She was lying on her side on a rough-hewn wooden table in the small room that had a dirt floor, cinderblock walls, and low timbered ceiling. She was bound up tightly in a curled up position, taped fast with duct tape. Her legs were sharply bent and tightly bound to her chest, and her hands were wrapped around her shins. Her head lay sideways on top of her knees.

She reminded him of pictures he’d seen of human fetuses—and also of embryos he sometimes found when he cracked a fresh egg from one of the chickens he kept. She looked so mild and innocent, it was somehow a rather touching sight.

Mostly, of course, she reminded him of the other woman—Alice had been her name, he believed. He’d once thought that Alice would be the only one he’d treat this way, but then he’d enjoyed it … and there were so few pleasures in his life … how could he stop?

“It hurts,” the woman murmured, as if out of a dream. “Why does it hurt?”

He knew that it was because she lay in a thick tangled bed of barbed wire. Blood was already trickling onto the table top, and it was going add to the stains in the unfinished wood. Not that it mattered. The table was older than he was, and he was the only person who ever saw it anyway.

He was hurting and bleeding some as well. He’d cut himself while getting her into the truck with the barbed wire. It was harder to do than he’d expected because she’d fought back more forcefully than the other one.

She had writhed and twisted while the homemade chloroform was starting to kick in. But her struggles had weakened and he’d finally subdued her completely.

Even so, he wasn’t much bothered to be hurt by the sharp barbs. He knew from hard experience that such cuts healed up pretty quickly, even if they did leave ghastly scars.

He stooped down and looked closely into her face.

Her eyes were opened almost impossibly wide now. Her irises twitched around as she looked back at him.

Still trying to avoid looking at me, he realized.

Everybody acted that way toward him, wherever he went. He didn’t blame people for trying to pretend he was invisible, or that he didn’t exist at all. Sometimes he’d look in the mirror and pretend that he could make himself disappear.

Then the woman murmured again …

“It hurts.”

In addition to the cuts, he was sure that her head ached badly from the heavy dose of homemade chloroform. When he’d first mixed up the stuff right here, he’d almost passed out himself, and he’d suffered from a splitting headache for days afterward. But the preparation worked very well, so he would continue using it.

Now he was well prepared for what he was about to do next. He was wearing thick work gloves now and a thickly padded jacket. He wasn’t going to hurt himself any more while getting the thing done.

He went to work on the mass of barbed wire with a pair of wire cutters. Then he pulled a length of it tightly around the woman’s body and twisted the ends into makeshift knots to hold the wire in place.

The woman let out a sharp whimper and tried to twist loose from the duct tape as the barbs tore through her skin and clothing.

As he kept working, he said …

“You don’t have to be quiet. You can scream if you want—if it helps.”

He certainly wasn’t worried about anybody hearing her.

She whimpered louder, and she seemed to try to scream, but her voice was weak.

He chuckled quietly. He knew that she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs to properly scream—not with her legs bound up against her chest like that.

He pulled another length of barbed wire around her and stretched it tight, watching as blood dripped from where each barb pierced her flesh beneath her clothes, soaking through the fabric, spreading and making spots much wider than the wound itself.

He kept right on pulling strand after strand around her until she was all bound up like some kind of enormous wire cocoon, not looking human at all. The bundle was making all kinds strange low sounds—sighs, gasps, whimpers, and groans. Blood trickled here and spurted a little there until the whole tabletop was bathed in red.

Then he stepped back and admired his handiwork.

He turned off the overhead light and walked out into the night, closing the heavy wooden door behind him.

The sky was clear and starry, and he couldn’t hear anything now except the dense rumble of crickets.

He took a long, slow breath of the clean, fresh air.

The night seemed especially sweet just now.

CHAPTER THREE

As Riley lined up with the rest of the interns for their final formal photograph, she heard the door to the reception room open.

Her heart leapt, and she turned around expectantly to see who had arrived.

But it was only Hoke Gilmer, the program’s training supervisor, returning after having stepped out for a few minutes.

Riley suppressed a sigh. She already knew that Agent Crivaro wouldn’t be here today. Yesterday he’d congratulated her on completing the course and said he wanted to get back to Quantico. It was obvious that he simply had no taste for ceremonies or receptions.

Her secret hope was that Ryan might show up out of the blue to help her celebrate the completion of the summer program.

Of course she knew better than to seriously expect that to happen.

Even so, she couldn’t help but fantasize that somehow he’d change his mind and he’d arrive at the last minute and apologize for his cold behavior last night and finally say those words she longed for him to say …

“I want you to go to the academy. I want you to follow your dream.”

But of course, that wasn’t going to happen …

And the sooner I get that through my head, the better.

The 20 interns formed three rows for the photograph—one row seated at a long table, with two rows standing behind them. Since the interns were arranged in alphabetical order, Riley found herself in the back row between other two other students whose last names began with S—Naomi Strong and Rhys Seely.

She hadn’t gotten to know Naomi or Rhys very well.

But then, that was true for almost all the other interns. She’d felt out of place among them ever since the first day of the program 10 weeks ago. The only student she’d gotten close to during that whole time was John Welch, who was standing a few students to her left.

On that first day, John had explained why the others were giving her odd looks and whispering to each other about her …

“Pretty much everybody here knows who you are. I guess you could say that your reputation precedes you.”

She was, after all, the only intern who already had what everybody called “field experience” under her belt.

Riley fought down another sigh at the thought of those words …

“Field experience.”

She found it weird to think of what had happened back at Lanton University as “field experience.” A nightmare seemed more like it. She’d never be able to shake off those memories of finding her two close friends with their throats cut in their blood-drenched dorm rooms.

Back then, the last thing she’d had in mind was training with the FBI. She’d gotten caught up in the case through no choice of her own—and she’d helped solve it, which was why pretty much everybody here had known who she was from the very first day.

And then when the program got underway, and all the other students had started learning about computers and forensics and other less thrilling matters, Riley had tracked down the deadly Clown Killer. Both of those cases had been traumatic and life-threatening.

Getting a “head start” on “field experience” had hardly made her popular with the other interns. In fact, their unspoken resentment had been palpable all along.

And now at least some of them envied her for moving on to the Academy.

If only they knew what I’ve been through, she thought.

She doubted that they’d envy her then.

She felt horror and guilt at the memory of her two friends being murdered at Lanton, and she wished she could turn back time and stop it from happening. Not only would her friends still be alive, but her own life would be completely different right now. She’d have a psychology degree and some kind of run-of-the-mill job and a whole lot of uncertainty about what she was going to do with the rest of her life …

And Ryan would be perfectly happy with me.

But she doubted that she would be happy. She hadn’t felt passionate about pursuing any career until the possibility of being an FBI agent came up—even if she did feel like this career had chosen her, not the other way around.

When the three rows of interns were properly posed, Hoke Gilmer told a joke to make everybody laugh while the photographer snapped their picture. Riley didn’t feel in a humorous mood, so the joke didn’t strike her as funny. She was sure that her own smile looked forced and insincere.

She also felt insecure about her own pantsuit, which she’d bought months ago at a thrift shop. Most of the other interns were better off financially than she was, and markedly better dressed. She didn’t look forward to seeing the photo that was being taken.

Then the group broke up to enjoy the snacks and refreshments arranged on another table in the middle of the room. Everybody clustered into groups of friends, and as usual, Riley felt isolated.

She noticed that Natalie Embry was clinging to Rollin Sloan, an intern who was headed straight for a high-paying job as a data analyst in a big Midwestern field office.

Riley heard a voice at her side …

“Well, Natalie sure got what she came here for, didn’t she?”

Riley turned and saw John Welch standing beside her.

She smiled and said, “Come on, John. Aren’t you being a bit cynical?”

John shrugged and said, “Are you telling me I’m wrong?”

Riley looked again at Natalie, who was flashing her new engagement ring at someone.

“No, I guess not,” Riley said to John.

Natalie had been showing off that ring to everybody ever since Rollin had put it on her finger a couple of days ago. It had been a real whirlwind romance—she and Rollin hadn’t even met before entering the summer program.

John let out a sigh of mock sympathy.

“Poor Rollin,” he said. “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Riley laughed aloud. She knew exactly what John meant. Starting on the very first day of the program, Natalie had been on the lookout for a prospective fiancée. She’d even targeted John until he’d made it clear that he really didn’t like her.

Riley wondered—had Natalie ever been interested in the program at all? After all, she’d been smart enough and accomplished enough to be accepted into the honors internship.

Probably not, she figured.

Natalie seemed to have joined the program for the same reason that some of Riley’s friends had gone to college—to catch herself a successful husband.

Riley tried to imagine how it would feel to go through life with Natalie’s priorities. Things would surely seem simpler, at least, when decisions could be so clear-cut…

Finding a man, moving into a nice house, having a few babies …

Riley couldn’t help envy Natalie’s security, at least.

Even so, Riley felt sure she’d be bored to death by such a life—which was exactly why things were bad between her and Ryan right now.

Then John said, “I assume you’re heading straight to Quantico when this is over.”

Riley replied, “Yeah. I guess you are too, right?”

John nodded. Riley found it exciting to think that she and John were among the small handful of interns who were continuing on to the FBI Academy.

Most of the rest of them looked forward to other possibilities. Some would be going to graduate school in fields that had caught their interest this summer. Others would be starting new jobs in labs or offices right here in the Hoover Building or at Agency headquarters in other cities. They could begin FBI careers as computer scientists, data analysts, technicians—jobs that offered regular hours and didn’t lead to life-threatening situations.

Jobs that Ryan would approve of, Riley thought wistfully.

Riley almost asked John how he was going to get to Quantico today. But of course she knew—he was going to drive there in his expensive car. Riley briefly considered asking him for a ride. After all, it would save her money for both a taxi and a train ticket.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She didn’t want to admit to him that Ryan wasn’t even going to drive her to the train station. John was a sharp guy, and he’d surely sense that things weren’t right between her and Ryan. She’d rather he not know about that—at least not right now.

As she and John continued chatting, Riley couldn’t help notice yet again how attractive he was—rugged and athletic, with short curly hair and pleasant smile.

He was well-off and wore an expensive suit, but Riley didn’t hold his wealth and privilege against him. His parents were both prominent DC lawyers who were heavily involved in politics, and Riley admired John’s choice of a humbler life of dedicated service to law enforcement.

He was a good guy, a true idealist, and she liked him very much. They’d actually worked together to crack the Clown Killer case, covertly communicating with the riddling killer to draw him out of hiding.

Standing close to him and enjoying his smile and their conversation, Riley found herself wondering how their friendship might grow at the Academy.

They were definitely going to be spending a lot of time together …

And I’m going to be far away from Ryan …

She cautioned herself not to let her imagination run away with her. For one thing, the problems she was having with Ryan were probably only temporary. Maybe all they needed was some time apart to remind them of why they’d fallen in love in the first place.

Finally the interns finished eating and started to leave. John waved to Riley on his way out, and she smiled and waved back. Still clinging to Rollin, Natalie kept flashing her ring around all the way through the door.

Riley said goodbye to Hoke Gilmer, the training supervisor, and Assistant Director Marion Connor, both of whom had given short congratulatory speeches to the whole group a little while ago. Then she left the reception room and went to the locker room to get her suitcase.

She found herself alone in the big, empty locker room. She looked around wistfully. The room was where all the interns had gathered for meetings during the summer. She doubted that she’d ever be here again.

Would she miss the program? She wasn’t sure. She’d learned a lot here, and she’d enjoyed much of her intern experience. But she knew it was definitely time for her to move on.

So why do I feel sad? she wondered.

She quickly realized it was because of how she’d left things with Ryan. She remembered her own sharp words to him last night before she’d gone to bed …

“Enjoy the rest of your meal. There’s some cheesecake in the refrigerator. I’m tired. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”

They hadn’t spoken since that moment. Ryan had gotten up and left for work before Riley had even awoken this morning.

She wished she hadn’t spoken to him like that. But what choice had he given her? He hadn’t shown a lot of sensitivity to her feelings—to her hopes and dreams.

The weight of her engagement ring felt strange on her finger. She held her hand in front of her face and looked at it. As the modest but lovely gem sparkled under the fluorescent ceiling light, she remembered the sweet moment when Ryan had knelt shyly to propose to her.

That seemed like a long time ago now.

And after their ugly parting, Riley wondered—were they even really engaged anymore? Was their relationship over? Had they broken up without actually saying so? Was it time for her to move on from Ryan, just like she was moving on from everything else? And was Ryan ready to move on from her?

For a moment, she toyed with the idea of not catching that cab and that train to Quantico—at least not right now. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for her to be a day late for classes. Maybe she could talk to Ryan again when he got home from work. Maybe they could put things right.

But she quickly realized …

If I go back to the apartment now, maybe I’ll never go to Quantico.

She shuddered at the idea.

Somehow, she knew that her destiny awaited her in Quantico, and she didn’t dare miss it.

It’s now or never, she thought.

She got her suitcase and headed on out of the building, then caught a cab to the train station.

CHAPTER FOUR

Guy Dafoe didn’t particularly like getting up so early in the morning. But at least these days he was working hard to take care of his own cattle rather than the herds he’d handled for other owners. Early morning chores seemed well worth the effort now.

The sun was rising, and he knew it was going to be a beautiful day. He loved the smell of the fields and the sounds of the cattle.

He’d spent years working bigger ranches and bigger herds. But this was his own land, his own animals. And he was feeding these animals right, not raising them artificially on grain and hormones. That was a waste of resources, and production-line cattle lived miserable lives. He felt good about what he was doing.

He’d plunged all his savings into buying this farm and a few cattle to start out with. He knew it was a big risk, but he had faith that there was a real future in sales of grass-fed beef. It was a growing market.

The yearling calves were clustered up around the barn, where he’d penned them up last night in order to check on their health and development. They watched him and mooed softly, as if waiting for him.

He was proud of his small herd of Black Angus, and sometimes he had to resist the temptation to become fond of them, as if they were pets. These were food animals, after all. It would be a bad idea to get very attached to any of them individually.

Today he wanted to turn the yearling calves into the roadside pasture. The field they were in now was eaten down short, and the good legume and grass pasture down by the road was ready for grazing.

Just as he swung wide gate open, he noticed something odd on the far side of the pasture. It looked like some kind of tangle or bundle over near the road.

He grumbled aloud …

“Whatever it is, it probably isn’t good.”

He slipped through the opening and pushed the gate shut again, leaving the yearlings where they were. He didn’t want to turn his stock into this field until he found out what that strange object was.

As he strode across the field, he grew more puzzled. It looked like a huge wad of barbed wire hanging from a fence post. Had a roll of the stuff bounced off of someone’s truck and wound up there somehow?

But as he walked closer to it, he saw that it wasn’t a new roll. It was a tangle of old wire, wrapped in all directions.

It didn’t make any sense.

When he reached the bundle and stared into it, he realized that something was inside.

He leaned toward it, peered closely, and felt a sudden cold chill of terror.

“Holy hell!” he yelled, jumping backward.

But maybe he was only imagining things. He forced himself to look again.

There it was—a woman’s face, pale and wounded, contorted in agony.

He grabbed the wire to pull it off her, but quickly stopped himself.

It’s no use, he realized. She’s dead.

He staggered over to next fencepost, leaned on it, and retched violently.

Pull yourself together, he told himself.

He had to call the police—right now.

He staggered away and broke into a run toward his house.

CHAPTER FIVE

Special Agent Jake Crivaro sat bolt upright when his office phone rang.

Things had been too quiet at Quantico since he got back yesterday.

Now his gut told him instantly …

It’s a new case.

Sure enough, as soon as he picked up the phone, he heard the sonorous voice of Special Agent in Charge Erik Lehl …

“Crivaro, I need you in my office right now.”

“Right away, sir,” Crivaro said.

He hung up the phone and grabbed his go bag, which he always kept at the ready. Agent Lehl was being even more laconic than usual, which surely meant urgent business. Crivaro was sure that he would be traveling somewhere soon—probably within the hour.

He felt his heart pumping just a little faster as he hurried down the hall. It was a good feeling. After a 10-week stint serving as a mentor for the FBI’s Honors Internship Program, this was a welcome return to normality.

During the first few days of the summer program he’d been pulled away by a murder case—the notorious “Clown Killer.” After that he’d settled in to the more mundane work of mentoring just one of the interns—a talented but exasperating kid named Riley Sweeney, who had shown startling brilliance helping him on the case.

Even so, the program had passed too slowly for his taste. He wasn’t used to spending such a long period out of the field.

When Jake walked into Lehl’s office, the lanky man rose up from his chair to greet him. Erik Lehl was so tall that he barely seemed to fit into any space he occupied. Other agents said that he looked like he was wearing stilts. He looked more to Jake as though he were made out of stilts—an awkwardly assembled assortment of lengths of lumber that somehow never seemed to be perfectly coordinated in their movements. But the man had been a crack agent and had earned his position at the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

“Don’t make yourself comfortable, Crivaro,” Lehl said. “You’re leaving right away.”

Jake obediently stayed on his feet.

Lehl looked at a manila folder that he was holding and heaved a grim sigh. Jake had long since observed Lehl’s tendency to take every case extremely seriously—even personally, as if he felt directly insulted by any sort of monstrous criminality.

Not surprisingly, Jake couldn’t remember ever finding Lehl in a cheerful mood.

After all …

Monsters are our business.

And Jake knew that Lehl wouldn’t be assigning him to this particular case if it weren’t unusually heinous. Jake was something of a specialist in cases that defied human imagination.

Lehl handed the manila folder to Jake and said, “We’ve got a really ugly situation in West Virginia. Have a look.”

Jake opened the folder and saw a black-and-white photo of a weird bundle held together by duct tape and barbed wire. The bundle was dangling against a fence post. It took a moment for Jake to realize that the bundle had a face and hands—that it was in fact a human being and obviously dead.

Jake inhaled sharply.

Even for him, this was a uniquely grisly sight.

Lehl explained, “The photo was taken about a month ago. The body of a beauty parlor worker named Alice Gibson was found bound up with barbed wire and hanging from a fence post on a rural road near Hyland, West Virginia.”

“Pretty nasty stuff,” Jake said. “How are the local cops handling it?”

“They have a suspect in custody,” Lehl said.

Jake’s eyes widened with surprise.

He asked, “So what makes this an FBI case?”

Lehl said, “We just got a call from the chief of police in Dighton, a town near Hyland. Another bundled-up body like this was found just this morning, hanging from a fence post on a road outside of town.”

Jake was starting to understand. Being in a jail cell at the time of the second murder gave the suspect a pretty good alibi. And now things looked like a serial killer was just getting started.

Lehl continued, “I’ve given orders that the current crime scene not be disturbed. So you need to get there ASAP. It would be a four-hour drive across the mountains, so I’ve got a helicopter waiting for you on the airstrip.”

Jake was just turning to leave the office when Lehl added …

“Do you want me to assign you a partner?”

Jake turned and looked at Lehl. Somehow, he hadn’t expected the question.

“I don’t need a partner,” Jake said. “But I’ll need a forensics team. The cops in rural West Virginia aren’t going to know how to get a good reading on the scene.”

Lehl nodded and said, “I’ll get the team together right now. They’ll fly out with you.”

Just as Jake was stepping out the door, Lehl said …

“Agent Crivaro, sooner or later you’re going to need another regular partner.”

Jake shrugged awkwardly and said, “If you say so, sir.”

With a hint of a growl in his voice, Lehl said. “I do say so. It’s about time for you to learn to play nice with others.”

Jake stared at him with surprise. It was rare for the taciturn Erik Lehl to say anything the least bit snide.

I guess he really means it, Jake realized.

Without another word, Jake left the office and headed through the building. As he walked briskly along, he thought about what Lehl had said about him getting a new partner. Jake was well-known for being tough to work with in the field. But he really didn’t think he gave anybody a hard time unless they deserved it.

His last regular partner, Gus Bollinger, had certainly deserved it. He’d gotten fired for smearing the fingerprints on a piece of vital evidence in the so-called “Matchbook Killer” case. As a consequence, the case had gone cold—and there was little that Jake hated more than cold cases.

On the Clown Killer case, Jake had worked with a DC agent named Mark McCune. McCune hadn’t been as bad as Bollinger, but he’d made stupid mistakes and thought too highly of himself for Jake’s taste. Jake was glad that their partnership had been only for that one case and that McCune remained in DC.

As he stepped onto the tarmac where the helicopter waited, he thought about someone else he’d worked with recently …

Riley Sweeney.

He’d been impressed with her ever since she’d been a psych student who had helped him solve a serial case at Lanton University. When she’d graduated, he’d pulled strings and stirred up the ire of some his colleagues to get her into the Honors Internship Program. Perhaps against his own better judgment, he’d enlisted her help on the Clown Killer case.

She’d done some really brilliant work. She’d also made some really outrageous mistakes. And she was a long way from learning how to obey orders, but he’d only known a handful of even seasoned agents with such powerful intuitions.

One of those was himself.

As Jake stooped below the spinning propeller blades and climbed up into the helicopter, he saw the four-man forensic team trotting across the tarmac. Then the forensics guys climbed into the chopper, which took to the air.

It seemed silly to be thinking of Riley Sweeney right now. Quantico was a huge base, and even though she was at the FBI Academy, their paths weren’t likely to cross again.

Jake opened the folder to read over the police report.

*

After the helicopter cleared the Appalachian mountain ranges, it passed over rolling meadows dotted with Black Angus cattle. As the chopper descended, Jake could see where police vehicles had blocked off a stretch of gravel road to keep onlookers away from the crime scene.

The helicopter set down in grassy pasture. Jake and the forensics team climbed out of the vehicle and headed over toward a small group of uniformed people and several official vehicles.

The cops and the medical examiner’s team were standing on both sides of a barbed wire fence that ran along the road at the edge of the pasture. Jake could see what looked like a snarled bundle of wire hanging from a fencepost.

A short, sturdy-looking man of about Jake’s height and build stepped forward to greet him.

“I’m Graham Messenger, the chief of police here in Dighton,” he said, shaking hands with Jake. “We’ve had ourselves a couple of pretty awful incidents, at least for these parts. Let me show you.”

The chief led the way to a fence post and, sure enough, a weird bundle was hanging from the post, all held together with duct tape and barbed wire. Again Jake was able spot a face and hands indicating that the bundle was actually a human being.

Messenger said, “I guess you already know about Alice Gibson, the earlier victim over near Hyland. This looks like the same damn thing all over again. The victim this time is Hope Nelson.”

Crivaro said, “Was she reported missing before the body was found?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Messenger said, pointing pointed toward a stunned-looking middle-aged man standing near one of the vehicles. “Hope was married to Mason Nelson over there—the town mayor. She was working in their local farm supply store last night, but she didn’t come home when Mason expected. He called me in the middle of the night about it, sounding pretty alarmed.”

The police chief shrugged guiltily.

“Well, I’m kind of used to folks going missing for a spell, then turning up again. I told Mason I’d look into in today if she didn’t turn up. I had no idea …”

Messenger’s voice trailed off. Then he sighed and shook his head and added …

“The Nelsons own a lot of property in Dighton. They’ve always been good, respectable folks. Poor Hope didn’t deserve this. But then, I don’t reckon anybody does.”

Another man stepped toward them. He had a long, aged face, white hair, and a bushy old-fashioned mustache. Chief Messenger introduced him as Hamish Cross, the county’s chief medical examiner. Chewing on a weed, Cross seemed relaxed and mildly curious about what was going on.

He asked Jake, “Ever seen anything like this before?”

Jake didn’t reply. The answer, of course, was no.

Jake stooped down beside the bundle and examined it closely.

He said to Cross, “I assume you worked on the earlier murder.”

Cross nodded and stooped down beside Jake and twirled the weed in his mouth.

“That I did,” Cross said. “And this one’s pretty near identical. She didn’t die here, that much is certain. She was abducted, bound up first with duct tape and then with barbed wire, and bled slowly to death. Either that or she suffocated first. Bound up tight like that, she’d hardly have been able to breathe at all. All that happened somewhere else—there’s no sign of bleeding here.”

Jake could see that the face and hands were almost as white as paper, and they glistened in the late morning sunlight like pieces of china. The woman simply didn’t look real to Jake, but more like some kind of sick, grotesque sculpture.

A few flies had gathered around the body. They kept landing, roaming around, then flying away again. They looked like they didn’t know what to do with this mysterious object.