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He looked back at her, then looked ahead for a moment.
“What is it?” she pressed. “Go get it, Turk.”
Turk looked back at her again. After a moment’s more hesitation, he started forward. Then he barked and sprinted forward.
Yes!
“Go get him, Turk!” she called.
She sprinted after him. Turk pawed at the door marked MEZZANINE, and when Faith opened it, he shot through, nose to the ground.
She followed him, and despite Turk’s nose, she saw the killer before he did.
He was below them on the charred main stage of the theater. He was cursing and grunting softly to himself as he dragged something onto the stage.
Not something. Someone. In his arms was the limp body of a woman in her late twenties. She was tall and slender with long, jet-black hair.
She wasn’t moving. Her head lolled listlessly to one side while her killer dragged her onto the stage, grunting with effort. Faith saw a touch of red in the pocket of the jacket he wore and recognized the red mica powder he would use to completerubedo.
She was too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Faith took a deep breath and pushed it out through her nose. She felt very small.
She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to be an FBI agent anymore. No one had prepared her for this. She would fight bad guys and bring them to justice. She would learn to solve crimes and stop killers before they could take another life.
But she hated this. This was the worst damned part of the job, and no one had taught her how to deal with it.
“Just be calm, sympathetic and patient,” Michael said. “Get through this part, then we’ll go grab a drink or twelve.”
She chuckled and tried to smile at her handsome partner, but as cute as Michael was, he couldn’t cheer her up right now. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do it. Can you do this part, please? I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
“I can,” he said, “and if you ask me again, I will. But… this is stuff we have to do, Faith. Just hold your head up high and do your best, okay? The sooner you learn how to get through this part, the better.”
She sighed and forced herself to calm. She was a U.S. Marine for God’s sake. She could handle it. She took another breath and said, “All right. Let’s go do it.”
Michael nodded approvingly, then knocked on the door. The door opened a moment later, and Faith’s resolve shattered.
Faith knew that the woman who answered the door was thirty-nine years old, but she looked almost fifteen years older. She looked at the two agents with tears streaming down her face. She wasn’t weeping anymore, but the tears were still falling. Faith had a feeling they would fall for a while longer.
Faith opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. A lump formed in her throat. This sucked so much. This hurt so much. That poor woman. Why the hell were people so cruel?
Michael rescued her. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Davisson. I’m Special Agent Michael Prince of the FBI. This is my partner, Special Agent Faith Bold. We were wondering if we could ask you some questions about Hannah.”
Hannah Davisson had been murdered one week after her nineteenth birthday when a serial killer that Faith and Michael were hunting had lured her into his vehicle and driven her out to the woods beyond town. They had found more of her body than they had of the other victims, but that didn’t seem like much of a silver lining right now.
Mrs. Davisson closed her eyes and nodded. Then she broke into sobs. Tears swam in Faith’s own eyes as Mrs. Davisson sunk to her knees, weeping with grief at the knowledge that her only daughter was gone. She would never see her again.
I’m sorry,Faith thought.I’m so sorry. We tried. We tried to get to the killer before he took anyone else. But we were too late.
***
Faith blinked tears away as she saw the killer drag the lifeless body of… Faith realized she didn’t know the girl’s name.
I’ll find out, she thought.When I apologize personally to her family.
But first, she had a job to do. She lifted her handgun and aimed it at the killer. “Stop!”
