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.“Shit.”All around the room, her fellow team members looked up from their laptops, but it was Miranda who said, “What is it?”“Victim number five, Wesley Davidson.” Hollis kept her voice even.“He was born in Hastings, South Carolina.I worked my first case there almost two years ago.A serial killer who went after blondes.”*Miranda said, “You were teamed with Isabel.”“Yeah.”“And used up one of your nine lives there, if I remember correctly,” Quentin contributed.“At the time, I thought I’d used up the only life I had.” Hollis frowned at the screen of her laptop.“I’m barely into the file, so there may be more—but isn’t that enough? A connection, however tenuous, to a past case?”“Well,” Quentin said, “given that Taryn Holder—assuming our female victim here is identified as her—just stayed at The Lodge and was last seen leaving there, with no further connection I’ve been able to find, and Vaughan-Seymour was peripheral to the investigation of Samuel’s cult, I’d say mark that one as connected and move on to another file.But I’m not the boss.”Miranda smiled faintly.“The boss agrees—more or less.Read all the way through the file if you don’t mind, Hollis.Something else may jump out at you.”DeMarco said, “Three victims out of eight establishes a pattern, at least to my mind.”“Yes,” Miranda agreed.“But is there any kind of meaning in the pattern, other than some vague connection to the SCU? If this is about us—about the unit or Noah—I’d expect there to be more to the pattern than what we’ve seen so far.A killer smart enough and driven enough to have chosen his victims like this is the sort who’d want to show off.And show up those of us investigating his crimes.”“Catch me if you can,” Diana murmured.“If you’re smart enough to put together the puzzle pieces I’ve left for you.”“Exactly.”Hollis nodded.“So we keep reading.”“We keep reading.And I think it’s time we set up a couple of whiteboards and begin charting all this—now that we have something to chart.The rest of the supplies should be in the SUVs we locked up at the sheriff’s department last night.”DeMarco got to his feet.“I’ll go.Since I’ve been undercover and off the grid for the past two years and more, I’m the least likely to recognize one of the connections to past SCU investigations.”Miranda tossed him the keys.“I’m not sure what’s packed where, but you should be able to leave one of the vehicles where it is for now.”“Copy that.”As he left the dining room, Hollis rubbed the back of her neck, already feeling the strain of sitting for too long in one position at her laptop.She shifted a bit in her chair, thinking she was stiffening up, and only then realized that she was cold.Very cold.As if someone had suddenly opened a window into winter.The physical reaction was always the same.All the fine hairs on her body stood out as though electrical energy filled the room, and goose bumps rose on her flesh as the chill spread through her.And there was still a jolt of fear—less now, but still that uncomfortable sense that some doors were never intended to be opened by the living.Not, at least, without some dreadful cost.Slowly, Hollis forced herself to look up.At first, the room appeared just as it had been, with her fellow agents intent on their workstations and oblivious to her sudden tension.“Hollis.”She caught her breath and turned her gaze to the doorway that DeMarco had passed through only moments before.Not quite in the dining room but a couple of steps out in the foyer stood a familiar figure.Appearing entirely solid and hardly ghostlike, she had long fair hair and an anxious expression.“Hollis, go after him.” Her voice was clear and strong.“What?” Hollis was barely aware that Diana was gazing at her in puzzlement, that Miranda and Quentin exchanged looks before beginning to rise from their chairs.“Go after him.Stop him.Now.”“Why? Andrea, what’re you—”“If you don’t stop him, he’ll die.Do you understand? He’ll die.There’s a bomb in one of the cars.”Quentin said, “Hey, is she—”Hollis didn’t hear the rest.She jumped up so abruptly that her chair fell over behind her with a crash, and she raced from the room.Andrea had already vanished by the time she reached the foyer, but Hollis hardly noticed.She flung open the front door, banged through the screen door, and was across the wide porch and jumping over the steps down to the walkway before she could even begin to look for DeMarco.She drew in a deep breath to yell his name.And was yanked off her feet and into the shadows of the big magnolia tree that shaded half the front yard.Dale McMurry hadn’t stayed past his shift as Bobbie had.He wasn’t the ambitious sort, really.The gig as a part-time deputy offered decent pay and good benefits, and more often than not he served as a less-than-glorified file clerk.Which suited him just fine.He didn’t mind at all living rent-free in his parents’ basement, where his mama still cooked for him and did his laundry
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