The Maze

He's the chief of the unit. It's all business."

    "Yeah, he's got the best way to get to you."

    He was jealous. It was amazing to see this side of him. She smiled up at him and lightly placed her hand on his arm. "Savich is a professional. He has no interest in anybody in his unit, not the kind you're worried about." She thought about Hannah Paisley. Was there something between Savich and Hannah?

    Douglas saw the lie in her eyes. Why? He'd never known her to lie, but on the other hand, he hadn't seen her in five months. The damnable FBI had had her in their clutches for sixteen weeks. What more would they do to her? He breathed in deeply. "Why don't we go inside? You can change, then I'll take you to dinner. I've got to go back to San Francisco in the morning."

    "That would be nice, Douglas. When you get home, you'll be speaking to Candice Addams, won't you?"

    "Yes."

    She nodded and preceded him into her empty town house.

9

    SHE SMILED AT THE GUARD and flipped open her black FBI wallet. Her beautiful gold star shone.

    "You're Agent Sherlock?" He checked the list in his hand. "You're a new agent?"

    "Yes, I would like to go to my office and do some more work."

    "Hey, you can't light your pipe here in the building, Sherlock."

    "Thanks, I won't. But it's too bad, I've got a really nice blend."

    "Guess you hear that lots, huh?"

    The guard was about her age, black, his head shaved, a real hard jaw. "No," she said, grinning at him, "this was the very first time."

    "How about: Do you live on Baker Street?"

    "Where's that?"

    "All right. But I'll be thinking of a new one you really haven't heard before. You're clean. Just sign in here. On your way out, check with me again. Oh, my name's Nick."

    She waved back at the guard. She walked to the elevators, the low heels of her shoes loud on the marble floor. If anyone asked, she planned to say that she wanted to do more study on the Radnich case. She exited the elevator at the fifth floor, walked down a long hall, turned right, then left, down another hall. She unlocked the door to the CAU. It was dark. Unfortunately she had to light up the entire area. It was different at night. The absence of people, laughing, talking, just breathing, robbed her of even an illusion of safety. She was alone in this large room. She also had her 9mm SIG in her holster.

    "Don't be a goon and a wimp." She laughed, a ghostly sound in the room. She hated the overhead fluorescent lights.

    She brought up the menu on her computer and checked all the available databases. She found him after only twenty minutes. She would have found him in under two minutes if he'd killed any more in the past seven years. But he hadn't.

    She read the profile, then read it again, then cursed. She could have written it. She'd written profiles, dozens of them, during her graduate courses in Criminal Psychology. She'd even written her Master's thesis on The Inclusive Psychometry of the Serial Criminal. She supposedly knew all the ingredients that went into the psychotic mind, co-mingled in endless patterns to produce a monster. The "inclusive" had been her advisor's idea. She still thought it sounded obtuse and pretentious, but her advisor had patted her on the back and told her he knew what the professionals respected. She'd passed, so at least she must have sounded convincing in her defense. In fact, she'd gotten high grades on all the various protocols, tests, and measuring tools she'd developed to predict and judge the depths of contamination in the serial murderer's mind. None of it had helped. He'd gone underground.

    But even the FBI profile hadn't provided a clue about where to find him. There was nothing at all that provided a different slant or perspective. Nothing new. Wait. She scrolled up again and reread two sentences. "The subject would never vary in his execution. His mind is locked into performing this single repetitive act again and again."

    It made sense. As far as she knew, each of the seven murders had been utterly identical. She slowly went through all the police reports, including Belinda's, then printed them out.

    She hated the autopsy reports, but through the courses she'd taken, she'd learned to remove herself from the gruesome details, most of which were couched in medicalese. But the photos were different, tougher. She didn't read Belinda's autopsy report. She knew she'd have to, but not now. No, not now, or tomorrow either. She printed out all of them, including Belinda's.

    She