Twisted

  Hank felt the stinging pain in his butt, and jerked around, looking everywhere at once. He reached around, pulled out the dart, and examined it. He knew what it was—and what it did.

  His time was limited. He had to find his assailant, and fast.

  He drew his pistol and raised it, sweeping the area with an alert eye. No sign of anyone.

  The bushes across the street rustled.

  “Come out with your hands up!” Hank ordered.

  No motion whatsoever.

  “I know you’re in there. Come out or I’m coming in.”

  Again, nothing.

  From down the street, Hank heard the low sound of a car motor. No, it was deeper, throatier—more like a truck or a van. The sound was moving toward him, as, obviously, was the vehicle.

  He turned, still aiming his pistol, ready to fire. But at what—the vehicle or the bushes?

  The numbness started in his legs, then crept up his body, until keeping his arms raised was too much of an effort. His head began swimming, and he rubbed his eyes, trying to erase the cobwebs. Dammit. He had to get this guy before whatever drug he’d injected into his bloodstream took over.

  Hank glanced back at the bushes, which were now totally still. And the sound of the approaching truck or van was gone, too. So he had no idea where the hell this maniac was.

  His only hope was to warn Sloane—now, before she got too close to the assailant to escape. He’d also call for backup. That way, the local cops would be here within minutes.

  He twisted around in the direction Sloane was coming from. His turn was executed in slow motion. He could feel it. And Sloane was still way off in the woods, too far away to spot him unless he gave her reason to.

  He tried to yell. Nothing came out. His lips were numb and unmoving. So was his brain. The dizziness was winning. He couldn’t feel his fingers, so he groped wildly for his cell phone. If he touched it, he never knew.

  He raised his other arm to wave Sloane down. It only made it up halfway.

  With a choked sound, he fell to his knees, then collapsed onto the street, unconscious.

  Once I see Mr. Ford Focus hit the ground, I know I’m home free.

  I press my foot to the accelerator, closing the distance to Artemis’s house. I park adjacent to her driveway.

  There’s no time to waste. I jump out of the van, and run over to the stocky bodyguard, who’s crumpled in the road. I grab him by the legs and drag him over to his car. He’s a heavy SOB. But I’m more than up for the challenge.

  Once I complete my job, I step back and admire my handiwork. To any passerby, it looks as if Mr. Ford Focus is taking a nap.

  Which he is. A long, long nap.

  Lost in thought, Sloane rounded the final curve of her run. As she neared her property, the hounds abruptly began barking and whining, running back and forth in an intertwining fashion until their leashes were tangled. Sloane squatted down to untangle them, her brows drawing together in puzzlement. It was unusual for her dachshunds to be so hyper. Especially after a three-mile run. No, not hyper. Agitated. Clearly, something was wrong.

  She raised her head, surveyed the area.

  There was a strange van parked next to her driveway. But that wasn’t unusual. Landscapers and other outdoor laborers who had projects on her block often left their vehicles wherever it was convenient. From where she stood, she couldn’t tell what type of tradesman the van belonged to, but she could tell that the van looked empty.

  Nonetheless, she exercised caution. She approached the vehicle slowly, circled it, and confirmed that it was, indeed, devoid of passengers. She peered through the tinted glass, holding her hands on either side of her face so she could see better. Not that there was much to see. Just the usual trunk-type stuff—a gym bag, something that looked like a collapsed bicycle, some tools, a cooler, and two cases of bottled water. Nothing threatening there.

  She glanced across the street. Hank was in his car, obviously too tired between quarter-mile sprints to check up on her with his binoculars. The poor guy. Twelve-hour shifts with a combative subject and a royal pain in the ass—namely, her—were rough.

  Hank was a pro. He’d obviously checked out the van before returning to his car. So it was clear that he didn’t view it as a threat either.

  The hounds, on the other hand, were still riled up. They were tense and growling, but they were staring away from the van and Hank’s car, their gazes angled toward a different spot on the street. Hank himself wasn’t a dog person, so he didn’t place much stock in the hounds’ superior awareness. But Sloane knew better. She knew how keen their instincts were. She wasn’t about to ignore their warning—even if it turned out that the only thing they were alerting her to was a nearby skunk on the verge of spraying her.

  Sidestepping the van, she tightened her grip on their leashes, and began sprinting toward her house.

  She was a short way down her driveway, when she felt the sharp sting in the back of her left thigh. She started, her first thought being that she’d been stung by a wasp. It hurt, a lot, and the sticking sensation warned her that the stinger might still be in there.

  Carefully, she reached around, her hand coming in contact with something more cylindrical and substantial than a bee’s stinger.

  It was a dart—the kind that was shot from a tranquilizer gun.

  Someone wanted her unconscious. And there was only one someone that could be.

  Her first instinct was to go for her pistol. She reached for it—simultaneously recalling that it was nonexistent. Her days of carrying a weapon were temporarily suspended.

  She turned toward Elsa’s house, trying to peer through the thick cluster of evergreen trees that separated their properties. She couldn’t see anything—or anyone. But she did remember that Burt’s car had been parked in the driveway when she ran by earlier.

  Could he really be their Unsub?

  Feeling a wave of dizziness, she realized she was wasting precious time. Wrapping the hounds’ leashes around her wrist, she reversed her steps, weaving her way toward Hank’s car. She needed help—and she needed it now. Already her body felt as if it were moving in slow motion. She was on the verge of passing out, and she had no intention of doing so on a secluded parcel of land where her attacker could kidnap her and take off without being seen.

  “Sloane!”

  Someone was calling her. Blinking the cobwebs out of her eyes, she tried to focus. A man was approaching. He was smiling and waving.

  Luke? Yes, it was Luke. Thank goodness. A friend.

  “Sloane!” he called to her again.

  “I’m hurt.” She managed to push out the words. “I need help.”

  “I know.” With an understanding nod, he sped up his steps, until he was jogging toward her, just yards away. “I’m here to give you that help.”

  Maybe it was the odd reply, or the unnatural quality of his tone. Maybe it was the weird look in his eyes. Or maybe it was because, as if on cue, all three of her hounds burst into a round of snarling, growling, and baring their teeth.

  Whatever prompted it, the hair on back of her neck stood up.

  And, suddenly, she knew.

  Even before she caught a glimpse of the silver object tucked inside the front facing of Luke’s open leather jacket, and realized it was a knife, she’d planted her feet, tensing for a fight.

  The drugs in her bloodstream were traveling faster than she. Her mind was woozy. Her body wouldn’t respond to her commands. And her muscles were freezing up, refusing to react. She didn’t stand a chance.

  An instant later, Luke caught her around the waist, steadying her, then half guiding and half dragging her to his van. “It’s all right,” he said in a soothing voice. “I’m taking you home.”

  “Home?” She wished she could think straight. “I am home.”

  As they reached the road, the fuzzy outline of the Ford Focus swam into view, along with Hank, still sitting in the driver’s seat, still leaning against his window in the exact same position.
“Hank,” she muttered. “What did you do to him?”

  “He’s sleeping,” Luke supplied. “He’ll be fine. The only lasting effects will be some leftover grogginess, a wicked headache, and a slew of guilt. Time for us to go now.”

  With that, Luke unwound the hounds’ leashes from around Sloane’s wrist, and tossed the straps to the ground, releasing the dogs as he pulled open the door to his van. “Go on. Run. Go back to the house,” he ordered.

  They ignored him completely, continuing to bark and snarl, and nip at his feet. “I understand,” Luke assured them, as calmly as if he were addressing three distraught children. “You’ll miss her. But it won’t be for long. You’ll join us at Mount Olympus very soon. Artemis will decree it. She needs her hounds.”

  Mount Olympus? Artemis? Sloane processed that. Whatever it meant, Luke was insane.

  Struggling to hold on to her rapidly fading mental faculties, Sloane tried to come up with a counterstrike maneuver. Her Krav skills were useless. Her strength and coordination were gone. She needed a weapon of some kind. Squinting, she peered around inside the van, hoping for something she could use.

  The tools. No. They were too far out of reach. The cooler. Again, no. She couldn’t get to it, and she didn’t have the coordination to grab it and swing it at Luke’s head.

  There was only one item within her grasp, because it was folded and stacked in the backseat rather than the trunk. And that item was way too large and cumbersome to lift. It was what she’d originally thought was a bicycle, but now realized was a wheelchair. Lillian’s wheelchair.

  Dazedly, Sloane remembered the retirement party. Luke had been able to store a wine goblet in the seatback bag that was attached behind it.

  It was a long shot, but it was the only plausible idea Sloane could come up with. It wouldn’t help her now, but later, when he was driving or occupied with something else—maybe.

  She cocked her head to make sure Luke wasn’t watching her. At that moment, he was wildly throwing sticks across her lawn for the hounds to chase, and grinding out commands for them to shut up and go away. Sloane knew he could kill all three of them in one fell swoop. But for whatever reason, he seemed to view them as godly, and refused to harm them. She thanked God for that blessing.

  However, his patience wouldn’t last forever. Even in her drugged-up state, Sloane could see that he was reaching the end of his rope. She had to act now, use these last coherent moments to save her pups, then try to save herself. She reached into the kangaroo pocket of her jogging suit, palmed her cell phone, and shut it off. Then she dropped it directly into the mesh section of the seatback bag behind the wheelchair.

  Luckily, they blended, black against black. And her phone was tiny. Now all she could do was to pray that Luke wouldn’t spot it.

  “Run, Moe,” she slurred, waving the dogs away. “Larry, Curly—you, too. Peanut butter…kongs…inside house…”

  She saw them take off, heard their excited yips as they raced toward the house, assuming she was behind them.

  Then she fell to the floor of the van, and was swallowed up by the darkness.

  As had become his habit since moving back in with his mother, Burt stepped out of the house and walked across the front path to scoop up the morning newspaper. It was on his return trip that he heard the hounds. They were making an enormous racket. And it wasn’t their customary barking, signifying play. These barks were sharp and frantic, and they were scratching violently at Sloane’s front door.

  What were they doing out here alone, and why couldn’t they get in?

  Burt headed in that direction to find out. “Moe? Larry? Curly?” he shouted as he pushed his way through the evergreens.

  At the sound of Burt’s voice, they came bounding toward him, their leashes dragging behind them, creating such a din that there was no mistaking this for anything but urgency.

  “Where’s Sloane?” he asked them, already stooping to grab hold of the looped handles of all three leashes. They responded by half dragging him across the lawn and back to their front door.

  Burt rang the bell three times. No response. He then knocked until his knuckles turned white. Again, nothing. Finally, he used the spare key Sloane had given him and his mother for those times when they needed to get in for “hound-sitting.” He unlocked the front door, and pushed it open. “Sloane?” he yelled.

  Silence.

  He checked every room, only to find them empty. In the kitchen, a mug and today’s newspaper were laid out on the table. And the coffeemaker, which had been program set for six-thirty, had already brewed four cups.

  Burt didn’t waste another second. He picked up the phone and dialed the police.

  FBI New York Field Office

  26 Federal Plaza, New York City

  7:05 A.M.

  Derek wasn’t happy. He’d wanted to spend last night with Sloane. Stoic as she was, she was badly thrown by Elliot’s murder. And after a long day of grilling people and hearing the gory details of Elliot’s death over and over, she needed comfort, not a train ride home—accompanied by one of Manny’s people—and a night alone with the hounds. But Derek had been tied up with frantic meetings, phone calls, and paperwork until 3 A.M. He’d never even gone home, just crashed in the office for a few hours, then showered and changed clothes.

  Now back at his desk, he glanced at his watch. Sloane should be back from her morning run. He was just about to call and check up on her—under the guise of determining what time she was meeting him at John Jay for day two of mouth-swabbing and interrogating—when his phone rang.

  “FBI,” he answered briskly.

  “Agent Parker?” It was a young woman’s tentative voice.

  “This is Parker. Who am I speaking with?”

  “Deborah Culmen. I am—I was—one of Dr. Lyman’s graduate assistants. There were two of us helping him monitor his AI system. The instructions he left us from the beginning were that in the event he was unreachable, we should call you if any results materialized.”

  “And have they?” Derek leaned forward, his body taut with anticipation.

  “The computer system just spit out a model based on all the information Dr. Lyman fed it. I think you should come over here and take a look at it right away.”

  “I’m there.”

  Derek left the federal building and drove his Bureau car up to John Jay in record time. He took the steps two at a time and strode through the door to Elliot’s office.

  Deborah was waiting. White-faced, she handed him the screen print. She was actually shaking.

  It took Derek three seconds to figure out why.

  What he was looking at was a chilling, one-page analysis in the form of a table:

  Goddess Name

  Characteristics

  Date Taken

  Victim’s Name

  Aphrodite

  Beauty

  April 14

  Penelope Truman

  Hera

  Mother

  June 2

  Eve Calhoun

  Astraeus

  Bestower of Wealth

  September 12

  Lauren Majors

  Hestia

  Nurturer

  December 5

  Lydia Halas

  Athena

  Warrior

  March 19

  Cynthia Alexander

  Tyche

  Fortune & Luck

  April 5

  Tina Carroll

  Demeter

  Agriculture

  April 20

  Prof Helen Daniels

  Persephone

  Springtime

  April 20

  Abby Daniels

  Artemis

  Hunter, Archer, Keeper of the Hounds

  May 1

  Sloane Burbank?

  NOTES:

  (1) Coin signifies battle between good (goddess) versus evil (Python).

  (2) Apollo killed Python and assumed guardianship of Delphi (Greek mythology).

  (3) Tai Kee
is phonetic pronunciation of Tyche, goddess of fortune, luck, and prosperity.

  A hard jolt of awareness shot through Derek as some of the crucial pieces fell into place while triggering a whole new set of questions. Those he’d turn over to the BAU to decipher.

  His own attention was fixed on the final table entry—the one that made his blood run cold.

  The last victim’s name: Sloane Burbank

  And worse, the “date taken” listed beside it: May 1.

  That was today.

  He flipped open his cell phone and punched in Sloane’s number on speed dial. It went directly to voice mail. Dammit. He hung up and tried her home phone. Same thing. She couldn’t still be out running. Maybe she was in the shower? Outside?

  He was clutching at straws and he knew it.

  With his jaw tightly clenched, he checked the time. Hank was still on. He would have some answers. He never left Sloane unattended. During his shifts, he kept a perpetual, full-time eye on her.

  Hank’s cell phone rang and rang. No one picked up. Eventually, it went to voice mail.

  It had to be bad cell reception. Hank never ignored a call, not when he was on duty. Unless he was in trouble.

  No. Derek refused to go there. He’d wait a minute and try again. This time Hank would answer.

  There was sweat beading up on his forehead, trickling down his neck.

  As if on cue, Derek’s cell phone rang.

  “Hank?” he said into the mouthpiece.

  It wasn’t Hank. It was the local cops in Sloane’s town. Burt Wagner, Sloane’s next-door neighbor, had suggested they call him.

  Derek listened to the entire story.

  He was already in motion as he issued a few terse orders to the local police.

  Then he turned back to Deborah, recited Jeff ’s phone number, and told her to call him, then send him a fax of the printout and have him fax copies to Bill Mann at the BAU and Larry Clark at his New York hotel. He blew out of the office faster than he’d come in.

  When he arrived at Sloane’s house, the local police were still on the scene, one interviewing Burt inside the house, three others checking the outside grounds and street.