LITMIR.BIZ

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in, and ask the assigned agents how their investigation is going, especially on the same morning the profiler most connected to Crutchfield returns to work. It will be obvious what I’m doing. They’ll shut down. You’ll get in trouble. And I’ll lose my official status as ‘grandiose emeritus.’ That’s no good.”

      “You make it sound impossible,” Jessie protested. “No matter how you approach them, they’ll have their guard up.”

      “Not necessarily, especially if I happen to be already enjoying my lunch at a joint I know they frequent. And if they join me because of the whole ‘grandiose emeritus’ thing, maybe they get to talking. Maybe they want to impress the old man and they spill a little more than they should. Maybe I seem disinterested so they tell me even more, to prove their mettle. Folks like to do that around me.”

      “Because of your ‘grandiose emeritus’ status,” Jessie repeated.

      “Now you’re getting it,” he said. “But no one’s going to tell me a thing if I come out and ask them directly. They’re FBI agents, not second graders.”

      “So why aren’t you out having lunch?’ she pressed.

      “Because they don’t usually show up at this place until around one. That’s why I called the owner and told him to hold a table waiting for me at twelve forty-five—a booth in the back, with a little privacy and room for three.”

      “You’ve already done that?”

      “I have.”

      “I’m sorry,” Jessie said, impressed. “I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat. It’s just that Hannah’s out there, with God knows what happening to her. I saw you hanging out here and it got me riled up. I shouldn’t have made assumptions.”

      “I appreciate that, Hunt. And I don’t blame you. An old guy like me, you’d be forgiven for thinking I completely forgot about our little chat this morning. But can I give you a piece of advice?”

      “Of course,” she said.

      “You have to loosen your grip a little.”

      Jessie nodded.

      “That’s been challenging for me,” she admitted.

      “I get it,” he replied. “I was the same way for a long time. But the thing is, with what we do, there’s always going to be some bad guy out there. There’s always going to be a victim in danger. There’s always going to be a ticking clock. But if you’ve got the accelerator pressed to a hundred all the time, you’re going to crash. It’s inevitable. And then you’re no good to anyone.”

      Jessie nodded. Everything he said resonated. Before she could admit it, he continued.

      “I know it’s not easy, and especially not now, when the person at risk is your own half-sister. But you have to hit the brakes sometimes. You have to find some kind of equilibrium in your life. Otherwise you will burn out. And people you could have saved will die. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t care. But you have to find that line where you can do this job and still be a functioning human being. Otherwise you’ll be miserable. You know what I mean?”

      Jessie felt like she’d never better understood anything in her life.

      “I do,” she said simply.

      “Good,” he replied. “Then get the hell out of my office. I need to take a little siesta before lunch.”

      And with those words of wisdom still in her ears, she left him to his nap.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      Hannah Dorsey reminded herself that she wasn’t dead yet.

      It might have seemed obvious, but this time a week ago, she couldn’t be so sure. And every minute that she was alive meant she had a chance. At least that’s what she told herself.

      She knew it was around midday because of where the glimmer of window light shined on the floor in the basement where she was being held. For a while she thought she’d been moved out of California because she’d never seen a basement here before.

      But the man—he had told her to call him Bolton—had explained that the former owner was an East Coast transplant who had demanded one be built in his new Southern California home, even if it didn’t really make geological sense.

      Bolton had explained a lot of things to her.

      In the first few hours after he’d killed her foster parents and drugged and abducted her, he didn’t do much talking. That was partly because Hannah was too drowsy to understand him at first. After that, her panicked screams made talking impossible.

      But after about eighteen hours, she’d shouted herself hoarse. Beyond that, she was so wiped out from fear, adrenaline overload, and confusion that listening to the man’s southern-inflected accent became almost a balm. If he was talking, he wasn’t killing. So she was happy for him to talk away.

      She imagined he’d be coming by to chat soon. He always brought her lunch around the time the light from the small window hit the middle of the room, which she estimated to be noon. She’d figured out a few other things in the week she’d been here.

      First of all, she knew it had been about a week because she was able to scratch a notch for each day into the wooden post she was chained to with the spoon he left her. In fact, she was pretty sure it was Tuesday. She also knew they were somewhere isolated. Otherwise Bolton would have gagged her or at least boarded up the small window that offered her that shred of sunlight.

      He clearly wasn’t worried about someone hearing her calls for help or smashing the window and seeing her down here. Besides, she hadn’t heard anything like a car driving by, a plane passing overhead, or an alarm going off in the distance.

      At night, through the window’s smeared dirty glass, she was able to see the flashing pink and blue neon sign in the far distance for a place called Bare Essence. The style of the sign suggested to her that it was probably a strip club. But considering she wasn’t an expert on places like that, the information wasn’t of much use.

      She was also pretty sure he didn’t want her dead, at least not yet. It wasn’t for a lack of willingness to kill. Back at her foster parents’ house, before he drugged her but after he gagged her and tied her up, he’d carried her quietly into the living room and sat her in the corner so she could watch as he killed them.

      He hadn’t done it stealthily. In fact, there was casualness to him throughout the ordeal. Her foster father was asleep in the easy chair and her foster mother was seated on the adjoining loveseat watching the TV.

      Since they were facing away from him, he’d simply gone into the kitchen and come out with two knives, one a smaller serrated variety and the other a large carving knife. He gave Hannah a little wink as he walked around behind the couple and sat down next to Hannah’s foster mother, a bland, gray-haired but generally decent woman named Caryn.

      Caryn must have assumed it was Hannah and only glanced over after the show went to commercial. When she saw the strange man with the knife smiling beside her, she opened her mouth to scream. That’s when he plunged it into the side of her throat.

      She made an odd wheezy, gurgling sound, as if someone had let the air out of a balloon while underwater. Her foster father, Clint, who wasn’t objectionable but clearly only participated in the foster process at his wife’s behest, stirred slightly but didn’t wake up.

      As Caryn’s blood spurted across the living room, some of it spraying on Bolton, he got up and wandered over to Clint. The man didn’t react so Bolton grabbed the remote control and began turning up the volume until it was so loud Clint couldn’t help but awaken.

      “Too loud,” he muttered grumpily.

      When he didn’t get any response, the man rubbed his eyes and looked at the screen. It was only then that he realized his view was blocked by a shortish, pudgy man with patchy brown hair and a double chin. Bolton smiled widely, revealing front teeth desperately in need of dental work, as several of them jutted in different directions. His bright,

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