LITMIR.BIZ

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of any assistance.

      John W. Greenhaw, Manager

      Paige pursed her mouth. The only thing suspicious about the card was that Mr. Greenhaw made it sound like he was urging a guest to contact him personally for assistance. However, his switch from using “me” to “we” in his second sentence told Paige the man’s subconscious had been at work. In truth, a guest would have to work his or her way through several layers of assistants before ever getting to talk to the hotel’s head honcho.

      She shifted her gaze to the fruit bowl. She supposed it was possible cards could have been accidentally switched if a number of baskets and bowls wound up on the bell captain’s stand at the same time. If that was the case, Mr. Greenhaw’s card could have been meant for someone else. Who, then, had sent her the fruit bowl from The Epicurean?

      Knowing she couldn’t get that question answered until morning, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was after midnight. If she had any hope of contacting McCall tonight, she had to make the call now.

      On her way to the phone she glanced toward the door to make sure she’d set the swing bar. A flash of white against the dove-gray carpet caught her eye. Moving to the door, she realized the white shape was a small envelope. Had it been there when she’d walked in? Entirely possible, she thought. With her mind so focused on the manager’s card, she’d apparently missed seeing the envelope that someone had slipped beneath the door while she’d been at the hospital.

      Nothing was written on either side of the envelope. Paige unsealed the flap, peered inside and felt her heart stop when she saw the mug shot of Edwin Isaac. The data at its lower edge identified the Dallas Police Department as the arresting agency. The date was the day Paige and her partner arrested Isaac.

      She had seen this very mug shot that morning when she slid Isaac’s file into her briefcase.

      Hands and legs unsteady, she moved to the bed, upended the envelope and watched the mug shot flutter to the mattress. It landed facedown, revealing the typed label affixed to the back.

      We’ll be together soon. I promise.

      Gentleman Jim

      Nausea shot into her throat. Closing her eyes, she saw the bodies of five women, their flesh sliced, the wounds charred from being cauterized with a red-hot knife blade. Each victim’s head had been wrapped in plastic that camouflaged the ghoulish makeup applied to their battered faces. During the months she’d hunted their killer, she had sometimes imagined she heard his victims’ screams. Deep inside her mind, she still did.

      Paige forced herself to take slow, deep breaths to calm herself, trying to control the mix of fear and adrenaline pumping through her system. She would not allow herself to panic. If she panicked, she wouldn’t be able to think rationally. Which she knew was Isaac’s goal.

      The memory of his oh-so-polite voice during their extensive interviews rippled across her nerve endings.

      Once I take possession of a person’s mind, they are powerless to defend themselves against me.

      As a psychiatrist, Isaac was a master at mental manipulation. After he targeted a victim, he knew exactly how to terrify, was keenly aware of the value of breaking down by exhaustion, had become expert at exploiting a victim’s thinking until she was thoroughly ripened by fear.

      “Devise a plan,” Paige whispered. First, she had to talk to McCall. Receiving a personal note from an escaped serial killer was one step from a face-to-face encounter. Second, she needed to pack. No way in hell could she sleep in this room knowing that Isaac, or someone sent by him, had been just outside.

      Third, she—

      A sharp rap on the door had her nearly jumping out of her skin. Heart in her throat, Paige moved around the bed and grabbed the asp off the nightstand.

      She knew that even if a stranger was on the other side of the door, she couldn’t let down her guard. Not when Isaac was a master at disguise.

      And if it was him who’d knocked, how was he planning to make a run at her? Fire a bullet through the peephole if she was careless enough to look through it? Mace her? Toss acid in her face, like he had one of his victims?

      Tightening her fingers on the asp, Paige flicked her wrist. A silver wand shot out of the short black cylinder, transforming it into a solid steel tactical baton as she eased toward the door.

      Chapter 4

      Barely breathing, her palm sweating against the asp’s handle, Paige positioned herself at one side of the door.

      “Who’s there?” Her voice sounded like chipped glass.

      “Nate McCall.”

      Relief rose in her like a wave. She shoved back the U-shaped safety bar, unlocked the deadbolt, then opened the door.

      He wore an unbuttoned black trench coat over his black suit; his hair looked rumpled, a shadow of dark stubble on his jaw gave his olive skin a swarthy look. She wasn’t too proud to acknowledge how glad she was to see him.

      “I called the E.R.,” he said. “A nurse said they released you, so I…” His eyes flicked to her right hand and narrowed abruptly. “You planning on trying to take me down with that man-tamer baton, Carmichael?”

      Paige realized she must look paranoid standing there gripping the thick, silvery asp that could drop a heavyweight in round one.

      “Not you. Someone else.” Stepping back, she pulled the door open wider and gestured him in.

      He moved past her, then turned, waiting just behind her as she rebolted the door. “Who?”

      “The slime who boosted my briefcase.” She twisted the asp’s spring then shoved the telescoping chrome shaft back into the black handle. “He paid me a return visit.”

      “He came here?”

      “When I was at the E.R. He left me a present.” Stepping to the bed, she motioned toward the facedown mug shot. “That typed note is on the back of a mug shot of Edwin Isaac. It was in my briefcase.”

      “‘We’ll be together soon,’” McCall read. “‘I promise. Gentleman Jim.’” He looked up. “Is that a nickname the Dallas cops gave the shrink?”

      “The media. When Isaac was in disguise trolling for hookers, he acted meek. Mild. Like there wasn’t a threatening bone in his body.”

      “Let me guess. After Isaac got a hooker alone, he turned into Jack the Ripper.”

      “Worse. The Ripper killed his victims within hours of their initial contact. Isaac kept each one alive at least a week.”

      “For sex?”

      “No. To destroy them psychologically while convincing them they were useless sluts and unworthy of living. He brainwashed them. Coerced each victim to perform self-mutilation by slicing her own flesh with a scalpel. Then he used a hot knife to cauterize the wounds to prevent them from bleeding to death.”

      “Christ.” McCall shoved a hand through his hair. “How’d the bastard get so twisted?”

      “His stepmother, mostly,” Paige answered. “She was an actress who played roles in dinner theater productions. The woman was superdomineering. From what we could find out, she had numerous affairs with various actors, stagehands, theater owners. Even after she married Isaac’s father, the affairs didn’t stop.”

      “What happened to his real mother?”

      “She died when he was a baby. The stepmom craved the spotlight. Having a child around took some of the attention away from her, and she resented him. Isaac did enough hanging around the theater to learn about costuming and how to use makeup as a disguise.”

      “So, little Eddie grows up into Edwin the killer who knows how to camouflage himself. To hide in plain sight.”

      “Exactly. It took us nearly a year to get him because each

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