squeaky tenor.

“Not much of a surfer, I’m afraid.”

“How was the trip? How’s Maddie?”

“Good, to both questions. How are things in the Big Apple?”

“Same shit, different day. The Smith case has stalled, as you might imagine, but at least there are no new bodies. Maybe that close call scared him away.”

Deep inside, Gavin felt a knot untie. He hadn’t realized until that moment how much stress he had been carrying, how much fear he’d harbored that Glacadairanam had gotten right back to his games while Gavin and Maddie relaxed in Maui. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Things being what they are, I’ll take it.”

“Speaking of things being what they are, I just had a strange conversation with my boss.”

“Figures. Haymond has been riding my ass for the entire six weeks.”

“Yeah, Pete said something about Haymond thinking we’d held something back.”

“What did you tell him?” Tension sang in Denders’ voice.

Gavin sighed. “I had to tell him something. Pete’s just known me too long… I told him that Debbie knew Angel and suspected The Smith had her. I said she believed he was planting Angel’s DNA at the Manhattan crime scenes.”

Jim grunted. “And that was enough to satisfy your boss?”

“Hell, no. I also told him about Millvale, about Tom Madsen, and said The Smith had admitted to doing the same thing with Tom’s DNA between 2004 and 2014.”

“Smart. That way if they run any comparisons…”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Pete’s not entirely satisfied, but he let it go for now.”

“Haymond isn’t satisfied either, but he ain’t letting anything go. He’s been giving me the stink-eye for weeks.” In the background, someone yelled Jim’s name. “Listen, Gavin. I got to go, but we should talk again later. Maybe after work? We can conference with Debbie so we all have the same story.”

“Sounds like a plan. Be safe.”

“I’m a cop, remember? The guys that run toward the shooting.”

“Yeah, well…duck while you run.”

Denders snorted and clicked off. Gavin slid his cell phone into his jacket pocket, then shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants, tilted his head back, and enjoyed the cool breeze.