customer didn’t say anything, but he pulled out his packet of candy and opened it up. He wasn’t even looking at her, but seemed carefully concentrated on his task as he upended the packet and poured it all out.
The colorful balls of candy scattered and skipped across the concrete. Linda yelped and took a step back in spite of herself. Whoever heard of throwing candy all over the ground like that? Just to spook her, or what? Linda’s hand flew to her chest, trying to calm her racing heartbeat.
“Look at that!” The customer laughed, pointing down at the candy. “It’s always the same, you know? There’s no such thing as randomness. You get the same patterns and fractals, and there’s always something there. Even if you try not to see it, your head grabs onto a pattern, just like that.”
Linda had heard enough. This guy was some kind of nutcase. She was alone out here, in the dark, as he had taken pains to point out. She had to get away from him, get back to the counter. Get back where it was safe.
Linda took the fastest route to that she could think of. She quickly marched the last few steps to the bathroom and unlocked it for him, the light above the door flickering on automatically.
“Oh!” the young man said. “There, look. On your hand. Another pattern.”
Linda froze and looked down at her freckles, now visible in the pale orange light. His attention on her skin was like an insect, something she wanted instinctively to shake off.
“I have to get back in the store,” Linda blurted out. “Just in case there are any more customers. Just leave the key when you’re done.”
She started hurrying back toward the front of the gas station, to the door and the safety of the counter. There was something off about this young man, something very odd indeed, and she did not want to spend another second in his company—even if it meant coming back for the key on her own later. All the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, and her heart would not calm down.
Maybe she should call someone. She thought about her ex-husband, sitting miles away in his home, probably with his feet up in front of the TV. Or her boss, who for all she knew might have been in Canada for as often as she saw him. Would they even answer? And if they did, what could they do to help?
The police, maybe? No—surely that was an overreaction.
Linda almost tripped on a loose piece of candy that had skittered further than the rest, and tried to place her feet more carefully, checking the ground ahead. Her heart was racing, and she could hear her own footsteps crunching far too loudly as she rushed toward the corner of the building. She wished she could make less noise, go faster, just get back to the doors.
She was almost running, her breath catching in her chest. She turned the corner, feeling a sense of relief at seeing the familiar doors ahead.
But something was pulling her back—something tightening around her neck.
Linda’s hands flew up instinctively, grasping at the thin, sharp wire that sliced at her fingers as she fought to get a purchase on it. Her feet tried aimlessly to move her body forward, the momentum only forcing her head further back. She had to get back to the doors. She had to get inside!
Panic clouded her vision, and the agonizing pressure intensified until there was a rush of release, something wet and hot gushing over her chest and down. There was no time to make sense of it all, only to gasp for air and feel a wet sucking sensation where the wire had been, and to notice the ground beneath her knees, and then her head, and then nothing at all.
CHAPTER ONE
FBI Special Agent Zoe Prime looked at the woman beside her in the passenger’s seat and tried not to feel intimidated.
“How about getting thrown in at the deep end?” Shelley joked.
Zoe knew what she meant. The two of them had only just been partnered up, and here they were speeding toward a crime scene. A big crime scene, actually. One that would make serious headlines.
But that wasn’t what was making Zoe feel uncomfortable. It was the fact that she had been partnered with a new agent who was already making waves at the Bureau. Shelley Rose had an open, kind face and manner, and was rumored to be able to get a confession out of anyone with just a smile. When you had a secret to hide, getting paired up with someone like that was more than enough to send a tickle of paranoia down your spine.
Not to mention the fact that Zoe, not considered the best at anything at the Bureau so far, was harboring a not-so-little amount of envy over the level of respect that her rookie partner already commanded.
Shelley had an almost-symmetrical face, just 1.5 millimeters off from being perfect, a slight variance between her eyes. There was no wonder she elicited automatic trust and amiability from those around her. It was classic psychology. A tiny flaw that made her beauty more human.
Even knowing that, Zoe couldn’t help but find herself liking her new partner, too.
“What do we know so far?” Zoe asked.
Shelley leafed through the pile of papers she held in her hands, tucked inside a folder. “Convict busted out of Tent City, in Phoenix,” she said. Outside the car, Arizona desert flashed by. “Fled on foot. Apparently, that hasn’t slowed him down. Three known homicides so far.”
“Guards?” Zoe asked. Her mind was flashing ahead. Counting the miles a man could get on foot in this heat. Not far, without rest, shelter, and water. Calculate for the sucking surface of the sand, and it reduced even further.
“No, randoms. Two hikers first.” Shelley paused, sucking a breath in through her teeth. “The murders were… vicious, by all indications. Latest vic was a tourist on their way to the Grand Canyon.”
“That is where we are headed now,” Zoe assumed. The map of the area unfolded in her mind, carving out the roadways and paths each victim was likely to have taken in order to cross paths with their man.
“Right. Looks like we should brace ourselves.”
Zoe nodded silently. She had noticed that it was harder for people like Shelley to turn up at a crime scene and see the victim’s body. They felt the pain and suffering that had been inflicted. Zoe always just saw a body—meat. Meat that might hold clues that could help the investigation, and the numbers that circled around it.
That was probably what had allowed her to pass all the entrance exams and become a Special Agent in the first place—staying calm and controlled, analyzing the facts instead of the emotions. But it was her quiet nature and tendency to fall back on a blank facial expression that had left her in need of a new partner. Apparently, her last one had felt Zoe was too quiet and aloof.
She had attempted to remedy this on her first case with Shelley by purchasing two coffees in foam cups and supplying one to her partner when they met, in recognition of a seemingly ancient ritual between co-workers. It had seemed to go down well. Shelley was personable enough for the both of them, which was why Zoe was hopeful that this might actually work out.
It wasn’t difficult to spot the site. Local cops milled around in uniform under the hot sun, a blazing ferocity that bore down heavily on her exposed arms as soon as Zoe stepped out of the air-conditioned car. Skin would burn in forty-five minutes if not protected. She would likely have some bronzing on her cheeks, nose, and hands by the time they got back into the car.
Shelley introduced them, and they both flashed their badges at the officer in charge before
