"Necrophiliacs."

"Yeah. I saw a movie once about a girl who worked at a morgue and had sex with the dead bodies. Anyway, that's what he was thinking was going to happen. And I knew I couldn't play dead any longer, so I jumped up and ran. I just ran…"'

Holly could still hear him behind her, panting, ripping through the underbrush. She remembered making so much noise. Too much noise! But she couldn't slow down. No way could she slow down! The sound of her own heart was drumming in her head. She heard the air being sucked into her lungs. Even though branches tore at the flesh of her bare legs, she felt no pain. All she thought about was moving, getting away. She was fast. She was young. She was scared shitless. She could beat him. She could outrun him. She just had to keep going. Keep moving.

She didn't know how far she ran, or for how long. All she knew was that she couldn't stop. There was no way she could stop. Even when she no longer heard sounds of pursuit, she kept going. He could still be back there, moving silently. Because he could move silently. He'd already proved that when he'd surprised her getting into her car. So maybe he was still behind her. Moving silently over the forest floor, silently over skeletal leaves and tiny ferns and dark earth.

Suddenly she saw lights in the distance. The night was foggy, but she was able to pick up the sound of a single car rolling down the highway.

Was it him? Had he gone back for his car, and now here he was, ready to cut her off? She voted against revealing herself, but her body moved of its own accord. Before she could stop it, she stood at the side of the highway with a pair of headlights cutting through the fog, blinding her.

This could be the end, she thought distantly. The end of my life.

She thought about her parents, about all they'd done for her. She wished she hadn't been so nasty to them the last couple of years. What was the point? What had she been trying to prove? It seemed so stupid now.

The car stopped but remained idling. Someone stepped out and began to move toward her. She could make out the shape of a man, his legs scissoring black silhouettes against the light. How would she know if it was him? His face would tell her nothing. Seeing him would do no good. This could be him and she wouldn't even know it. Pretending to be stopping to help. Hadn't she seen that trick in a movie?

Turn around.

Turn around and run back into the woods.

But his voice was young and compelling. He said he was driving a truck.

Let me see it. Step aside so I can see it!

It was a truck. A crappy, rusty, wonderful truck! And he was practically a kid! Nice, horrified, just as frightened as she was.

"Todd," Holly told Agent Cantrell. "He said his name was Todd."

"Yes, I met him in the hallway. I'm going to be talking with him shortly."

"He yelled at me to run, like he was suddenly scared to death." Now that she thought about it, it was funny. Really funny. She laughed, a hand to her stomach. "Here / was the one who'd been kidnapped, almost raped, almost killed-yet he was scared. I think he said, 'Let's get the hell out of here!' in this high-pitched voice. Yeah, that's what it was. Let's get the hell out of here! Oh, my God," she gasped. "That is so funny! Isn't that funny?" she asked, waiting for a reply.

Agent Cantrell stared at her a moment as if weighing her words. "I'm guessing you had to be there."

Chapter 17

Detective Wakefield called a private emergency meeting five hours after Mary's interview with Holly Lind-strom. Present in the first-floor room of the Minneapolis Police Department were Wakefield, Mary, Anthony, and Gillian.

"What's your opinion?" Wakefield asked the two FBI agents. He was popping antacid tablets and clutching a stained coffee mug that said wishin* i was fishin'. "Do you think this wacko who kidnapped the Lindstrom girl is the same guy who's killing women and cutting out their eyeballs?"

"Without more evidence," Anthony said, "we have nothing to tie them together."

"You're profilers. You were called in because we don't have enough evidence. Can't you just come out and say what you think? That's why I wanted only the four of us here. This is completely off the record, but I have to know what you're really thinking, and I have to know it now. Not tomorrow. Not in a week or ten days, or whenever the hell you can get those guys at Quantico to sign off on another profile. Let's quit beating around the bush about this. Let's cut through that FBI red tape and tell me what you think."

Mary looked at Anthony. To anyone else his expression may not have seemed to change, but Mary understood he was agreeing to go against protocol. She turned back to Wakefield. "Off the record," she said, "we think it's the same guy."

Wakefield let out a deep breath. "Thank you. That's all I wanted to know. Now let's proceed. We've got people out combing the woods where the Lindstrom girl was picked up. They found some footprints they're making casts of as we speak. They've also found some strands of hair caught on branches. But so far no torn clothing and no tire tracks."

"Holly said he took photos of her." Mary sat down in an unforgiving plastic chair. Anthony stood nearby, a hip against the window ledge, feet crossed at the ankles. "I doubt he'd want to take his film in to get it developed, which means he's probably processing it himself."

"Sebastian Tate's taking darkroom classes," Gillian offered, contributing for the first time.

Wakefield took a sip of coffee, then grimaced as if he knew it was going to hurt when it hit his stomach. "Tate's still on the suspect list. With the earlier profile we've been able to narrow the names down to roughly twenty. Have detectives out interviewing all twenty right now."

"We can't concentrate exclusively on the list," Mary said. "The killer might not be on it. I think we need to broaden the net."

"I agree," Anthony said.

Wakefield let out a groan. "You know how many people are into photography in the Twin Cities area? How many people have their own darkroom? We'll have Research go through data from places that sell darkroom equipment, but there are probably thousands. Still," he added reluctantly, "at this point, the photography angle seems to be all we got."

"Anthony and I have discussed this, and our opinion is that he'll try to come after Holly," Mary said. "She represents the one who got away. Not only physically but romantically as well."

"That's my feeling too," Wakefield agreed. "He's going to be pissed off. This girl has to be watched. She has to.be protected."

"Have you explained the danger she's in?" Anthony asked.

"I thought I'd give her until this afternoon to equalize, then hit her with the bad news. Unfair as hell, but there it is. She's a target."

"Right now it looks as if our best chance of catching the killer is Holly Lindstrom," Mary said. "But the problem I foresee is high visibility. He's not going to try anything if he knows he's being watched."

"What we need is somebody who isn't so visible," Gillian said with enthusiasm. Until that point she'd been basically ignored. "I want to propose an idea. What if I move in with the Lindstroms?" Anticipating protests, she held up her hands. "Hear me out. What if I move in with them and go to school with Holly? Spend every second with her? That way she'd be better protected," Gillian reasoned. The plan appeared to be taking shape as she spoke. "And by being with her at all times, I would see everybody she sees throughout the entire day. We could say I'm a cousin or something. Somebody who is maybe having trouble at home and could use a change of scene while also keeping Holly company."

"You mean work undercover?" Mary asked skeptically. She suspected Gillian's proposal was based on the desire to put an idea, any idea, on the table. "Pose as a high school student?"