I N   H I S

D R E A M S

(An Eve Hope FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 7)

K a t e   B o l d

Kate Bold

Bestselling author Kate Bold is author of the ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising eight books (and counting); the HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising eleven books (and counting); the KAYLIE BROOKS PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); the EVE HOPE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising seven books (and counting); the DYLAN FIRST FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting);  the LAUREN LAMB FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); the KELSEY HAWK MYSTERY series, comprising five books (and counting); and the NORA PRICE MYSTERY series, comprising five books (and counting).

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Kate loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.kateboldauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2023 by Kate Bold. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Andrey Potapov Art, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY KATE BOLD

NORA PRICE MYSTERY

CAN’T RUN (Book #1)

CAN’T HIDE (Book #2)

CAN’T ESCAPE (Book #3)

CAN’T SLEEP (Book #4)

CAN’T FORGET (Book #5)

KELSEY HAWK MYSTERY

DEAD INSIDE (Book #1)

DEAD RECKONING (Book #2)

DEAD TO ME (Book #3)

DEAD SILENCE (Book #4)

DEAD TO DAWN (Book #5)

ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER

THE KILLING GAME (Book #1)

THE KILLING TIDE (Book #2)

THE KILLING HOUR (Book #3)

THE KILLING POINT (Book #4)

THE KILLING FOG (Book #5)

THE KILLING PLACE (Book #6)

ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER

LET ME GO (Book #1)

LET ME OUT (Book #2)

LET ME LIVE (Book #3)

LET ME BREATHE (Book #4)

LET ME FORGET (Book #5)

LET ME ESCAPE (Book #6)

CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOT ME (Book #1)

NOT NOW (Book #2)

NOT WELL (Book #3)

NOT HER (Book #4)

NOT NORMAL (Book #5)

NOT AGAIN (Book #6)

NOT SAFE (Book #7)

NOT TODAY (Book #8)

HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOWHERE SAFE (Book #1)

NOWHERE LEFT (Book #2)

NOWHERE TO RUN (Book #3)

NOWHERE LIKE THIS (Book #4)

NOWHERE GIRL (Book #5)

NOWHERE TO HIDE (Book #6)

NOWHERE CERTAIN (Book #7)

NOWHERE PURE (Book #8)

NOWHERE SOUND (Book #9)

NOWHERE SANE (Book #10)

NOWHERE TRUE (Book #11)

KAYLIE BROOKS PYSCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE THRILLER

LAST BREATH (Book #1)

LAST CHANCE (Book #2)

LAST WISH (Book #3)

LAST SHOT (Book #4)

LAST MISTAKE (Book #5)

EVE HOPE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

IN HIS BLOOD (Book #1)

IN HIS SIGHTS (Book #2)

IN HIS REACH (Book #3)

IN HIS MIND (Book #4)

IN HIS WAY (Book #5)

IN HIS THOUGHTS (Book #6)

IN HIS DREAMS (Book #7)

DYLAN FIRST FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

OUT OF REACH (Book #1)

OUT OF TOUCH (Book #2)

OUT OF TIME (Book #3)

OUT OF BOUNDS (Book #4)

OUT OF LUCK (Book #5)

LAUREN LAMB FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

SOMETHING KNOCKING (Book #1)

SOMETHING CALLING (Book #2)

SOMETHING WRONG (Book 3)

SOMETHING DARK (Book #4)

SOMETHING TO HIDE (Book #5)

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“Come on, Tommy, it’s just another mile from here!” called Harry Falcone over his shoulder, pumping the pedals of his bicycle in regular rhythm.

“Another mile?” eleven-year-old Tommy Falcone complained, “You said this bike ride would be quick and easy.”

“Sure,” his older brother laughed, “We ride quick now so we can take it easy afterward. Come on! The guys are waiting for us down by the old bridge.”

“We’re not even supposed to be here!” Tommy whined from behind as the boys peddled down the trail, through the trees, over the gulches and streams. “The sign said No Trespassing.”

“They just put those up to scare you,” Harry yelled back, “They never check. I don’t think anybody uses these trails anymore.”

The boys rode on, passing large, silent hydro-pumps and open pipelines that gaped like yawning mouths. The underbrush and foliage were overgrown and wily. 

Hey, watch out for those blackberry bushes,” Harry called out, “The thorns are no joke.”

Almost as the words left Harry’s mouth, Tommy’s tires rolled over a thick braid of thorny vines that lay half-hidden in the underbrush along the narrow bike trail. There was a bang, an angry hiss as the air rushed out of the rubber tube, and Tommy was thrown flailing right over the handlebars. He landed with a leafy crunch in the dense thicket.

There was blood-chilling the sound of snapping bone.

Tommy lay frozen in the thicket, staring up at the baby blue sky dotted with fluffy cotton ball clouds, too stunned and terrified to move. He’d heard the snap, so he knew that he must have broken something, but he couldn’t feel anything.

Anything at all.

His whole body tingled as if his legs had fallen asleep and taken the rest of him along for good measure. There was a high-pitched whine in his ears. From up the trail, Tommy could hear his brother’s tires skidding to a stop. Harry was calling back to him, but to Tommy, the words sounded like nonsense whispered through a pair of cans on a string. His head swam.

“Tommy! Are you okay back there? Shit!”

Tommy saw the shape of his brother loom into his visual sphere, looking down with a pale, concerned expression on his acne-pocked face.

“What happened?” Harry asked, wading through the thicket heedless of the thorns towards his little brother. “Tommy, can you stand up? You’re scaring me.”

“I think…” Tommy said, dazed from the fall and still trying to catch the wind that had been knocked out of his chest, “I might have broken something. I can’t feel it though.”

Harry studied his brother for a moment, looking at the scratch marks that the thorns had made on his arms, legs, and face. Tommy wasn’t crying, but he was breathing. That was good. Tommy was a tough kid. His helmet sat slightly askew on his head, leaves sticking out of it in all directions, but Tommy’s limbs seemed to be in the right places and at the proper angles, and Harry didn’t see any bone jutting out from anywhere. He squatted down, getting his arms underneath his brother’s shoulders.

“Alright, little man, up we go,” Harry grunted, hoisting his younger sibling up by the armpits and throwing Tommy’s little elbow over his own shoulders. The boys hobbled out of the dense blackberry bramble. Tommy appeared to be walking just fine, and the scrapes and scratches seemed shallow and ultimately harmless. Harry sighed, giving his brother an appraising look, then glancing back down the trail. The bridge was waiting, and Jack Reaspoon, de facto leader of the neighborhood gang, had acquired a whole backpack of illegal Chinese fireworks. It was going to be an awesome day of explosions, fire, and danger.

Or it would have been. Harry’s heart sank as he stared at Tommy’s flattened tire.  There was no way he would be able to convince his brother, who was already tired of the bike ride, to continue walking his bike to the bridge. It was going to be a long enough walk home as it was, and Tommy still seemed to be in a state of suspended shock.

“I don’t think you broke anything,” Harry said to Tommy. Tommy shook his head, still staring at the blackberry thicket.

“I heard it, Harry. I know I did.”

“Alright, so you heard something snap. Maybe it was a twig or something. Here, let me feel your arms and legs, alright? You tell me if and where it hurts.”

Tommy consented to let his brother assess his limbs, although he wore a lemon-sour face.  Harry’s hands palpated his little brother’s arms from wrist to shoulder, then checked his knees and shins. Nothing felt wrong or out of place, although the fourteen-year-old boy was certainly no orthopedic authority, and Tommy didn’t wince. Harry sighed again. Nothing was broken, but still, he knew that he would have to take his brother home. His cuts should be cleaned with iodine, and besides, their mother would want to know what happened. Maybe, if he hurried, Harry thought he could just make it back to the bridge before his friends were finished lighting off the firecrackers.

“Okay, let’s get you home,” Harry said, giving his brother an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “You going to be alright, tough guy?”

Tommy nodded quickly, but his eyes were still wide and watery. He seemed to be in something of a daze. Harry turned and walked rapidly back down the trail, picking up his own bike where he’d dropped it when he heard the crash. He and was just turning it around on the narrow trail when a sound split the insect-buzzing silence of the wood.

It was a hair-raising, blood-curdling scream.

It was Tommy.

Dropping his bike once again, Harry ran to his little brother’s aid.

“What?” he cried as he dashed back down the dirt path, “What is it? Are you hurt?”

Harry reached his brother, who was standing as still as a statue in a cigar store, his hand outstretched. His finger pointed tremulously back into the bramble of the blackberry patch. His eyelids were peeled back nearly into his head.

“I found the broken bone,” Tommy said. Harry squinted.

“Your finger?” he asked, looking his brother over again.

“There,” Tommy whimpered, “I must have landed on her.”

“Her?” Harry turned his head and looked into the thorny patch where his brother was pointing. He didn’t see anything at first, so he stepped forward and, picking up a large stick from the side of the path, began pushing the heavy vines out of the way.

There was something in the bush. Harry could feel the end of the stick bumping against it. The smooth, white-barked sticks that poked out of the thicket, Harry thought, could easily be mistaken for bones. That must have been what his brother landed on.

“It’s just some old Birchwood," Harry called back confidently, but just the stick broke free of the tangled vines. With the momentum of the pull, Harry accidentally sent a large chunk of leafy detritus whistling into the woods beyond.

Harry stared down at the spot he’d unexpectedly cleared. This was certainly not Birch branches. There was a face, or there had been, before the scavengers had gnawed her down to the bone. The body was naked bones, pale, and extremely, irrevocably dead.

All she wore was a single butterfly. It too was crushed when Tommy fell off his bike, the delicate black wings mangled abysmally. It was a swallowtail. In the early afternoon sunlight, the metal head of a pin winked, piercing the thorax of the butterfly and the chest of the woman’s skeleton.

Two screams now echoed through the forest as both boys, abandoning their bikes, fled for their mother.

CHAPTER ONE

Eve’s finger was on the trigger. Both eyes were open in a hard, piercing stare. The bead of her Sig-Sauer M18 service pistol was trained on the exact middle point between her father’s eyes.

The obsidian irises of Howard Hope were as impenetrably stoic as they’d ever been. Whether there was bulletproof glass or just a bullet between them, Eve knew that her father wouldn’t flinch. He wasn’t afraid that she’d pull the trigger because he simply didn’t believe that she could.

Eve’s heart managed one beat, then sputtered.

She lowered her weapon, unable to squeeze the trigger, and snapped the safety on. She let out her breath and turned her back on her father, who was still standing in the open doorway of her bedroom.

“Get out,” she said.

“Eve,” Howard’s voice took on the paternal patience he’d used to explain why she couldn’t have cookies before dinner when she was a little girl. “Please look at me.”

“Get out!” she shouted, “I mean it. This is your last chance. If you don’t get the hell out of my life, I will have no choice but to haul you back to prison myself.”

Eve turned her head, but not to look at her father. Instead, she turned the angry glare on her sister, Lily, who was seated on the sofa with her eyes wide and her mouth shut, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her expression was as innocent as a novice in a nunnery, but Eve knew that her sister was far more akin to a fox in a henhouse.

“You brought him here,” Eve said accusingly. Lily blinked once, a single bat of the lashes as if to say was that wrong?

“Of course,” she said, “Where else would we go?”

“I don’t care,” Eve answered, putting down the gun before her temper got the better of her trigger discipline. She turned back to face Lily, her fists balling angrily by her side. “Anywhere in the world, anywhere that isn’t here, in my one-bedroom apartment less than half an hour from FBI Headquarters at Quantico. Seriously, Lily, do you know how much trouble I’d be in if anybody knew that I was aiding and abetting Howard Hope? Do you have any clue what you've just brought to my doorstep?  You’re worth over a billion dollars, Lily. You’re telling me you couldn’t find anywhere else on this massive planet to hide a murderous fugitive?”

“Allegedly murderous,” Lily said, “But you got the fugitive part dead on. Yes, of course I could have hidden him on an uncharted island or bought him a fake identity in Hong Kong, but…” she lowered her voice, glancing in Howard’s direction, “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Letting him loose on the world, I mean. Wouldn’t you rather know where he is?”

Eve stared at her sister in bafflement.

“You’re the one that let him out of prison!” she said, exasperated. “You and your stupid SPHYNX code. Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?”

“Because that’s just not me, Evie,” Lily said, using the nickname that Eve couldn’t stand. “Besides, I really believe that he’s innocent,” Lily replied, “But still, why tempt fate? What if I’m wrong?”

“Exactly,” Eve snapped, “What if you’re wrong? As painful as it was, we have to face the fact that Howard Hope belongs in prison until the end of his miserable life.”

“You could at least refer to me as your father when you’re passing my death sentence,” Howard said, still standing in the other room. Eve stiffened but still refused to turn around and look at her father. She ignored him completely.

“Just because Howard Hope walked out of prison doesn’t mean he’s entitled to life as a free man. His dues to society aren’t paid yet, and they never will be. He attacked two guards while he was making use of your little escape plan. They’re still in critical condition.” Eve shook her head. “I didn’t want to believe that you really had a hand in his prison break, but I can see that the truth is unavoidable. Really, Lily, bringing him here is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

“Eve!” Howard said, aghast, “Don’t speak to your sister that way. She’s the only one with any sense of familial loyalty anymore. You could learn a thing from…”

At last, Eve turned around, although it was only to bang the bedroom door shut in Howard’s face. The panel whacked his hawkish nose and there was a muffled “ow” from within. Eve returned her attention to her sister.

“You got anything to drink in here, or is that like a stupid question?” Lily asked, getting off the sofa and heading towards the narrow kitchen. She looked back with what was meant to be a disarming smile. “You’re not a teetotaler, are you?”

“I’m a fucking Marine,” Eve replied, pushing roughly past her sister and fetching down a bottle of Canadian rotgut from the shelf. She poured two shots, drank them both, then poured two more and handed one to her sister.

They stood in the kitchen, and for a moment neither of them knew what to say. They stared at each other over their shot glasses with heavy, lugubrious eyes. Lily’s eyes were the same shade of shining, smoothly polished black as her father’s – as Eve’s own, for that matter. But there was something living in her sister’s gaze that was viciously absent from Howard’s. If Eve had been religious, she might have called it a soul. In pathological profiling, what was categorically missing from the psychopathic personality was empathy and conscience. Free or incarcerated, the man closed in her bedroom felt no guilt.

Eve looked at the bedroom door out of the corner of her eye. Letting out her breath, she sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Setting her empty shot glass down on the table, she rested her forehead on her fingertips, shutting her eyes.

“Lily,” she said in a heavy whisper without looking up, “How could he be innocent? You must have seen all the evidence in his case files. He was convicted by a jury of his peers, who were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

Eve heard the scrape of the other chair being pulled back from the table. Lily sat down opposite her and let out a sigh.

“I don’t know, Eve,” she said. “That’s why I brought this to you. I know that it’s a big risk, but it’s a risk we have to take. You’re not just my sister. You’re the best investigator in the country. You’ve caught more serial killers than most people have even heard of. If anybody can get to the real truth of what happened with Dad, it’s you.”

“Lily, we have the real truth,” Eve refuted flatly, suddenly sounding very tired. “Howard Hope killed eleven young women and pinned swallowtail butterflies to their bodies. In his twisted mind, he somehow believed that he was protecting our family from forces of evil – at least, that’s the way he told it to me when I visited him in prison. If you’re looking for logic in what he did, if you’re looking to understand or make some kind of sense out of that violence, you can drop it now. There’s Nothing there.”

The sisters looked meaningfully at each other.

“Hell,” Eve muttered, picking up the whiskey bottle and once again topping off her shot glass. She threw back the amber liquor with a gritty wince. “So, what have you got? Don’t tell me you broke him out of prison just so that the case would be re-opened because you want to believe Howard’s innocent.”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Lily said, standing up from the chair and pacing the length of Eve’s narrow kitchen. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have broken him out of Red Onion Supermax if I wasn’t sure the case needed to be re-examined. But if the list turns out to be real, then Dad should never have been in prison in the first place.”

“Wait, slow down,” Eve said, lifting her face from her hand at last and looking over at her sister, “What are you talking about? What list?”

Lily, plainly satisfied that she’d piqued her sister’s curiosity, settled her face into a kind of theatrical gravity. Slowly, she drew something out of her pocket.

It was a flash drive.

“Christ, not more high-tech spyware.” Eve looked suspiciously at the little drive in her sister’s hand. Lily shook her head.

“No, this is just a plain USB memory stick. What’s on it, though, is the reason I used SPHYNX to orchestrate Howard’s walkout.”

“It wasn’t a protest,” Eve said, “Don’t turn him into a martyr just yet. It was a prison break, and there is still an active manhunt. Whatever you have on that USB drive, it can be submitted as an appeal through the proper channels. Until the evidence proves that Howard is innocent, he needs to be behind bars.”

“Don’t you want to know what’s on it?” Lily waved the USB in front of her sister’s face. Eve sucked in her cheeks.

“Of course I do,” she replied at last, “But there’s due process to consider. You shouldn’t have taken things into your own hands like this.”

“Well, that’s where things get a little more complicated,” Lily said. “The information that I have…wasn’t ethically sourced, if you catch my drift.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to spell it out for me,” Eve said woodenly, fixing her sister with a steely, sidelong glare.

“My husband,” Lily started, then corrected herself quickly, “my late husband, Knobby Oughthouse, ran a tech startup on the west coast before he was murdered by Miss X. As you may know, his company Greenway was on the forefront of technological development. His software used tools that were sourced from some pretty niche sections of the dark web. I don’t fully understand the details myself, but it was about a year before he died that he shared this file with me. He was real secretive about where he acquired it, but he said that it had serious implications about my past.”

Eve raised her eyebrow, sufficiently intrigued.

“I didn’t know how much of my past he knew until I saw the files,” Lily went on, her face taking on a haunted pallor as she looked out the third-floor window. Outside, the moon was a thin sliver in the starry autumn sky. “Sometimes I forget how fascinated the world is with Dad’s case. There was that whole documentary series about him, and about us. Of course, they all implied that I was dead, but you can’t expect them to get every detail right. It makes you wonder what else they got wrong.”

“You’re dodging the question,” Eve said, “Tell me what’s on the thumb drive.”

“There’s a community of – well, there’s no good way to put it – murder fanatics. I’m not just talking about the morbid curiosity that drives listeners to obsess over true crime podcasts. These people are obsessive sycophants. Their interest in the gruesome work of others draws them into crimes of their own, usually cybercrimes that involve hacking into protected databases for uncensored records and evidence. They want to know just how it happened. Sometimes they harbor fantasies about committing these crimes themselves and see their worship as a kind of tutelage, and others are simply awestruck at the sight of gratuitously senseless violence. They seek each other out on private forums and share their resources, discuss their favorite cases and killers, and god knows what else. Anyway, there’s a whole sub-forum that’s dedicated to the career of Howard Hope, aka the Swallowtail Killer. There’s an even smaller subcategory of sycophants within that group who believe that Howard was not the first Swallowtail Killer. They’ve built up a lore of pseudo-psychological conspiracy theories that date back more than a century, with hundreds of victims all over the country, not all of which have been verified or identified by the authorities.”

“None of this explains why you sprung Howard out of prison,” Eve growled. The slugs of whiskey had settled evenly in her brain like ballast weights, keeping her reason anchored heavily to the present situation. “Even if the web freaks are on to something, it doesn’t mean that Howard didn’t commit those murders. It just means he might have learned the trade from someone else.”

“I haven’t gotten to the most interesting part,” Lily said, “Within the faction that believes Howard wasn’t the first Swallowtail Killer, there’s a yet smaller sub-faction that believes the Swallowtail Killers throughout history were not acting on their own will. They believe that a secret society of wealthy families controlled the actions of the killers through some kind of social manipulation in order to perform human sacrifice rituals by proxy.”

Eve’s expression didn’t change a bit.

“So all of your evidence is based on the rambling conspiracy theories of some gore fanatics your ex-husband…ahem… ‘found’ online.” Eve drew sarcastic air quotes around the word. “Trust me, Lily, the tinfoil hat theories are usually full of more plot holes than rabbit holes. You’re wasting your time, and now you’re wasting mine and a lot of the FBI’s time, which means the taxpayer’s dollars, to boot. If you’ll excuse me, I have a singular murderer to return to multiple life sentences.”

Eve stood up and walked gruffly out of the kitchen. She snatched the pistol off the shelf where she’d set it down and jammed it back into her holster. She wouldn’t need it against her father now. Her fingers felt the steel bracelets of the handcuffs in her belt. That much, at least, she would use mercilessly.

“You don’t have to believe me right away,” Lily said, getting up quickly to follow her sister, the thumb drive still outstretched in her slender fingers. “Just take a look at the evidence. There are some hospital records that the Hope Cult – that’s what the online group calls themselves – have managed to get unredacted copies of. There are some unanswered questions in those files, Eve. Our dad deserves the whole truth. Maybe he couldn’t talk about it in prison for some reason. We should at least ask him about it now. You already know he didn’t kill me when the whole world thought he did. What if this cult is actually a cult of mercy?”

Eve turned on her sister, stopping short. Lily was a little taller than Eve, but she shrank back in the face of her sister’s menacing expression.

“You’ve been in Marin County too long,” she said coldly, then turned and seized the doorknob of her bedroom.

“I hope you enjoyed your vacation, Howard,” Eve called out as she opened the door, “Because it’s over…”

The last word trailed off as Eve stood in her own bedroom doorway. The room was empty.

CHAPTER TWO

Eve’s blood was frozen solid in her veins. Her eyes flashed over the most familiar room in her apartment rapidly, taking inventory.

Bookshelf, dresser, closet, bed, standing mirror, laundry hamper, personal safe, gun safe.

Everything was in place. Nothing was missing from the room or even out of place.

Nothing except her fugitive father. Howard Hope had taken a powder.

Eve rushed into the room, her heart pounding. The window was closed but not locked. Had it been locked before? Probably so, as she'd just been returning from a case. She wasn't in the habit of leaving her apartment vulnerable to burglars or invasive family members for that matter.

Hurrying to the window, Eve threw it open and peered down. The courtyard three floors below was an unfriendly drop. The planter boxes at the base of the building provided little in the way of a soft landing. The drain line that ran down the siding could have provided an escape, but the bolts holding it in place looked questionable.

Dark clouds had rolled across the night sky while Eve and Lily were in the kitchen, blocking out the dim light of the sliver moon. She couldn’t see anybody moving in the courtyard or parking lot beyond. How long had they been sitting in the kitchen? How much of a head start did he have?

Shit.

Eve pulled her head back in and slammed the window shut. “He’s escaped,” she fumed, turning angrily on her sister, “None of this would have happened if you had just brought this to me first instead of taking it into your own hands and taking things too far like you always do.”

“Hey!” Lily protested, although the look on her face betrayed the guilt that she felt already, “I didn’t mean for him to escape. How did he survive that drop?”

“He must have rolled when he hit the flower beds below,” Eve said, running for the front door. “Come on, we’ve got to find him.”

The sisters ran out of the apartment, throwing the door hastily shut behind them. Eve led the charge down the stairwell, spiraling down all three floors, taking the steps two at a time. She burst out the heavy door at the bottom of the staircase and into the chilly night air. Looking up, she spied the light she’d left on in her bedroom window. Following the line down, she could see a spray of dirt where Howard Hope had landed in the planter bed. A few azaleas had suffered the worst of his fall, but based on the minimal disturbance, Eve thought that he must have used the drain pipe to slow his momentum.

There were no footprints left on the concrete around the planter boxes. The escape, while swift, had not been rushed. He’d taken the time to knock the dirt from his shoes before taking off. The cold, psychopathic reasoning sent a familiar chill down Eve’s spine. He was guilty, and internet conspiracies be damned.

As if sensing her mood, the cloudy sky overhead broke into a peal of thunder, and a heavy rain began to pelt the earth. Eve looked at her sister with a dazed expression as the beads of water plastered her hair to her face.

“He’s gone,” she said.

Lily stared back, her face pale and frightened.

“What do we do?” she asked, her hands hanging by her sides as she stood in the rain just outside the door. “Eve, I’m so sorry. I brought him here because I thought it was the last place anybody would look for him. I didn’t think he would run away from both of his daughters.”

“You’ve got to get it through your head that Howard Hope only cares about one thing: the immediate future of Howard Hope,” Eve said. “He doesn’t care about us unless he wants to use us for something. I should have known better than to let my guard down. I shouldn’t have even let him out of my sight.”

Eve stormed back into the stairwell, muttering to herself, “I should have hauled him right to Quantico as soon as I laid eyes on him. They’d have pinned a goddamn medal on me for it.”

“Well, at least there’s already a manhunt underway,” Lily called out half-heartedly, following her sister up the stairs. Eve did not reply.

When they reached Eve’s apartment again, the phone was ringing. Eve rushed to the kitchen, where it was plugged into the charger, and picked up the device just in time to see the Caller ID before the phone call dropped and the little “missed call” icon popped up in her notifications.

She recognized Deputy Director Pliny’s extension from the Quantico FBI Headquarters. Her blood ran cold for the second time that night. With wide eyes, Eve looked up at her sister, who was standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Lily,” Eve’s words came out in a hoarse whisper. “They know.”

***

Eve was already behind the wheel of her standard-issue SUV when she redialed the Deputy Director of the Serial Homicide Division of the FBI. Lily had vanished into the night as silently as she’d appeared, but only after promising that she would stay put and keep her phone nearby.

As per his custom, the Deputy Director answered his phone after only one ring.

“Pliny,” he grunted unceremoniously into the phone.

“Sir, this Special Agent Eve Hope returning your call,” Eve said, trying to keep the nerve-snapping tension out of her voice.

“I’m glad to hear from you, Hope. When you didn’t pick up your phone, I was concerned. Is everything alright? It’s not like you to let your professional line go to voicemail.”

While the concern in Deputy Director Pliny’s voice sounded genuine enough, Eve picked up a subtle note of derisive reprimand in the old man’s voice.

"Everything's fine, sir," Eve replied stiffly, "I had stepped outside for a moment." She grimaced as the memory of her vacant bedroom, her father's escape, and her sister's role in the whole mess flashed through her mind. "I was caught in the rain, but other than that, everything's alright. What's the matter?"

“Well, I know that you’re entitled to a few days R&R since you’re just coming off a case, but something has come across my desk that I think you’re going to want to see. Anyway, I never took you for much of the vacationing type.”

“You’ve got that right, sir,” Eve replied, “Tell me about the case. It must be urgent if you’re calling me at this hour.”

In the back of her mind, Eve wondered how much the Deputy Director knew. The deep paranoia that coiled like a snake through her waking consciousness whispered that it was a trap. He knew that Lily broke Howard out of Red Onion Supermax. He knew that she'd brought him to Eve's own doorstep. Now, he was going to try to subtly interrogate her for information about his next movements. She didn't know, but of course, the deputy director wouldn’t believe her. She could be under suspicion herself, even under investigation already. Maybe they were watching her apartment. Maybe they'd already seen everything. Her heart pounded in her throat, and Eve thought her eyelids were going to roll back into her head.

“Agent Hope? Are you still with me?” Pliny’s voice came across the airwaves, zinging Eve back into the present moment. She seized on the steering wheel, shaking herself to clear her head.

“Yes, I’m here sir. I’m sorry, could you repeat that last?”

“I said that you may want to look at this case before it gets officially assigned. I’m not sure it falls under the scope of your jurisdiction, but I thought you’d want to see it first.”

“Why is that, sir?”

“Well, I think you’d better take a look at it for yourself, but we found another body marked with a butterfly.”

Eve's teeth clicked shut. This was not what she expected. Somehow, she’d taken it as a given that Deputy Director Pliny’s call would be related to the active manhunt dedicated to finding her father. Giving her preferential treatment on a new case was a shot out of left field.

“Did you say you found another butterfly?”

“That’s right, Hope,” Pliny said, “We need your expertise.”

“I’m on my way, sir,” Eve said.

“I thought you would be,” Pliny replied in a grave baritone and hung up.

CHAPTER THREE

It was past midnight when Eve Hope entered the foyer of the FBI Headquarters building at Quantico. The automatic doors hissed shut behind her. The warm light spilling from the high ceiling of the lobby ahead made her blink.

The FBI Headquarters was never empty, even at this hour. Still, there was a noticeable hush permeating the skeleton crew that worked through the night. Coming in to work after hours always felt somewhat like visiting a cemetery the night of a full moon. Every nerve in Eve’s body was on edge as she walked the familiar path past the research and intel departments, up the stairs, and down the hall to the corner office of Deputy Director Pliny.

Run! You’re guilty of harboring a fugitive. You’re an accessory to serial homicide. And you’re walking right into the center of the FBI. Get out of there! Run!

The urge welled up from deep within the bones of her subconscious, an old fight-or-flight response that bore no relevance to the real circumstances of her position. Still, the adrenaline pumped through her veins as if she were preparing to run for her life.

She fought the instinct down by carefully measuring the length of her steps, keeping her stride at a perfectly even march. She matched her breathing to the rhythm of her stride, focusing her mind on the precision of her movements and releasing all else from her awareness. She moved like a clockwork soldier to the door of Pliny’s office, raised her fist, and knocked three times.

“Come in,” said the Deputy Director’s gravelly voice from within. Eve opened the door and stepped into the large, although sparsely utilitarian, office. Deputy Director Pliny was seated behind his massive desk with a case file spread out in front of him. The desk lamp burned brightly, but the rest of the office was dim. From somewhere in the room, an analog clock ticked softly.

The Deputy Director, in contrast with the urgency of his phone call, did not look up right away when Eve entered the room. He was busy writing, his hand moving across a form sheet, as the door of the office clicked quietly shut. The nib of the pen made a gentle scratching sound on the paper.

“Your father has not yet been apprehended,” Pliny said at last, looking up finally from the paperwork on his desk. The clear, clever gunmetal grey eyes of the old man peered into Eve’s dark irises. She walked slowly up to the desk and stood near one of the chairs, not waiting to be seated but folding her hands behind her back in a casual parade rest. Her eyes glanced across the pages on Pliny’s desk.   She saw photographs of a body in an advanced state of decomposition and close-ups of a mangled butterfly pinned to the ribcage. Her eyes snapped back to Pliny’s face as he cleared his throat.

“When I learned that Howard Hope escaped from Red Onion Supermax,” Pliny went on, “I thought there were two basic options, based on what we know of his pathology. He would either roost or hunt, to use animalistic terms – and we are animals, after all, Agent Hope. In other words, I believed that he would either hurry to barricade himself behind whatever shreds of family he has left, or…”

Deputy Director Pliny trailed Eve and remained quiet, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“Finish your thought, sir,” Eve requested, her face fixed on that of the Deputy Director. Pliny had a distinguished, paternal face that never wavered, either in fear or pity. He wasn’t pulling his punches now out of consideration for his agent’s feelings – he was doing it because he himself was unsure what it all meant.

“My other prediction was that he would go out on another killing spree, either to celebrate his freedom or to taunt law enforcement. Sure enough, only a week after the prison break, another body turns up with a butterfly pinned to her chest.”

A moment of heavy silence hung in the office. Eve didn’t shift from her position of parade rest, but she could feel her heart pounding harder in her temples.

“If I follow your insinuation, sir,” Eve said cautiously, “you want to find out if Howard Hope has killed another person since his escape from prison.”

“Precisely,” Pliny said, nodding his bald head with grim affirmation.

Another moment of brutal silence dragged by. Eve felt her palms growing clammy as the image of her father standing in the doorway of her own bedroom flashed through her mind’s eye. Manhunt aside, how was she supposed to get a decent night of sleep knowing that her father might have killed another innocent young woman shortly before he disappeared from – or, worse yet, into – her bedroom?

“Forgive my confusion, sir, but I thought you didn’t want me anywhere near the Howard Hope case because of my familial connection,” Eve said, eyeing the Deputy Director with a scrutinizing squint. “Why did you call me in for this?”

“Because,” Pliny said, lowering his voice despite their being the only ones in the room, “I’m not sure that Howard Hope did it. You’re the best we have when it comes to this kind of investigation, and nobody knows the Swallowtail Killer’s M.O. as intimately as you do. Special Agent Tanque is still in charge of the manhunt seeking Howard Hope. If it turns out that he’s responsible for this murder, we have a whole coalition ready to claim the evidence and keep it clean for the courtroom. If not, then I want to put my best agent to work finding out what happened to this woman.”

“So, you think my father is innocent, sir?” Eve asked, cocking her head at the Deputy Director. Pliny gave his head a subtle shake.

"I didn't say that. Howard Hope was serving multiple life sentences for murders, of which he was convicted and found guilty. I’m afraid that he’s still guilty of those crimes in the eyes of the Federal Government. But that doesn’t mean he committed this crime.” Pliny tapped his fingers on the pages spread across the desk before him. “I trust you to be forthcoming with all evidence in this case, Agent Hope, even if it points to your father’s guilt. If it does, I hope you know I will have no choice but to reassign the investigation to one of your fellow agents.”

“I understand,” Eve replied.

“Then please have a seat,” Pliny said, motioning the agent at last to one of the chairs.

“Tell me about the case,” Eve said, sitting down and scooting the chair a little closer to the desk. “How many victims are we looking at?”

“Just one,” Pliny replied, turning a snapshot on his desk so that it was facing Eve. The photograph showed a decaying skull, more bone than flesh, amidst the thorny bramble of a blackberry thicket. “As of now, we don’t have a name or a time of death, although the coroner is working on it as we speak. The face is far too decomposed for facial recognition software to be an option. The shape of the pelvic bone and skull structure suggest the victim is female, and the size and maturity of the skeleton suggest a young adult. Beyond that, we’re in the dark. ”

“What about DNA evidence?” Eve asked, raising her eyebrows at the deputy director. “There’s nothing on record in the FBI’s database?”

Pliny shook his head. “No,” he said, “According to initial reports, the body was exposed to some pretty high-grade acid after death. The DNA has been corroded on a molecular level. Getting any kind of a positive DNA match from these remains would be a stretch, and even if they did manage to get a match, it would be picked apart like cotton candy in court by any criminal defense lawyer worth their retainer.”

Eve stared at the files on the table, trying to make sense of this new information. That was strictly out of keeping with the Swallowtail Killer’s M.O. The bodies of Howard Hope's victims were found displayed near the scene of the kill. They were all found within a few days of being deceased. This was another clue pointing to Howard’s innocence, but Eve didn’t dare breathe a word of her hope in the deputy director’s presence. The fact that he was letting her work this case at all, despite her unavoidable bias, was miraculous enough.

“What isn’t decayed is the butterfly that we found pinned to the chest,” Pliny went on, “That bit of organic matter was preserved with some kind of entomologist’s shellack.”

“Perfectly preserved Swallowtail specimens were part of the Swallowtail Killer’s M.O.,” Eve said, “In my father’s trial, they were never able to pinpoint exactly where he acquired the butterflies. In the case of Preston Piper, the copycat who surfaced a few years ago, he was ordering the butterflies from a manufacturer of educational materials in Brantwood, Utah.”

Deputy Director Pliny gave a thin smile.

“This is exactly why you’re the right agent for this case,” he said, “You have all that information right at hand in your mental bank. Identifying the origins of the butterfly specimen may be critical to finding the responsible killer.”

“What makes you think that this is not the work of the real Swallowtail Killer?” Eve asked. Pliny sighed, raking his fingers over his smooth scalp as his eyes returned to the pages in front of him.

“Well, the timeline is the first clue,” he said.

“I thought you said we didn’t know the time of death,” Eve said, looking up at the deputy director.

“Not exactly, but the state of decomposition suggests that the body of our Jane Doe has been expired for at least a few months. The coroner will have a more exact estimate, but I think it’s safe to reckon that this lady has been dead longer than the few days that Howard Hope has been out of prison.”

Eve felt a weight lifted from her shoulders. If she were in any other environment, she might have actually gone weak with relief. If the victim was murdered while her father was still in prison, then there was no way he was guilty of another murder. He would have the strongest alibi in the world – Red Onion Supermax itself. Before the Deputy Director, however, she kept her posture rigid and her expression professional.

“Do you think she was recently dumped in the briar patch, or has she been decomposing there for a while?" Eve asked, her mind tackling the problem afresh now that the suspicion of her own father’s recent atrocities was somewhat abated.

“Hard to say,” Pliny replied, “There’s a forensic team at work on the site now. They’ll have more details by the time you land in Missouri.”

“Missouri?” Eve blinked.

“That’s where the body was found,” Pliny said, scooping the papers together and returning them to the manilla folder, “Jones Valley, Missouri. It’s a quaint little town outside Columbia, maybe about ten or fifteen thousand residents. Why? Does that location have any significance to your family?”

“No,” Eve answered quickly, shaking her head, “None at all.”

Pliny eyed her quietly, then gave her a nod.

“Alright, then. The FBI has a private jet that will take you into Kansas City. You’ll have to take a car from there, but it shouldn’t be more than an hour’s drive. Your partner will be waiting for you on the tarmac?”

“My partner?” Eve asked, “Are you assigning me another new partner? To be honest, sir, I’d rather work the case solo.”

“I’m sure you would, Agent Hope,” Pliny said with a wry twinkling smile that lived only in the corners of his eyes. “Still, we’ve got to send somebody along to make sure that you keep your ducks in a row and play by the books. Don’t worry too much, though. I’m partnering you with somebody you’ve worked with before. I can’t have you wasting precious time breaking in a green agent, after all.”

“One of my old partners?” Eve asked, somewhat apprehensively, “Who?”

CHAPTER FOUR

“Eve!”

Special Agent Lucas Hobbes was already onboard the FBI’s private chartered jet when Eve came up the rollaway stairs and through the door. Hobbes was a tall, lean young man who was only just saved from gangly-ness by the hours he spent in the FBI gymnasium facilities. He had a mop of sandy brown hair that he wore combed neatly back on his head. His suit was the standard, cheap black and white duds that all male FBI agents wore, but on his thin frame the clothes draped like folded shadows. He stood up from the leather cushioned seat with a boyish grin on his young, angular face.

“Hobbes,” Eve said, smiling at her former partner as he approached with his hand out for a shake. She pushed his hand out of the way and brought him in for a brief hug. “It’s good to see you. Has Pliny briefed you on the case?”

“I got the synopsis over the phone while I was on my way,” the young agent said. He cleared his throat awkwardly as Eve released him from her embrace. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect Pliny to assign this case to you.” He flushed beet-red as he heard the words that came from his own mouth, but Eve gave him an ingratiating smile.

“I didn’t expect it either. I thought they wanted to keep me as far away from my father’s case as possible. But Pliny briefed me on it in person, and he doesn’t think that this body is the work of Howard Hope, so I’m in the clear.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Hobbes replied, “because, to be entirely frank with you, I feel a little out of my depth with this case. Whenever I’ve worked similar cases in the past, I’ve always had…well, you.”

Eve allowed herself a private smile as the young agent returned to his seat. She set down the case files, which Pliny had signed over to her care, on the small table between the deep leather seats and opened the folder.

“We’re dealing with a Jane Doe,” Eve said, “Which immediately creates a distinction between this case and other homicides attributed to the Swallowtail Killer. In those cases, the faces of the victims were not mutilated, and the bodies were discovered quickly enough for decomposition not to play a role in identification. This body is different.”

“Is that because this body has been undiscovered long enough for the victim’s face to decay?” Hobbes asked.

“It could be, or it could be that decay was sped up by the intensity of the acid used to corrupt the victim’s features and DNA. We can’t be sure until we meet with the coroner performing the autopsy on the Jane Doe corpse,” Eve said. “Identifying the timeline of the death and decomposition will be critical to constructing a profile of our killer.”

“So, what do we have to work with?” Hobbes asked. Eve sighed.

“Not much,” she admitted, “The body was found by a pair of boys in Jones Valley, Missouri. Initial estimations suggest that the body has had at least several months to decompose.”

Hobbes was quietly thoughtful in the seat opposite, working over the timeline in his head.

“Howard Hope has only been out of prison for roughly a week,” he said, his eyebrows knitting together. Eve gave him a knowing nod.

“That’s exactly why Pliny assigned me to this case. He’s of the opinion that we’re looking for another copycat,” Eve said. Hobbes's eyebrows knit together.

“Another?” The young agent sounded confused.

“Not long before you and I were made partners, I tracked down and arrested another murderer who was emulating the Swallowtail Killer – Preston Piper.”

“Oh yeah,” Hobbes nodded, “I remember reading about that in the news, and then again in your casefile. I forgot that he was a copycat, though.”

“He was obsessed with my father,” Eve went on, “and with all of Howard Hope’s children, including me. He’d developed a sick fantasy that he could somehow assume the mantel of the Swallowtail Killer by murdering in the same way, and I was supposed to be the crowning jewel in his list of victims. I guess Piper thought that killing one of his daughters was a critical part of the Swallowtail Killer’s motif. He didn’t know, of course, that my sister had faked her death and run off to California. I don’t know how that fact would have manifested in his delusion, but some part of me is glad that he wasn’t targeting Lily as well.”

“So what bearing does that have on our case, if you’ll pardon my asking? Is it your theory that the copycat will be another murderer aspiring towards the perceived notoriety of the Swallowtail Killer’s title?”

“It’s too early to say,” Eve replied ponderously, her eyes returning to the victim’s dossier and photographs. “Despite Preston Piper’s fascination with the Swallowtail Killer, his own murders were small and petty, hardly venturing out of his own neighborhood. While it’s true that Howard Hope’s victims were all close to home, he was guided by a twisted dichotomy of who was threatening his family. Piper’s motivations were ultimately ego-maniacal, as he was desperate to be seen and feared as the Swallowtail Killer, whereas I believe the real Swallowtail Killer was motived by reasons too deluded by his psychosis for his image after the fact to even enter consideration. Piper was worried about being caught at the right time. The real killer was thinking only about how to get away with what he’d done.”

“Then what about the butterflies?” Hobbes interjected, “If Howard Hope wasn’t worried about his image as a killer, why did he decorate the bodies of his victims with preserved Swallowtail specimens? It’s a pretty specific calling card for somebody who is ‘just trying to get away with what he’s done,’ as you say.”

“That’s a valid point,” Eve said with a sigh, turning her face out the little porthole window of the jet. “And I’m afraid that it’s something I still don’t understand either. I was never able to get my father to open up very much when I interviewed him in prison. I still don’t know what the butterflies mean or how they came to be his calling card.” The agent tapped her finger against her lips, murmuring thoughtfully, “Finding that out could be critical to determining whether our Jane Doe was killed by a copycat. If only I could go back and interview him again.”

“At Red Onion, you mean?” Hobbes asked, raising an eyebrow at his partner. Eve caught herself just in time.

“Of course,” she said, “Once he’s been caught and put back in isolation. They’ll probably move him to a higher security prison somewhere offshore when they catch him.”

“Do you really think they will?” Hobbes asked. Eve looked over at her partner with a look of genuine surprise at her partner’s lack of conviction.

“You ought to know better than me,” Eve replied, “You were on that task force before Pliny assigned you to work this case with me. I know you’re not allowed to discuss the details with me because of my familial connection, but you ought to have a better understanding of the progress of the manhunt.”

“Ah, hell, they don’t know anything. Agent Tanque is a trained bulldog, totally unequipped for something as pointed as this. He’d be better suited leading a platoon of infantry into combat, if you ask me. They’ve spent most of the critical hours in the manhunt chasing down false leads from the tip hotline and nationwide facial recognition software network. You wouldn’t believe how many false positives the Cross-Reference Identification System can generate on a daily basis. Some of them are pretty humorous, to be honest. There was one baby that the LACRIS system flagged because the infant’s facial structure matched in sixteen unique points…”

“I’m not really in the mood to laugh, Hobbes,” Eve said, shaking her head and trying to clear the image of her father with the face of an overgrown infant out of her mind.

“Sorry,” Hobbes said glumly, sitting back in the leather flight seat. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’m not trying to make light of it. My point is that Agent Tanque has been beating his head against the wall trying to locate Howard Hope. I’m sure that if Pliny had assigned this case to Tanque’s investigation, he’d jump straight to the conclusion that this was Howard Hope’s work if only to solidify a lead for his manhunt. That’s probably why he wanted to assign the case to you instead. He knew he’d get results with a lesser bias.”

“Ironic,” Eve replied with a grim chuckle, “Somehow, the daughter of the man they’re looking for is less biased than the unrelated head of the task force.”

“It’s a funny old world. But anyway, Pliny doesn’t think we’re looking for Howard Hope on this case, and neither do I. If I were a gambling man, I'd bet you don't either."

Eve looked out the window once again, reaching into the pocket of her dark slacks. Her fingers found the smooth, plastic casing of the USB flash drive that Lily had left in her care.

“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to believe,” she said, her mind drifting off out the window, tossing around the faintest hope beyond hope that her own father might be innocent, that somehow the last seventeen years of horror were nothing more than a colossal misunderstanding.

After all these years, could she even consider the possibility that her father was innocent? It seemed like a dreamworld, separated from reality, a falsehood that would be beautiful but ultimately treacherous to fall into entirely.

But if Pliny believed that this case was the work of a different Swallowtail Killer, then maybe the conspiracy theories on the flash drive held more weight than she’d first ascribed. The tides of hope and skepticism tossed angrily in her mind as the jet descended over the state of Missouri in the dead of night. The truth was out there somewhere, shrouded in mystery and darkness. As always, Eve knew that it was up to her to bring the light.

CHAPTER FIVE

During the two-and-a-half-hour flight between Quantico and Jones Valley, Louisianna, Eve slipped the USB drive she’d gotten from her sister Lily into her laptop. She did so at a moment when Hobbes was deeply engrossed in his own research of the strange case, and so he didn’t notice. Eve wanted to get a sense of what was on the drive before sharing it with her partner. Bringing him into her confidence would inevitably lead to troublesome questions about where she’d acquired the USB and whether Lily had come by it legally. Those were questions that Eve did not want to answer, in part because she didn’t fully understand herself.

The USB drive itself was small and inconspicuous enough that Eve felt confident it wouldn’t attract her partner’s attention. Still, she positioned her laptop with the USB port facing away and tilted her screen to avoid any passing glances her partner might take.

The files on the USB drive were extensive. Eve clicked through them carefully, maintaining a perfectly stoic poker face. She was determined to understand the tip that her sister was trying to give her, and why it was enough to make Lily break their murderous father out of prison.

The files that Eve clicked through first showed her nothing new. There was a record of Howard Hope’s crimes – eleven women, each killed roughly one year apart. The bodies had been discovered in the routes of their daily lives, displayed as if they were meant to be found.

It was the theory of some, according to the forums on Eve’s screen, that the purpose of these crimes was for the bodies to be found. The Black Swallowtail was a symbol of death, insanity, melancholia, and terror – the human condition. The point of the murders, they argued, was actually to keep alive the communal fear that makes us human.

Nonsense, Eve thought, clicking away from the forum and opening up the next file. As if humans needed reminding that we have plenty to fear.

The next set of files were unfamiliar – so much so as to cause Eve to wonder if they’d been included by mistake. There were three murder cases from 1971, ‘72, and ‘73 respectively. All three were women, two college girls and one high school senior. These women were found in different states, but all three were found with a butterfly branded on their skin.

The symbol was consistent, even if the method of calling card differed. Was it possible that Howard Hope was copying a previous killer?

The commentary, annotated around the case files by various dark web sources and self-proclaimed authorities, claimed that Howard Hope was a descendant of a long line of killers that served the wealthiest families in the countries.

There was a list of the families supposedly involved in this cult. Eve scrolled through the list with an air of high skepticism at the front of her mind. There were all the usual billionaires and millionaires, stars and celebrities that Buzzfeed and Us Weekly proudly proclaimed were “confirmed members of the illuminati and other secret societies,” details to be found on page 41 between full-page advertisements for Clinique and Rolex. The conspiracy theorist laid out, in plain logic, how each of those articles were actually highly coded communications between unseen masters and their public servants, used to manipulate and control the economic currents of currency and the social currents of fear.

Ah, right, Eve thought sarcastically, Obviously. I’ll just inform the Deputy Director that the murders my father committed were actually the secrets commands of a wealthy shadow society, therefore my father’s escape from prison was warranted. They might throw me in the looney-bin, if they don’t hang me for treason.

Eve was about to close the files in frustration, writing off the whole evidence chain as unsubstantiated rabbit-holing, when her eyes landed on a name she knew.

Oughthouse.

Eve clicked the hyperlink. Oughthouse was the name of the west coast tech tycoon that her sister Lily had married. It was her husband, Nereus “Knobby” Oughthouse, that handed over the USB to Lily, acquired from shady and expensive sources. Lily said her husband had made a big deal of giving her the USB drive, telling her that it held information relating to her past. According to the conspiracies presented on that same USB, his family was responsible for brainwashing his father-in-law into becoming one of the most notorious serial killers of the 21st century so far.

Some anniversary present, Eve thought. Then again, why would Knobby give Lily the intel if he didn’t think it held some validity? His own ritual practices, his employ of the murderous Miss X (AKA Miss Nothing) had smacked of occultism, ceremonial rituals, and dark psychological fear games. Miss X had ultimately turned on Knobby, killing him for access to the highly sought-after SPHYNX de-encryption code, which Lily had used to free Howard.

Eve’s head was spinning. She’d seen things with her own eyes that she would have otherwise never believed. The rich and powerful were often people of curious tastes and habits. How different were Knobby’s occult rituals from those outlined in the conspiracy theory files? And how was her father connected with them?

According to a certain group of conspiracy theorists, who claimed to have inside sources from an anonymous survivor of the death cult, the Cult of Swallowtail seduced young men into a kind of apprenticeship, taking them into secret lodgings, where they were drugged, physically and sexually abused, and mentally broken until they were in a receptive state. After that, the men went on to commit heinous crimes, marking their work with signs of the swallowtail.

“The writing is on the wall,” one online theorist, who went under the handle @Loil2theFoil, “They couldn’t make it more obvious if they tried. The fact that these murders are not being investigated as a collective case of serial homicide is only more proof that evidence is being repressed.”

“With pockets that deep,” commented another, this one @ButterflyCatcher001, “Who knows how far up the corruption goes.”

Eve glanced at her partner. Hobbes was shaking his head, muttering to himself as he read through the initial reports.

“DNA: corrupted. Dental records: inconclusive. Facial reconstruction: tentative at best. Hell, somebody did a good job of leaving no signs as to who this person was. Except for the female structure of the ribs and pelvis, we’ve got nothing.”

There was something about the way Hobbes said the word “nothing”, although he was talking to himself, that triggered the memory of the case in California, when Miss X wrought havoc on her mind and very nearly killed them both. She shuddered. It was too common a word for it to cause such a dramatic reaction every time she heard it, Eve knew, but there was no escaping the cold fear. She shook it off.

This is a case like any other, she told herself. Forget about your father, and forget about Miss X. Just focus on finding the truth about who this woman is and what happened to her. Everything else will fall into place.

As the jet began its descent over southern Missouri, Eve covertly removed the USB from her laptop, once again stashing it away deep in an interior pocket. She had the stark feeling that everything was falling into place around her. Ready or not, she would have no choice but to face the truth when she found it.

CHAPTER SIX

Eve and Hobbes were alone in the autopsy room.

They’d been ushered into the Jones Valley County Coroner’s Office morgue by an assistant from the front desk. The nervous looking assistant had deposited the agents in the morgue as if the very door of the room made him uncomfortable.

“The coroner will be with you in just a moment,” the assistant said, looking all around morgue, everywhere except the corner of the room where he knew the body was laid out. “He went outside to smoke. He’s scrubbing back in now.” The assistant hesitated, as if unsure whether he ought to say more. He gulped air like a beached fish for a second, then whispered hurriedly, “You should know that the coroner has gotten…somewhat paranoid in his later years, and especially in the last few months. Ever since this body has come in, I’ve just been trying to steer clear of him. Don’t tell him I said anything to you. He’s got an enemy list that Richard Nixon would envy.”

Without waiting either for further questions or to be dismissed, the assistant scurried back out of the morgue and disappeared down the hall. The agents looked at each other, then slowly turned their eyes on the cadaver.

Eve’s mouth was turned down in a bitter scowl as she surveyed the body of the Jane Doe laid out on the coroner’s cold steel slab. The body was little more than a skeleton, the bones corroded and porous. What little flesh and hair still clung to sorry frame was grey and sickly looking. Even the shape of the eye sockets had been corroded into unnatural contours by the acid bath. Digital restructuring would be off the table, as Pliny had warned. She let out a quiet sigh and looked over at her partner. 

Hobbes was standing quietly by Eve’s side, gazing somberly down at the dead woman. He’d hardened to the macabre side of the job since their first investigation together, Eve noticed. His lips were sealed in a tight, hard line, but he didn’t look nauseated.

The coroner entered a moment later through a small metal door near the back of the morgue. He was a short, spunky-looking old man in the traditional white coat, scrubs, and surgical booties. His wiry white hair stood out from his temples as if he pulled it often, as if he’d been pulling it just before he came inside.

He gave the agents a serious nod before turning to a sink by the door and giving his hands a final wash. Then he snapped on a powder blue pair of rubber gloves and walked briskly across the room to where the agents stood by the body.

“I take it that you’re the Federal Agents in charge of this investigation?” the coroner asked in a humorless tone. He spoke with a heavy Missouri accent and pointedly did not offer his hand to shake. Coroners, in Eve’s experience, rarely did.

“That’s correct. Special Agent Eve Hope, Federal Bureau of Investigation Serial Homicide Division,” Eve said, getting out her badge and handing it to the coroner. She caught the scent of Virginia tobacco on his breath and clothes. He peered at her credentials through a thick pair of drugstore reading glasses with cheap purple frames. He peered at her name and ID photo, then up into her face. 

“Eve Hope, huh?” he asked, eyeing her suspiciously over the purple plastic rims of the cheaters. “That’s a name I’ve heard before. And you’re supposed to be from the Serial Homicide Division? While I happen to be working the first murder case this county has seen in eight months, and the only one that ever involved a butterfly being pinned on the victim?” He shook his head. “Somebody’s trying to pull something over on old LaFeux.”

Dr. Allen LaFeux. was the coroner’s name, although Eve had to learn this from the badge clipped to his lapel, as the curmudgeonly old man had not taken it upon himself to return their introductions.

“Nobody’s trying to pull anything over on you, Dr. LaFeux,” Eve said evenly. “You probably recognize my name from my father’s criminal trial seventeen years ago. Howard Hope was my father, although we’ve been somewhat alienated of late. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to proceed with our active murder investigation.”

“So they let you investigate serial killers because they’re just like your daddy, huh?” Dr. LaFeux asked, ignoring Eve’s request to move on to new business. She felt her fists balling with frustration, but took a deep breath and centered herself. It wouldn’t do her, the case, or least of all their anonymous victim any good to lose her cool with the county coroner.

“That’s right,” she replied, “You might say I have something of a Karmic score to settle with that particular brand of chaos. Now, the Jane Doe, Dr. LaFeux, if you please…”

“So, you really are that Eve Hope?” the coroner asked, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

“She is,” Hobbes said, stepping into the conversation for the first time and giving the old coroner a withering stare, “and she’s the best damned field agent the FBI employs, so you’ll show her a little respect. She’s not a specimen for you to study, Dr. LaFeux.”

“Of course, of course,” the corner said, sidling roughly past the agents towards the body and casting a sidelong squint at Hobbes. “And your credential are just as bone fide as your partner, I’m sure.”

“Special Agent Lucas Hobbes, Serial Homicide Division,” the young agent said, throwing out his chest and trying to put a note of baritone command in his voice.

“Hobbes and Hope,” the coroner muttered the agents’ names to himself as he approached the body. “I’ll be checking both of your backgrounds myself. Thoroughly.”

“Suit yourself,” Eve sighed, “I’d be happy to call up my superior officer, Deputy Director Pliny of the FBI. You should have been briefed already, but you can verify with him. We have nothing to hide, but we have plenty to lose. Every minute we waste puts more distance between us and the killer, so could you verify our credentials after you’ve briefed us on the autopsy.”

Old Dr. LaFeux gave the agents a cold, cunning squint, then shook his head.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer. You see, the autopsy report isn’t complete. I’m still waiting for the results of the toxicology screening and a few other critical measurements, and it’s still got to be typed up and made official. Why don’t you agents go back out to the waiting room while I check on the lab. The desk clerk should have a fresh pot of coffee brewing. I’ll come for you as soon as the report is ready,” said the coroner, adding under his breath, “And when I find out who you really are.”

He said these last words as if he’d intended for the agents not to hear him, however the old man was a little hard of hearing, and his whisper was clearly audible to both Eve and Hobbes. Without waiting for the agents to respond, he turned and started walking towards the door of the morgue.

Hobbes stepped quickly into Dr. LaFeux’s path, blocking the exit.

“Hold on just a second, there,” Hobbes said, “You’re a sworn peace-officer of this county, are you not? You swore an oath to protect and serve its citizens. The woman on your table might be a citizen of Jones Valley, or she might not, but she’s a citizen of somewhere. She deserves our best effort, don’t you think?”

“Get out of my way, spook,” Dr. LaFeux growled. Hobbes squared his feet, folding his arms stolidly across this chest.

In a flash that surprised both agents, the coroner seized Hobbes by the collar of his shirt and spun him around. He moved faster than either of the agents had thought him able.

More surprising still was the thin barreled Ruger that came out of his lab coat pocket.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The gun was jammed into the young agent’s gut. Hobbes, far newer to combat situations than Eve, froze up at once. His arms were still folded across his chest as the old man held him by the collar, backing up towards the automatically sliding door.

“Move and I shoot," the old coroner hissed, "Scream and I shoot. Reach for your weapon, and I shoot. You think I wouldn’t? I was in Vietnam, kid. I killed schoolgirls that were tougher cookies than you and I didn’t even fucking blink. Blink and you’re dead, get the photo?”

“I…get…the…” Hobbes replied, numbly acquiescent with the gun pressed point blank against his stomach.

“Shut up, you lousy spook,” LaFeux snapped. “Tell me who you really work for. Is the Hope Family? The Oughthouses? Whose blood is on your hands, spook? What deal did you sign for your soul?Huh?”

Eve’s whole body had gone cold the second she saw the metal grip of the gun come out of the man’s pocket. Her own hand was on the butt of her pistol, but she heard the words he said to Hobbes. Dr. LaFeux was clearly unstable. She didn’t want to risk her partner’s life on any sudden movements.

“Dr. LaFeux,” she called out, “Whatever’s going on, we can still talk this through. We can get the Director of the FBI on the phone for you right now to verify our identities if that’s what you need, but first you have to put the gun down and let my partner go.”

“I have nothing to talk over with you, Eve Hope, if that is who you really are. I know all about you and your family, all your dirty little bridges and connections. If want my gun you’ll have to go about getting it your good old father’s way.”

Eve grimaced. The comment cut deep. Her father was a killer. She was a killer. Through the manic haze of the coroner’s insanity, he’d achieved a moment of startling clarity. Her anger drove her to draw her weapon, her defiance urged her to resist. She stood frozen in the Catch 22.

Either way, Eve knew she didn’t have a clear shot at the coroner. Her partner was still being held like a human shield between her and LaFeux. The coroner was backing towards the door, which were operated by automatic sensors from inside. When he was close enough that the doors slid open with a hushed, modern hiss, the coroner made his break for it. He punched Hobbes hard in the diaphragm with the butt of his gun and ran down the hall. Hobbes doubled over, heaving, the wind knocked entirely out of him.

Eve snatched her service pistol out of her holster and dashed to her partner’s side.

“Are you alright?” she asked urgently. Hobbes nodded, still gasping for air. His eyes were watering, but he was reaching for his own Colt 1911 under his jacket.

“He went right,” Hobbes managed to croak, still trying to regain his breath. Eve nodded and darted out the door, taking a sharp right down the hall, away from the front lobby where they’d come in. She heard a door bang shut not far ahead, and came skidding to a stop as she rounded the left corner, following the noise.

The door was marked with a brass plaque. It read “Dr. Rudolph LaFeux – Chief Coroner, County of Jones Valley.”

Eve threw her shoulder against the door with force, at the same time hearing the heavy scrape of a furniture barricade being dragged into place. The door didn’t budge.

Hot with frustration, Eve pounded hard on the door with the butt of her fist, keeping her weapon lowered but ready.

“Dr. LaFeux, you’re not well. Whatever is going on, it will only get better if you let us help you.”

There was no answer from inside the coroner’s office, only the sound of heavy grunting and shuffling, as if he were rooting heedlessly through papers. She pounded again on the door.

“LaFeux!” she shouted, striking an authoritative tone in hopes of appealing to his military background. “As an agent of the United States Federal Government, I’m giving you a direct order! Open this door at once and surrender yourself!”

This, likewise, required no response from the manic coroner within. Eve gave the door a savage punch and turned away. She saw Hobbes puffing down the hall towards her, still slightly winded from the gut punch. He blinked at her, looking somewhat confused at finding his partner standing alone in the hallway with her gun in her hand.

“What happened to LaFeux?” he asked.

“He’s barricaded himself inside his office,” Eve replied with a bullish snort of frustration. “Who knows what the lunatic is doing in there. Five to one says he turns that Ruger on himself before this is all played out. I’ve seen unicycles more stable than our man there. Stay here, and make sure he doesn’t make a run for it. See if you can get him talking through the door. Maybe he’s got a manifesto or something.”

Eve strode roughly past her partner, heading back down the hall.

“Wait, where are you going?” Hobbes asked, looking somewhat nervous. LaFeux’s getting the drop on him had apparently shaken his confidence.

“Down to the front desk,” she called over her shoulder, “The desk clerk knew something about the coroner’s paranoia before he pulled a gun on you. I want to see if I can get a sense of what we’re dealing with, and then I’m going to put a call in Pliny. Stay alert, and keep your ear to the door.”

“You got it,” Hobbes called back, but he still sounded a little unsure of himself. He was still a new agent, Eve reminded herself. He’d proved himself tough and reliable on several occasions in the past, but Eve recollected that the cases he’d worked with her were nearly the only ones in his profile. He was still a rookie, and the coroner had caught him off guard in a place where the young man had assumed he was safe. Even with her own Marine Corps training, Eve had been caught nearly as unaware as her partner. Within the walls of a law enforcement building, even if it wasn’t federal, the agents had made the dangerous and nearly lethal assumption that they were safe from ambush. Hell, they’d even been warned by the desk clerk, Eve fumed to herself as she stalked down the hallway past the now-empty morgue where the Jane Doe waited, alone and pathetic, for somebody to find out the details of who she was. The light flickered lonely and fluorescent through the thick glass windows of the morgue.

In the front lobby, the desk clerk was seated primly at his post, looking only slightly perturbed by the muffled sounds of the kerfuffle that had echoed out to his ears. He looked up sharply as Eve leaned on the desk and pierced him with her dark stare.

“What’s your name?” she asked flatly. The clerk could see it, but behind the chest-high desk, Eve’s hand was on her gun. Who knew how far the roots of the coroner’s madness had spread, what kind of disciples he’d recruited.

“Owen Townsend,” he replied quickly, his eyes wide, “Is something wrong? I heard kind of a scuffle back there.”

Eve narrowed her eyes, studying the young clerk closely. The nervousness on his face looked genuine, but he’d looked nervous since they entered. Was he nervous because he’d known what was going to happen, or did he simply have an anxious disposition?

“Yes,” she said in a low voice, “Something’s wrong. Your chief coroner has flipped his lid. He pulled a gun on my partner.” She watched his face. The shock registered as genuine as the fear that followed. He hunched his shoulders, lowering his head nearly below the line of the desk, as if expecting a crazed shooter to walk in at any moment.

“Jesus, I didn’t hear any gunshots,” said Townsend, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“That’s because he didn’t shoot anybody,” Eve replied cooly, “He accused us of conspiracy without specifying what conspiracy that was, then pistol-punched my partner in the gut and barricaded himself in his office.”

She gave the clerk a level stair as he slowly straightened his posture.

“Now,” she said, “First of all, are there any other points of entry to LaFeux office besides the door in the hallway?”

“W-W-What?” Townsend stammered nervously, looking at the desktop between Eve and himself.

“Doors,” Eve prompted impatiently, “Are there any other ways in or out of the office besides the main door in the hallway?”

“I…don’t…think…there are any other doors,” the clerk replied slowly.

“Okay, that’s covered then,” Eve said, “Next question. You gave us a warning when we arrived that the coroner had become paranoid recently. Why didn’t you report him to your superiors?”

The desk clerk swallowed, looking around as if he were suddenly on trial.

“Well, he’s been doing his job so long, I kind of figured he knew what he was talking about,” came the nervous reply, “Plus, well, like, he’s my boss. He could fire me, and I just moved into a new apartment and the leasing office only just barely approved me, so…”

“Okay, okay. That’s alright. It’s not your duty to govern your supervisors,” Eve held up her hands, giving the young clerk a warm, forgiving smile. “So, how long have you been noticing that there was something off with the chief coroner?”

“About two months, I guess,” the young man said cautiously, straightening up yet further and looking Eve in the eye for the first time since she’s approached the desk. “He’s always kind of an old crank, you know, making me retype all his reports for the digital records, sneaking whiskey at work and talking a lot of trash about everybody. Just an old leatherneck, I thought. Recently he’s been getting weird, though.”

“What do you mean by weird?” Eve asked, adding with a disarming grin, “And you should know that you’re talking to a leatherneck now, too.”

The clerk blushed and stammered on quickly. “W…well, he started talking about reading between the lines of everything. Newspapers, broadcast headlines, police reports, everything. He was saying that the real messages in most communications are innuendo, secret orders between masters and soldiers.” Townsend shifted uncomfortably, looking away from Eve’s unwavering stare. There were few that could hold up against her withering gaze in a staring contest.

“And still you didn’t think to report him?” Eve asked, allowing a note of skepticism to taint her tone.

“I didn’t know what to make of it,” the clerk replied, “He was always laughing and winking when he said it, so I thought it was some kind of joke that I just didn’t understand. I just kind of forced a laugh and nodded along, you know?”

“Yeah, alright,” Eve replied, “That’s okay, Owen. You can’t be expected to detect the warning signs in upper management. Besides, everybody knows that coroners are a little crazy.” She tried to give the young man a note of encouragement with the laugh, but he still looked pale and frightened. Jumpy, too, she thought. Better to get him clear, to keep him safe and out of the way. “Alright, Owen, here's what I need you to do. Go over to the sheriff’s precinct and let them know what’s going on, then get yourself to cover. Things are going to be hot around here for a little while.”

The young man needed no second telling. He was out from behind the desk in an instant, making footprints for the front door as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. The automatic doors hissed open and shut.

Eve was alone in the lobby. Outside, through the thick glass, she could see the sky taking on the first grey suggestions of sunrise. It had been a long night, but Eve knew that there was more action to come before she got any rest. Her intense training had prepared her to operate in spite of the exhaustion, and she set her jaw with a renewed sense of determination as the new day spread itself out over the world outside.

Without wasting any time, Eve pulled her work phone and dialed the number of Deputy Director Pliny. He answered after only half a ring.

“Hope,” he said right away, “What’s going on in Missouri?”

“Unexpected trouble,” Eve reported, “The local coroner seems to have gone a little cabin crazy. I think the fact of my family history triggered some kind of schizoid reaction in the Chief Coroner, Rudolph LaFeux. First, he refused to hand over the findings of his autopsy. Then he pulled a Ruger on Agent Hobbes, fled the morgue, and barricaded himself in his office. To my knowledge, he’s still in there now, and still armed.”

“Any idea what it’s about?”

“Negative, sir,” Eve answered, “Could be drugs. Could be simple PTSD. It could be genetic schizophrenia, for all I know. The desk clerk is a small fry, but he said that the coroner’s been paranoid for a while. He didn’t make anything of it until tonight, though. I sent him out. He’s practically a civilian.”

“What kind of weapon did you say it was?” Pliny asked.

“A Ruger,” Eve replied, “Thin barrel, looked like a .22.”

“Peashooter. Breach the office,” Pliny replied flatly, “Subdue the coroner with extreme prejudice. We’ll send another coroner out to you by jet ASAP. Hell, I’ll send you a whole forensic team.”

“LaFeux has barricaded the only point of entry, sir,” Eve reminded the deputy director. There was an audible sigh from the other end of the line.

“So take the damn door off, Agent Hope. When I say breach, I mean breach, goddamnit. Hell, did I call the wrong agent? I thought you used to be a Marine.”

“I am a Marine, sir,” Eve replied with a grit of her teeth that was half grin, half grimace.

“Well, Semper fuckin’ Fi, Hope,” Pliny barked, “I want that rogue coroner in cuffs and putting his statement in writing by the time the FBI’s medical examiner arrives on the scene, do you ten-four that Hope? We’ve lost enough time as it is. Now, get your house in order.” Pliny said, and spat loudly. Eve heard the brass ring of his spittoon before the deputy director hung up.

***

Back in the hallway, Eve found Hobbes looking almost as anxious as Owen, still standing by the chief coroner’s office door. He fidgeted as Eve approached. She gave him a brief appraising look before turning to pound on the door. There was no response from inside.

“I spoke to Pliny,” Eve said in a low voice, turning to face her partner. “He’s going to send us one mail-order FBI Medical Examiner post-haste. We’ve got orders to breach and subdue LaFeux by force. You ready to kick some ass?”

“Sure, but there’s something wrong,” Hobbes replied. Eve bunched her eyebrows together.

“What is it, Hobbes?”

“He’s been quiet for too long,” Hobbes replied. He glanced uncomfortably at the door, then back at Eve. For an instant, she didn’t understand what he meant. Then the nickel dropped. Her eyebrows shot up and she took a step towards her partner, looking at the door with renewed concerned.

“Did you hear a gunshot?” she asked in an urgent whisper, although the agents were alone in the hallway. Eve thought of the gun she’d seen in the coroner’s hand. It was a small caliber pistol, hardly enough to be lethal under most circumstances. With the barrel in his mouth or against his temple, though, who knew? This scenario could come to a sudden and messy end very easily.

Hobbes, however, shook his head.

“I haven’t heard anything,” he said, “There was some grunting and scraping right after you left, and I was calling out trying to get him to say something, but after that it got real quiet. I haven’t heard a squeak since then.”

“Well, Pliny gave us permission to blast down the door,” Eve said. “It’s not like I’m wearing grenades, though. You suppose there’s any plastic explosives around this morgue? Of course, there wouldn't be. Or maybe we just remove the hinges…”

“What about a window?” Hobbes asked. Eve blinked at him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this office is on the west side of the building. I think the western wall is the external wall. There would probably be a window on the western wall, right? Maybe we could go in that way instead of blowing up the door.”

Eve stared at her partner, kicking herself mentally for not keeping a clearer mental map of the building she was in.

“Hobbes, stay here and cover the door. I think you might be a genius,” she said, turning and starting to walk down the hallway. All of a sudden, a thought occurred to her, a thought that made her hair stand on end.   A window in is a window out. “If only you’d been a genius a little sooner,” she added in a low mutter, and broke out into a run.

The outside air at dawn was cold, freezing or below. Eve’s breath formed little white clouds as she ran out of the building. The coroner’s office was small addendum tacked on to the western side of the county sheriff’s precinct. The precinct was a much larger building than the coroner's office, and inside the windowless halls, it had been all too easy to forget that the coroner’s office shared an external wall. She cursed her own thoughtlessness as she sprinted around the front corner of the building.

She followed the external western wall, estimating the position of the office. It would have been near the back of the way back in the building, she thought, probably a corner office. She came to a halt in front of a window near the end, only about four feet off the ground. Peering inside, she saw an office. This was it.

The window was open. The office was empty. The coroner was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Eve clambered nimbly through the open window, surveying the office. The room was a cluttered mess of heavy industrial supply cabinets, most of which had been flung open, their contents scattered and tossed on the floor.

There was unhealthy mustiness that hung on in the air of the office, as if opening the window to escape was the first time that fresh air had been allowed to enter in many years. There was a scattering of greasy old fast-food wrappers, snubbed cigarettes and burn marks on the windowsill, desk, and floor. A wadded blanket and sorry-looking pillow were piled in the corner of the office, next to an empty bottle of Southern Comfort. Had the old coroner been living in this filthy office?

Amidst the barrage of files and garbage thrown on the floor, Eve noticed crumpled sheets of scratch paper, paper bags torn into long scrolls and wax paper receipts. They’d all been jotted over in wet scribbling longhand. The handwriting was cursive, and sloppy cursive at that – hard to make out. Eve moved her eyes up to the door and the furniture blockade that obstructed it.

The desk that LaFeux had hauled hastily across the door was a heavy, metal-framed behemoth topped with a faux-wood laminate that was warped and peeling. Eve found herself partly impressed that the old man had the strength to move the desk alone as she pushed it out of the way.

The cleared spot on the wall beside the door told her that the wily old coroner had not had far to drag the desk in order to make an effective barricade, and she wondered if that had been his intention all along. Sitting on the desk was a hefty electronic typewriter, its cord yanked out from the wall outlet. A desk lamp was plugged in to the same outlet, but it had been dashed from its perch when the coroner shoved it and the glass lampshade was shattered in a thousand tiny fragments across the floor.

With the desk out of the way, Eve at last turned back the bolt. Hobbes looked up sharply as she opened the door, his pistol raised and his face taut. She gave him a disappointed stare.

“LaFeux took a powder,” Eve said, “He’s long gone.”

Hobbes blinked, then holstered his weapon slowly.

“Where did he go?” the young agent asked.

“Out the window,” Eve replied, gesturing to the office over her shoulder, “He ransacked his office on the way out, though.”

“I can see that,” Hobbes said, entering the room and looking around. “Jesus Christ, how many filing cabinets did this guy need? Hasn’t he ever heard of digitizing federal records?”

“Get a load of the typewriter on his desk,” Eve said, “From the looks of things, Dr. LaFeux operated on a pretty analogue basis. That could be a stubborn refusal to modernize, or it could be a symptom of a more pervasive paranoia.”

“Carbon copies means no digital footprint,” Hobbes said, piecing together Eve’s point as he gazed at the mess around the room.

“My thoughts exactly,” she said with a nod. “And who knows what’s missing from this mess. He could have taken anything when he ransacked this place.”

“We’ve got to find him,” Hobbes said, adding with a sigh, “Great, another manhunt. Just what we needed.”

“Pliny said he’s sending us a certified FBI Medical Examiner,” Eve replied, “We’re going to get that autopsy one way or another. As for locating Dr. LaFeux, I think that’s a job better suited for the sheriff’s squad.”

“You’re kidding,” Hobbes looked as surprised and enraged as his dewy schoolboy face would allow, “You’re telling me that you don’t want a piece of that lunatic?”

“Of course I’d love to slap the bracelets on him and get the chance to interrogate the living truth out of him, but at the immediate moment we have bigger fish to fry. The murder case of our Jane Doe is growing colder by the second. Once Pliny’s team gets here, I think our next step is to go out to the scene of the crime.”

Hobbes sucked in his lips, still looking somewhat skeptical. Eve put her hand on his shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll make sure the sheriff’s department puts us on their speed dial, alright? We’ll know about it as soon as they locate LaFeux.”

“Alright,” Hobbes said after a brief moment, “I trust your instincts, and if you think that we should stay the course on this investigation and follow protocol, then I’ll follow your lead.”

“Thanks, Hobbes,” Eve said, “Your trust means a lot.” She looked around at the abandoned office, thrashed and musty. She gave her head a shake. “I’ve seen insanity before, and this is it. Based on the food bags and cigarette butts in here, I’d say that LaFeux has been living in his office for at least a week if not more. The local sheriff will know his habits. I bet they track him down before the sun goes down today.”

It was less than five minutes before a surge of sheriff’s deputies from the precinct next door came charging over into the morgue, weapons drawn and adrenaline coursing. Eve had to talk them down off the warpath before she could even explain the situation. Once she got the deputies to listen, however, they calmed down and spread out. Some of them seemed somewhat crestfallen that there wasn’t going to be a shootout.

An inspector, identifiable by the shield hanging on his belt, made his way through the star-badged deputies to address Eve seriously. He had salt and pepper hair clipped in a neat crew cut, stern, hawklike features and barked concise commands at the deputies as if he were in charge.

“Alright, I want a unit of squad cars checking every location of significance to LaFeux we can think of. Check his house, his bank, his gym…”

“LaFeux is a Freemason,” called one of the deputies helpfully.

“Great. Johnson, I want you to take Clarkfield and check the lodge. Wilson, go see if he’s been poking around his ex-wife’s house. Greene, Markle, I want you to get in touch with the Highway Patrol. Tell the state troopers to keep eyes out for LaFeux’s Jeep. He drives a black Cherokee, doesn’t he? Let’s move it!”

The group of deputies broke into a flurry of motions, leaving the grey-haired inspector facing the agents in the hallway.

“You the Bureau agents that LaFeux jumped?” he asked, looking back and forth between Eve and Hobbes.

“Right,” Eve said, getting her badge out, “Your chief coroner seemed not to like our credentials. Special Agent Eve Hope, FBI. This is my partner, Special Agent Lucas Hobbes. Is that good enough for you or are you going to jump out a window too?”

“Pleased to meet you both,” he said, ignoring the quip and giving her an apologetic expression, “I’m Inspector Bale, Jones Valley Sheriff Internal Affairs. I’ve been briefed on the situation, and I’d like to extend the apologies of the Jones Valley County Sheriff’s Department. Are you and your partner alright?”

“We’re fine,” Eve replied, “A little startled, but nobody’s hurt. I got into the office through the window and removed the door from in front of the desk. LaFeux is nowhere to be found. He left a pretty wild mess behind him, though.”

“Hmm,” Inspector Bale murmured, turning to look pensively through the doorway of the coroner's office, “Did he take anything with him?”

“I don’t know,” Eve replied, “He locked himself in before either my partner or I could catch up with him. By the time we realized that his office had an external window, he was long gone.”

“I see,” the inspector said. Eve gave him a cockeyed squint. He looked on edge, too. Not as nervous as the young desk clerk had been, but certainly uncomfortable about something. Maybe it was all the excitement and the shock of a rogue coroner in own sleepy precinct, but Eve thought she saw something hiding in the inspector’s expression.

“From the looks of things, he’d been squatting in his office for some time before this incident." Eve gave the internal affairs inspector a withering look as if she’d caught him with his house out of order. The inspector folded his hands behind his rear and rocked back on his heels, casting an uneasy glance at the doorway of the coroner’s office and the garbage and cigarette burns visible there within. “The morgue staff seemed to know that Dr. LaFeux was a little off, but you’re the internal affairs inspector. You should have been aware that you had an employee living on the grounds.”

Inspector Bale turned without answering and walked into the coroner’s office. Eve followed him, still waiting for a response. The salt and pepper inspector turned slowly in the office, taking in the surrounding mess. Then he looked back at Eve, shaking his head.

“I had no idea he’d gotten this bad,” Inspector Bale said in a low voice, “LaFeux has always been a stubborn old goat, very set in his ways, but this…I just had no idea.”

“You didn’t have any occasion to enter his office?” Eve asked, raising an eyebrow. Bale shook his head again.

“We don’t get many murders out this way, Special Agent Hope. Most of LaFeux’s job was performing basic autopsies on contested deaths.”

“Contested deaths?” Eve prompted the inspector to explain.

“Car accidents, jobsite deaths, things of that nature, when insurance companies or law enforcements wants to establish cause of death in a well-documented format,” the inspector replied.

Eve looked around at the mess of papers and filing cabinets around them.

“Yeah, it looks like he had a real organized system of documentation here,” she said sarcastically. “Tell me about the typewriter.”

“Yeah, that was one was one of those little leaps of technology that we couldn’t convince LaFeux to take,” said Inspector Bale, “He would type out his reports in triplicate on the machine, then one of the clerks would transcribe it into digital format. Dr. LaFeux insisted that he couldn’t work on a computer, that he would only waste a lot of everybody’s time fumbling around with the browser and deleting files by accident.”

“He said those exact words?” Eve asked, turning to face the inspector once again, “deleting files by accident.”

“Something to that effect,” the inspector replied, “I’m sure I’m paraphrasing somewhat.”

So, he’s been thinking about files disappearing for a while. Eve kept the thought to herself, studying the inspector’s face. The inspector looked back into Eve’s eyes with an even gaze. Something about his face made Eve feel that she could trust Inspector Bale. She drew a sigh, then took a step closer to the inspector, lowering her voice.

“This case is already going off the rails, Inspector,” she said, “And that’s something that I can’t afford to let happen. I don’t know what issues your coroner has been having, but it clearly goes back further than the body that came in yesterday. I don’t have time to chase your man down, but I can’t afford to worry about him coming after us while we’re investigating. The FBI is sending us a Medical Examiner and forensic team. I’d like to have the building cleared and locked down when they get here, and I want to be alerted as soon as LaFeux is brought into custody so I can question him myself. Nobody pulls a gun on my partner and disrupts my case without tasting a little hell. Is that all copacetic with you, or am I going to have to get federal?”

It was going to be about two hours before the Medical Examiner’s crew arrived from Quantico. Hobbes wanted to stand guard over the body right away to ensure that the evidence was not tampered with while the integrity of the case was so fragile.

“Go on ahead, I’ll be right behind you,” Eve told him, still standing in the disgusting office. “I want to poke around in here first.”

Hobbes looked a little uneasy about separating, but he didn’t put a up a protest. Alone in the chief coroner’s office, Eve slipped on a pair of evidence gloves. She began going through the drawers of the desk first. There was a gun in the right hand drawer, a .44 caliber Smith and Wesson. Pulling it out, Eve could feel that the gun was loaded. She knit her eyebrows together in confusion. Why carry a .22 peashooter when LaFeux had a hand cannon like this stowed away in his desk? And why leave it behind when he fled his office?

The contents of the other drawers only added to the mystery. Eve turned up a few notebooks containing more of the same handwritten scribbles that covered the papers on the floor. There was also a portable transistor radio, disassembled and left in pieces in the drawer, as well as a few more empty bottles of Southern Comfort. Eve stood back, shaking her head with bafflement. How could a man let himself decay like this in a government building without anybody noticing? And what had set him off now? He seemed to know plenty about her family history, Eve reflected with a cold shiver that she couldn’t repress. He knew about her father, and about the wealthy west coast family that her sister had married into, the Oughthouses. These flecks of truths made his flurry of madness all the more disconcerting to Eve.

Shaking off the chill that raised sudden goosebumps on her arms, Eve turned her attention to the filing cabinets. LaFeux had done a hasty job of tossing the cabinets. Only the first few files of each drawer had been scattered in the hurried attempt to create an illusion of disarray. The nearest filing cabinet was opened all the way, however. Eve stepped over to peer at it more closely. The files were organized chronologically, dating back over several years. Looking around again, Eve realized that the files dated back decades. Between the cabinets and the floor, all the deaths that had passed through that morgue were accounted for.

All except one.

The Jane Doe autopsy report was not where it should be, Eve noticed, looking among the recent dates in the strewn files. It was nowhere to be found. Whether the report was absent because the coroner had simply not typed it up yet or because he’d taken it with him was not clear.

Nothing about this was clear, and Eve had the sinking feeling that it was going to get a lot muddier before she got a firm grip on the truth.

CHAPTER NINE

The dawn had stretched out into a crisp, clear morning as the Medical Examiner’s team from Quantico arrived at the Jones Valley County Sheriff’s precinct. Eve was pacing the lobby, keeping an eye on the visitor’s parking through the front windows while Hobbes continued to stand guard over the morgue. The M.E. team pulled up in a short caravan of black escalades. Roughly a dozen people got out of the three heavy, tinted vehicles. Four of them looked like agents in dark tactical uniform, wearing Kevlar vests and long guns strapped across their backs.

The other eight that emerged from the dark caravan of SUVs were clearly the Medical Examiner’s team. They wore pale blue lab coats with the emblem of the FBI stitched in yellow over the pockets. The team walked together across the narrow parking lot, flanked by the armed agents. They reached the automatic doors, which hissed open. Eve straightened up as the party entered. There was a tall, middle aged woman in the center of the group, with tight ringlets of black hair and thin gold-framed glasses who seemed to be in charge. She walked directly over to Eve and held out her hand to shake. The woman had a firm, competent grip.

"Special Agent Hope, I presume," she said, "Forgive me, Deputy Director Pliny gave me your profile along with the case summary to read on the plane. May I say, it's an honor to work with an agent of your record. I'm Dr. Mia Graham, and I'm the chief coroner of this mobile forensic unit. We're going to get this case sorted out, I assure you." She released her handshake and turned to survey the lobby. "Now, I understand that there's been some kind of trouble with the local coroner. Is the building secure at this moment?"

“It is,” Eve replied, “The building next door is the sheriff’s HQ, so we had backup almost right away. They’re out searching for him now. Special Agent Hobbes is in the morgue with the evidence, if you’ll follow me.”

Eve led the team through the now familiar hallways of the building into the morgue, leaving two of the armed agents behind to stand guard in the lobby.

“Dr. Graham, this is my partner, Special Agent Lucas Hobbes. Hobbes, Dr. Graham and her team will take over the evidence and the autopsy from here.” Eve made a brief introduction as Hobbes snapped to attention. “Hopefully we can get enough details from the remains to give our Jane Doe an identity and get this investigation rolling.”

After the agents had signed over the evidence into the care of Dr. Graham’s team, the forensic investigators broke out into a flurry of action and dialogue that all seemed to follow strict protocol. The scientific minutia of the autopsy was always foreign to Eve, and she watched for a brief moment in admiration as the team of medical examiners went about the finer, if not to say macabre, points of their work.

“Initial reports indicate that the remains have been chemically corrupted,” Eve said to Dr. Graham, who nodded.

“I read the report,” she affirmed, “Based on the totality of the DNA corruption, I would say that this body was fully submerged in some kind of high-grade acid. After we run a spectrum analysis test, we’ll be able to give you the exact chemical signature that did it.”

“Will that help us identify the victim?” Eve asked. The coroner gave a sigh.

“It’s hard to tell,” she said, “Bones like these that don’t have usable DNA to confirm a match usually end up in cold case storage. Who knows. Maybe our Jane Doe will be a future case on the X-Files.”

Dr. Graham’s tone was sardonic, Eve thought, although her inflections were so subtle and her expression so stoically deadpan that the agent couldn’t be entirely sure. She gave the coroner a sidewise look, then motioned for Hobbes to join her.

“You have my number?” Eve confirmed with Dr. Graham before she left. The Medical Examiner nodded.

“I’ll give you an update as soon as I have anything,” she said.

“Thanks,” Eve said. “Time is the enemy here, as I’m sure you’re aware. I’ll be waiting for your report eagerly.”

“We’ll be as swift as can,” Dr. Graham said, turning her attention to the cadaver. “First order of business, we’ve got to get you in an x-ray.”

Eve and Hobbes climbed into the Dodge Charger and pulled out of the precinct. They’d only been on the case since midnight, but the chaos and the prolonged waiting in the empty morgue made it feel as if they’d been inside the coroner’s building for days.

Hobbes had an uneasy air of silence that hung over him as Eve steered the Charger out of the parking lot and onto the highway following the GPS directions. She’d entered the coordinates of the crime scene into the navigation system, and now the little dashboard display showed that they had a forty-five-minute drive ahead of them. Eve glanced periodically at her partner, keeping her foot steady on the pedal as they zipped along the open fast lane. He kept his eyes trained soberly through the front windshield, never looking away from the road that came towards them, hardly even blinking. His shoulders were sunken in heavy, sagging posture, and he didn’t say a word.

“Something on your mind, partner?” Eve asked, returning her eyes to the road as she voiced the question. She heard him breathe heavily through his nose.

“I don’t like the way that went down,” Hobbes said.

“What, the new medical examiner’s team? They seemed fine to me.”

“Not that,” Hobbes said, “The whole situation with Dr. LaFeux. One little old man shouldn’t have gotten the drop on two armed, athletic agents.”

Eve shook her head.

“It’s exactly because he was a little old man, and a little old man who we were warranted to trust given the circumstances, that LaFeux was able to take us by surprise. You can’t anticipate everything all the time, Hobbes. You’ve just got to react and roll with the punches.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t really do that either,” Hobbes sighed lugubriously. “I just froze. You saw me. I could have disarmed him if I’d kept my head on, and then this whole manhunt wouldn’t be happening.”

“You can’t blame yourself for how you reacted when you had a surprise gun in your gut,” Eve consoled her young partner. “You’ll be more on your guard next time, trust me. Just be glad he didn’t pull the trigger, the crazy bastard.”

“You would have disarmed him,” Hobbes muttered darkly, “You would have pulled some crazy Krav Maga move and taken his gun away or knocked him out before he could should or something.”

Eve laughed. She liked that Hobbes thought so much of her combat skills, but she could see that her partner’s confidence was deeply shaken.

“If I was lucky, then yeah, maybe I would have,” Eve replied, “But the world is gritty, and sometimes somebody is going to catch you sleeping. You do your best, but it’s just bound to happen. I’ve been knocked out from behind more than once in my career, not to mention all the times I was ambushed when I was serving overseas. At least LaFeux was only pointing a .22 at you. It could have been worse. I found a .44 in his desk drawer.”

“You did?” Hobbes asked, looking over at his partner for the first time since he’d gotten into the car. Eve nodded.

“And a lot of insane, handwritten ramblings. It’s unsettling to think that nutcase is out there somewhere, armed and unbalanced. We don’t know how much ground he’s covered or what method of transportation he’s using, but we do know that he knows where the body was discovered,” Eve said, shooting her partner a sideways glance out of the corner of her eye, “We’ll have to keep our guards up while we’re investigating.”

“Don’t worry,” Hobbes said, thumbing the butt of his pistol under the flap of his coat, “I’m not going to let myself get ambushed twice.”

The GPS led them off the highway after about half an hour. As soon as the Charger was off the exit, the wide highway melted into narrow, county-maintained roads. They were driving through marshy woodlands, threaded with little creeks that they rolled over by mossy bridges. In the hazy distance, a sleepy suburb could seen over the peaks of the trees. The only other structure in the area was a large, industrial-looking building with four towering smokestacks that emitted nothing at the moment.

They came to a small, gravel-strewn lot where the road came to an end. For a moment, Eve thought that she’d gotten the direction wrong, because the GPS still showed that there was about three-quarters of a mile between them and their destination. Closer inspection of the map showed her that the only access to the area was by a footpath, the entrance to which lay at the far end of the gravel clearing.

Eve cut off the engine.

“This is the place, Hobbes,” she said, giving her partner a significant look. “From here, we go on foot.”

The trailhead was crossed with chain. A metal sign hung in the center of the rusty metal links, peppered with birdshot, with yellow paint that was peeling at the corners. It read “Danger – No Trespassing. Violators Will Be Prosecuted!” in large black letters.

Below this warning, in much smaller letters, were the words “Private Property – Solemark Chemical Solutions.”

“You see this Hobbes?” Eve called to her partner as they approached the narrow trailhead. Hobbes eyed the sign briefly, then waved it off.

“We’ve got more clearance than a No-Trespassing sign,” he said dismissively.

“I know, but look whose land we’re on. It’s a chemical company.” Eve pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the sign, documenting the name of the company with a geo-tag of their location. “I think we have our first lead. Maybe the people at Solemark Chemical Solutions know something about how our Jane Doe ended up with corrupted DNA.”

CHAPTER TEN

The agents stepped easily over the chain, which hung only a couple feet off the ground between two metal posts. The path that twisted off down the hill and into the woods ahead of them was narrow, hard-packed dirt with brambly underbrush that grew out unevenly from either side.

“It must be a maintenance access trail of some kind,” Hobbes said, looking around as they pressed deeper into the woods. “It’s not marked like a trailhead, and I doubt that the chemical company would be eager for recreational hikers hoofing it around their property.”

“I think you’re right,” Eve said, “What is that over there?” She paused in the trail, pointing to a pair of large metal cylinders in a small clearing. They were half covered by organic debris that had fallen from the canopy above, and the metal that was left exposed looked corroded by long exposure to the elements.

There was an old footpath snaking through the underbrush, connecting the main trail to the little clearing. This was even thinner and more overgrown than the path they were following, little more than a deer trail through the thick crawlers and thorny vines that grew between the bases of the trees.

“Come on,” Eve said, “Let’s see what it is. I don’t want to go in blind if we don’t have to.”

The agents cut quickly down the little trail, the dirt sliding and crumbling under their feet. Hobbes slid the last part of the way down the hill into the clearing on his heels, waving his arms comically to maintain his balance. He stumbled but managed to keep it upright, and Eve suppressed a laugh.

Walking out into the clearing, which only encompassed about twenty-five square feet, Eve saw that the cylinders had access panels sticking off the sides. The boxes were latched shut, but did not appear to be locked. Eve flipped the heavy-bladed folding tactical out of her pocket and pried the box open. Inside the metal box, a set of controls had been only slightly better preserved than the rest of the equipment. There were a number of gauges measuring unspecified levels of pressure, toxicity, and who knew what else. The faded writing at the top of the panel gave Eve a clue to the function of the giant contraption.

“It’s a pump,” she announced, “Or it was. Probably some kind of drainage or hydraulic system. Whatever it was, it looks defunct now.”

“Didn’t the report say that the body was discovered by a couple of kids who fell on their bikes?” Hobbes asked as the agents picked their way back to the main trail.

“That’s right,” Eve said, glancing back over her shoulder at her partner. “Why? What’s on your mind?”

“Do you find it weird that there were a couple of kids riding their bikes through this area?” he asked, “I mean, it’s probably restricted because it’s not safe, you know?”

“When’s the last time you heard of kids staying away from something because it isn’t safe?” Eve asked. Hobbes shrugged.

“I guess you’re right about that. Still, don’t you think their parents would object to them riding around on chemical company property.”

“I’m sure they would,” Eve said, “And the killer was probably counting on the restricted area keeping hikers from finding the body. Too bad for him kids love to be anywhere they’re not supposed to be.”

“Too bad for the kids too,” Hobbes said, slipping on a pair of Ray Bans to shield his eyes from a brilliant sunbeam that knifed down through the treetops as he surveyed the wooded landscape. “That’s something they’ll never be able to unsee. They don’t know it, but they just bought a couple decades of therapy in advance.”

“One of the boys actually fell on the bones,” Eve said, setting the pace at a quick march. “The remains fractured more easily than he did, fortunately, because the skeleton was already corroded. Depending on what the chemical turns out to be, we may have to track down the boys and ensure that they weren’t contaminated as well.”

Eve was following the GPS directions on her phone, taking her bearings by orienting her phone to point north. The pinpoint of their destination was located off the main trail. The minor trails of the mostly unkempt property did not appear on her satellite map, but Eve estimated that they would come across the right trail in a few hundred yards. After all, the boys that discovered the body had been riding bikes, and therefore would have kept to the trails.

“This way,” she called to her partner after they’d hiked roughly 0.3 miles into the woods away from the clearing where they left the Charger. The trail split again here, and Eve could see that there were ruts created by bike tires treading regularly through the soft, swampland soil.

The agents followed the bike trail down the hill, the dirt slipping under the heels of their shoes. Eve always wore combat boots when she was in the field, her only concession to civilian life being that she hit the high tongues of the boots under the cuffs of her slacks. Hobbes, however, was wearing loafers. The smooth soles of his shoes made the hike far more difficult, and he stumbled several times, nearly knocking into Eve ahead of him.

There was a little gulch, a dried-out creek bed by the looks of it, which had been running almost exactly parallel to the trail that the agents were following. As they reached the bottom of the hill, the trail flattened out, suddenly crossing the gulch. There was a thicket of blackberry vines just on the other side of the gulch, still marked with the little colorful flags of the crime scene. Yellow crime scene tape wound around the trees sectioned off a dense thicket of blackberry bramble where the body had been found.

"This is the place," Eve said, coming to a stop and surveying the area. All the investigators had long since cleared out after the photos were taken and the remains had been carefully extracted. The woods were quiet except for the chirping of birds and rasping of insects. The autumn sunlight through the trees cast strange, banded shadows across the landscape. Smooth grey stones poked out of the underbrush here and there up the hill. All was perfectly motionless.

Stepping forward, Eve planted a heavy booted foot in the thicket, leaning down to inspect the place where the bones had been discovered. The surrounding vines were all bent out of shape and flattened by the falling boys, so it was hard to tell if the cadaver had been thrown into the bushes after the thicket was fully grown or if the bones had been buried and the vines grown up around them.

Kneeling down, Eve noticed that there was an impression in the earth left behind from when the body had been extracted. The rib cage had sunk down in the mud, probably pressed even further by the impact of the falling child.

There was a line that ran down the hill, a rut that spilled off from the dry gulch. No water ran through it now, but the gulch could once have a small but powerful stream. The offshoot ran straight down the hill, ending where the body had been discovered. Standing up, Eve tried to visualize the corpse being flushed down the gulch before sliding in a muddy chemical sludge, only brought to a halt by the thicket. The physics worked out, given the unknown variable of the how much water or other fluids it would take to carry the corpse that far.

“Hobbes, I don’t think the body was originally dumped here,” Eve said, turning back to face her partner. Hobbes was still on the trail, kneeling beside the thorny veins and inspecting them closely. He looked up at his partner from behind the tinted frames of his Wayfarers.

“What do you mean?” he asked, “Where was it dumped?”

“I’m not sure where the original site is, but it looks to me like it slid down the hill from the gulch. Come on, let’s see where the rut leads.”

“I’ve been stuck in a rut on a case before,” Hobbes muttered as he picked his way through blackberry thorns up the hill, “I’ve never gone looking for a rut to help a case.”

“Okay, funny man, double time,” Eve ribbed her partner with a smile over her shoulder. “March!”

The pair of agents picked their way carefully through the thick bramble up the hill, following the little rut as it ran back to the gulch. Behind her, Eve heard her partner sniffing loudly. For a split second, she thought she’d made him cry. Then she realized that he was simply sniffing the air.

“What’s up there?” she asked, “You got a case of the allergies?”

“No,” Hobbes replied, “I was just wondering if I smelled something funny. Do you smell anything in the air?”

Eve paused, lifting her nose and taking a few strong, intentional sniffs.

“Wet soil, trees, moss,” Eve listed the aromas her nose picked up, “Outdoor air. We don’t get much of that up in Quantico. You’re probably just not used to the climate.”

“It’s not that,” Hobbes said, shaking his head and taking another noisy sniff. “I keep thinking I smell chemicals. Not strong, but kind of…everywhere.”

The young agent knelt down once again, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. Using the tip of his own folding knife, he dug up a small clump of soil from the bottom of the rut. Holding it up in his palm, he wafted the scent of the dirt into his nose, then looked soberly up the hill at Eve.

“It definitely has a chemical aroma,” Hobbes reported.

“Bag it,” Eve said, “We should take a soil sample back to the lab. It’s possible that the soil itself is acidic enough to corrupt the DNA of the remains if they were buried. Maybe the blackberry thicket grew over it, and water from the gulch eroded the soil away. Or it’s possible that the same chemical dump that corrupted the body also affected the soil in this area. Either way, it will give us something to match against the chemical signature from the autopsy.”

While Hobbes busied himself bagging the little handful of dirt, Eve gazed around. The quiet forest made no response to this development. She’d reached the place where the rut met the gulch. Standing in the dry gulch bed, she could now see that it carved up the hill and snaked off to the right, where it disappeared into a large, earthy knoll. There was a shadow in the knoll that she slowly recognized to be the mouth of a pipe.

“I think I see where our chemical river flowed from,” Eve called back. Hobbes tucked the evidence bag of soil away in his coat pocket and hurried up the hill after her. He scrambled along the rocky bed of the gulch behind her as Eve approached the knoll.

The trees were thicker around the knoll than in the surrounding woods, with many young saplings competing for the already limited sunlight. They had a dreary, sagging quality to them, Eve thought as they approached, although perhaps that was only the grim shadow of death that hung over the whole place since the murder.

The mouth of the tunnel was about four feet in diameter. Peering back into corrugated tin depths was to stare into a void of utter darkness. Eve freed her pistol from its holster, leaving the safety on, and switched on the ultra-high beam tac-light mounted under the barrel. The light showed her a long stretch of metal pipe, bone dry. There was no natural light visible anywhere down the line.

Switching the light back off, Eve stored her pistol back in the holster and took out her knife once again. She scraped a layer of residue off the inside of the pipe and dropped it deftly into a plastic evidence bag.

Just as she was sealing the bag shut, every muscle in Eve’s body suddenly went tense, every hair on her neck and arms standing rigidly on point.

What was that sound?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 Eve turned her head sharply in the direction of the noise, her body crouching instinctively into a defensive stance, her fist tightening around the handle of her open knife. She stuffed the evidence bag hastily in her pocket so that she wouldn’t lose it if she suddenly had to run or fight.

In the stillness of the dense woods, nothing moved. Eve’s eyes scanned the trees and shadows, the thick underbrush, the knolls and dips. There were a dozen places where a human could lay motionless, practically invisible. There could be a rifle pointed at them, a narrow barrel poking out the leaves, no more than a stick to look at, that would bring instant death to them both.

Eve’s heart was pounding in her temples as four years of war-torn memories charged through her mind in a terrifying blur of gunshots and protocols. Her eyes were alert for any movement, any flash of reflected sunlight off a scope, anything that suggested a human presence.

Then again, it could be an animal. Wildlife was even less observant of trespassing policies than the children. There were bound to be all kinds of creatures living in the trees or burrowed in the infected ground. It was important, Eve knew, not to let her nerves get the best of her.

Hobbes, whose keen sense of smell apparently did not extend to his hearing, reacted only to Eve's sudden tension. He hurried up the hill to his partner's side, his hand itching towards his weapon.

“What is it?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. She waved him quiet with a quick motion, like a conductor silencing a musician.

For a moment, even the ambient sounds of the forest seemed to come to a complete halt. Eve felt her heartbeat. It felt like an eon passed before it beat again.

Then there was a sound like leaves crackling under heavy boots. Up the hill, behind a dense grove of young trees, Eve spied a figure struggling up the hill at great speed, ignoring the trails entirely. At least, Eve thought it was a person. The general size and orientation was right for a human being, but the shape was obtuse and blob-like. Green and brown sprigs of foliage stuck off the running shape in all directions.

“There!” Eve called to Hobbes, pointing up the hill and yanking her gun out before breaking out into a sprint. The shape was a good distance away and making remarkable speed as it darted through the trees away from the agents. “Runner in a ghillie suit! Take him!”

Without another word, both agents were sprinting up the hill for all they were worth. The terrain was rough, the brambles thick and grabbing at their cuffs and heels. Hobbes fell behind quickly as the soles of his leather loafers found the uphill journey in the loose soil even more difficult than the downward one.

The deep-grooved treads of Eve’s military surplus jungle boots, however, dug into the hillside like cleats. She churned up soil and underbrush with fury, her muscles burning and her lungs heaving as she struggled through the run.

“Stop!” she yelled out breathlessly, “FBI! Federal Agents! Hold it!”

It was no use. The figure reached the crest of the hill. For only an instant, Eve got the impression that he turned to look back. The face was a blur against the horizon, eyes covered by tinted lenses, features hidden in the deep shag of the ghillie suit.

Then the figure turned and disappeared over the horizon.

Eve was closing in fast, but not fast enough. She heard the sound of an engine kicking over from up ahead, and she muttered curses as she came to the top of the hill. Panting and spitting, she only just caught a glimpse of the tail end of a motorcycle as it tore away. She leveled her weapon and for a single, golden instant she had a bead on his tire, but before she could pull the trigger, the man dressed in a bush banked the bike into a sharp turn and disappeared into the trees.

He must have parked his bike along the side of the same road they’d entered by, Eve realized, only just a few hundred yards further on. Had he followed them there? Or had he been there the whole time? There was no way to know.

Without wasting a second, Eve turned and ran back towards the Charger. The speed bike that the ghillie suit man had escaped on was fast, but in the Charger, there was still a faint hope that she could catch up with him.

As Eve ran back down the road, she heard Hobbes laboring up the hill on her right-hand side.

“Hobbes!” she called out through the trees before she could even see her partner, “Get to the car!”

Without waiting for confirmation that her partner had heard her yelling, Eve ran on down the road. She took the quarter mile at a full sprint, feeling the distance between her and the ghillie suited mystery man growing with every second that passed.

She reached the gravel parking area in under two minutes, and heard the sound of Hobbes crashing up the wooded hill shortly behind her. She reached the Charger about forty yards ahead of him, fumbling with the keys before throwing herself into the driver's seat. She started the ignition, and Charger’s engine roared to life. Hobbes only just managed to secure himself in the passenger seat before Eve was flooring the gas pedal and the muscle car was roaring down the narrow road.

“Did you get a look at him?” Hobbes asked, still heavily winded from the hard run up the hill in his slick leather shoes. Eve shook her head.

“He was wearing a ghillie suit. Sunglasses too, I think, unless they were thermal goggles. Hell, it could have been a motorcycle helmet for as good of a look as I got.” 

“Could you describe him, even generally?” Hobbes asked, “Think hard, Hope.”

Eve screwed up her face with concentration, her hands controlling the wheel with a tight grip. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was maybe six feet tall or a little shorter. That’s all I got, and as far as suspect descriptions go, we both know that’s nothing to go on.” Grinding her teeth savagely, Eve pressed her foot down even harder on the gas pedal, urging more speed out of the car as they bulleted around the hairpin corner, doubling back up the hill. "We've just got to catch up with him and that's that."

The engine thrashed and kicked under the hood as the Charger ate up the single lane road. Eve gripped the wheel, feeling the curves and taking the corners as fast as she could without sending them spinning down the hill. The motorcycle and mysterious shrub astride it were nowhere in sight.

“Get the state troopers on the phone,” Eve told Hobbes, who got his phone out and busied himself at once, “Find out if they have any aerial surveillance crafts in the area monitoring fire and traffic. We need to know where that motorcyclist went.”

“I’m on it,” he said, dialing the phone and holding it up to his ear. Eve scanned the road as the car chewed up the pavement. She could hear Hobbes giving his badge number and verifying his department to the highway patrol over the phone. The only thing that was visible as the road wound up the side of the hill were the distant peaks of the factory smokestacks that they had passed on the way in. Everything else was lost in the trees.

“Hope,” Hobbes said, leaning over to his partner and holding the phone away from his ear, “The state troopers want to know if you got a visual on the bike.”

“It was a speed bike, not a chopper,” Eve said, “Maybe a Kawasaki or a Suzuki, I can’t be sure. I only got a glimpse as he was speeding away. He’s still wearing the ghillie suit, make sure to tell them that.”

As her partner relayed the information, Eve was suddenly confronted by a fork in the road. Following her gut, Eve took the right, keeping their course angled towards the landmark of the smokestacks.

“They’ve got a hit!” Hobbes exclaimed after another moment had passed, “Their fire observation helicopter has spotted a speed bike pulling into the loading bay of the factory shipping yard.”

“Alright,” Eve said, rolling her hands on the wheel, “There’s been too many escapes in this case. It’s time for some answers, even if I have to shake them out of that walking shrub myself.”

It was no difficult task for Eve to locate the grounds of the Solemark Chemical Solutions factory. In fact, she didn’t even need the GPS. All she had to do was keep the great grey peaks of the smokestacks in sight and the single lane road did the rest, bringing her right up to the gate.

Eve braked the Charger about thirty yards from the gate, staring up at the chain link fence that surrounded the factory by a wide berth. There was thick chain and heavy padlock wrapped around the bars of the gate, and a “No Trespassing” sign identical to that which had blocked the trail head was mounted on the links. There was no buzzer, no phone, and no keypad.

“What do we do?” Hobbes asked, looking over at Eve’s profile. Her jaw was set with grim determination, her brows furrowed, her eyes fixed ahead like a hunting dog.

“Hell, it’s a rental,” she muttered, and punched the gas.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Woah, woah, woah!” was all Hobbes had time to scream before the Charger crashed through the gate.

There a horrific sound, the screech of metal as the huge gate bent, fell, and bounced around the car. The hinges and links of the old fence were weak and rusty, but still the car took a significant hit on the way through.

The car dragged the gate for a few feet, then it fell off to the side. There were long scratch marks down both sides of the Charger as well as barbed wire gauges in the roof, but other than this, the vehicle had weathered the impact well, thanks to the reinforced cattle bars on the front of the Charger’s grille.

Eve didn't slow down. Ahead, she could see the wide, sprawling pavement and huge roll-up doors of the shipping bay. All of the garage doors were closed, but the surveillance chopper had reported sighting the motorcycle pulling in here. I’ve come this far, Eve thought to herself as the Charger covered the distance between the gate and the shipping bay, Why slow down now? Nothing can make me turn back.

Even as she had the thought, Eve saw a white sedan come skidding out from behind the large warehouse. The driver fishtailed slightly, correcting the skid, and pointed the nose of the car in the direction of the oncoming Charger. For a moment, it appeared that this newcomer wanted to play a game of chicken. Then, the approaching sedan suddenly turned sharply sideways and slammed the brakes, barring the road that ran from the gate to warehouse.

Now that the vehicle was turned sideways, Eve could see that there was a large company logo printed in blue on the doors, as well as a yellow siren mounted on top, which she had not noticed before. The driver of the car flashed the lights of his siren, then opened the door and got out, holding his hands up to wave the approaching car down. Eve could see that he wore a security guard’s uniform and badge, but wore a sizeable sidearm slung in low holster on his waist.

Her initial instinct was to drive off the road and around the security guard’s car standing in the way, but ultimately she knew that would only cause her more trouble and slow up the investigation, and she couldn’t afford to waste any more time. She’d taken enough of a risk by charging the gate without a warrant, although she reckoned that she could muster probable cause if she had to do so before a judge.

There was only one guard in the car, so the agents had him outnumbered. It was better to get the security guards on board with the investigation, or at the very least in tow. Eve slowed the Charger to a halt about three yards away from the guard and rolled down her window.

“You’ve got to turn it around. There’s no visitor access by this road.” the guard called out as he approached. Eve said nothing, but got out her badge and held it up under the security guard’s nose. He was a short, fat man in his middle thirties with thinning blonde hair that he wore combed straight back on his head. He squinted piggish little eyes at the credentials that Eve held up, then peered at her with a look of annoyance and confusion.

“What’s it all about? There’s nothing going on here that involves the FBI.”

“I would have to disagree with that,” Eve said coolly, “We followed a motorcycle here, the driver of which must have the key to the gate or been let in by somebody inside. We need to speak with the driver of that motorcycle, but we can start with you instead. Did you admit somebody on a motorcycle just a moment ago?”

“I don’t have to tell you that,” the security guard snapped, “And hey! What about our gate? Is the FBI going to pay for the property damage?”

“Sorry about the rude entrance, Security Officer Taylors,” Eve replied, reading the name patch on the man’s lapel, “but we couldn’t find the doorbell. The motorcyclist who is currently sheltering his bike in your warehouse is wanted for questioning in regards to an active murder investigation. Unless you’d like to be charged with the literal obstruction of justice, I suggest that you move your little Ford Fiesta out of the way and get all the warehouse doors open.”

Taylors paled a shade and sucked his fat lips into his mouth so that his face puckered.

“You don’t have a warrant to search those warehouses,” he said, perhaps not as confidently as he’d intended to sound, but he didn’t scamper away to move the car, as Eve had hoped.

She gave him a scowl through her open window, then shook her head and muttered, as if to herself but loud enough for the security guard to hear, “I don’t have to answer to you. I’ll find that motorcycle myself.”

With a sudden rev of the powerful engine, Eve swung the car away from the startled security guard. She sped around the car. In the rearview mirror, she could see the portly security guard running back to his car and lurching behind the wheel. He was following them, his yellow lights still flashing impotently on the roof his car in the Charger’s rear view mirror.

“Think he’s going to give us trouble?” Hobbes asked, glancing anxiously over his shoulder at the car that was now tailing them across the pavement of the shipping bay.

"Not unless he calls in a few buddies," Eve replied with a growl, and pulled the charger to a stop in front of one of the garage doors. Eve killed the engine and stepped out of the Charger, appraising the massive door. There was a manual override switch just outside the loading dock with two large red buttons, one labeled "up" and the other "down."

It couldn’t be that easy, Eve thought to herself as she walked rapidly up the short flight of concrete steps to the platform. Could it?

Taylors, the indignant security guard who was following them, pull his car up behind theirs but didn’t get out right away. Eve could see him through the windshield, looking back at her as he spoke rapidly to someone on a chunky cellular flip phone. Before the guard to do anything to stop her, Eve had reached out and given the “up” button a firm press.

An engine behind the door came loudly to life, groaning like a metal banshee. The massive metal panels slowly began to lift, sliding back over the roof as the motor turned. Eve grinned at her partner and jerked her head inside. Taylors was getting out of his car now, looking uneasy. Eve didn’t want to wait around to find out why.

“Come on, Hobbes,” she called, “We’ve got lost time to make up for.”

With her partner following closely on her heels and the security guard still loitering awkwardly by his car, Eve ducked under the lip of the still-rising door and into the metallic shade of the interior warehouse. Narrow, semi-opaque windows at the top of the building allowed natural light to fall over everything, but the shadows were still deep and murky.

The first thing that either agent noticed was the utterly overwhelming smell of chemicals that permeated the air of the warehouse. Hobbes choked, spluttering to catch his breath, and even Eve – who had been trained to withstand tear gas, knockout gas, and the various exhaust and TNT fumes of combat – found her eyes watering.

“It’s unbearable,” Hobbes wheezed as the agents hurried through the warehouse.

“Cough and spit,” Eve muttered, “Whatever you do, don’t rub your eyes.”

Hobbes managed a nod, and the agents continued through chemical shipping warehouse with eyes alert and weapons drawn.

The next thing they noticed was that the warehouse was one large unit rather than four conjoined units, as the loading bays had led them to believe. The room was organized in a complex labyrinth of shipping pallets, barrels, boxes, and bottles stacked up higher than seemed safe or possible, and still the roof was yet higher still. The massive blades of industrial fans turned slowly in the light of narrow windows, only managing to stir the thick, noxious aroma of the room around and doing nothing to alleviate it.

The aisles that bisected and dissected the warehouse were all large enough to admit an industrial forklift, and no wider. Eve’s heart sank as she considered how many places there were to hide a motorcycle in the warehouse, especially if one were to keep it moving. The overpowering chemical aroma was making her head a little dizzy. She shook herself and gave her face a light slap to center her concentration.

“Check the doors first,” Eve whispered, “Then the aisles extending straight off from the doors. Our ghillie suit man could be anywhere inside this warehouse, and who knows how many other exits there are. We’ve got to hurry.”

Splitting up and setting off at a run, the agents followed the cleared pathways to each of the massive roll-up doors, finding no motorcycle. Eve was just starting down the aisle extending off the third door when she heard Hobbes’s voice echoing a gave a sudden, loud command from the next aisle over.

“Freeze! FBI!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Eve ran as hard as she could, gun in hand, around the tower of crates and down the next aisle to her partner’s side.

Hobbes was standing with his feet spread in a wide, sturdy stance, his gun leveled, his finger resting on the trigger. He stared with wide open eyes at a man and motorcycle trying their best to look inconspicuous in the middle of the aisle, where the bike had fallen over. He was wearing black Dockers work pants and a black t-shirt instead of the ghillie suit, but Eve was sure it was the same motorcycle. The man had his hands up, but Eve recognized the itching look in his face. He was thinking about making a break for it. She could see him planning his route to the nearest exit. She could see his muscles tensing for the run.

“Keep him covered,” Eve muttered to her partner, tucking her pistol away in her holster and beginning to reach for the steel bracelets on her belt. “I’m going to cuff him.”

As she took the first step forward, however, the man seemed to make up his mind. He turned, feinted a left, then cut and took a hard right. With a curse, Eve sprinted after him, her gun still clenched in her fist. She ran around the corner just in time to see the man disappear down yet another narrow aisle. She followed him in, and now she had him. The aisle was a long straightaway with no other turnoffs. She could see a door ahead of them, doubtlessly the man’s intended route, but there was still about a hundred yards between the runner and the door.

She could still outsprint him.

Pumping her legs until the muscles burned with lactic acid, Eve was gaining on him. The man was large and brawny but didn’t look as if he worked cardio into his regimen very often. Already the wind of his sprint was starting to peter out, and there was still about seventy yards between him and the door.

Urging an additional burst of strength from her primed muscles, Eve sprinted harder than ever. She was closing in on the runner, ten yards behind, then five, then two. Eve prepared herself for the rolling tackle.

Just as she was about to fling herself at the fleeing suspect, however, the man suddenly planted his foot and spun around, throwing his momentum into his shoulders.

Eve saw the fist coming just in time. She floated back evasively, allowing the punch to stop just a few inches shy of her chin, the seized the man’s forearm with both hands and hauled him forward, using his own momentum to roll him over her back and toss him to the ground like a sack of flour. The man landed on his back with an oof. Eve positioned herself squarely over him, yanking out her pistol and pointing it straight down between his eyes. He looked up with a combination of fear and rage from his supine position of defeat.

“Don’t move,” Eve growled. Using one hand, she wrestled the handcuffs onto the man’s thick wrists. His face, she could see now that she was close enough and the man was holding still, was smeared with dark brown dirt and green chlorophyll streaks, like grass stains. His chin was overgrown with at least a few days of stubble and smelled as if he had not showered for several days.

“What’s this all about?” he shouted as Eve holstered her weapon. Hobbes came running up a moment later.

“Well, it was about questioning you in regards to the crime scene you’ve clearly been spying on,” Eve said, adding with a scornful click of her tongue, “But you’ve just made our jobs quite a bit easier, because now it’s about assaulting a federal agent.”

“What federal agent?” he sneered, “I thought you were robbers.”

“Sure you did,” Eve said sarcastically, getting her badge out and holding it in front of the brawny man's face. He looked defiantly away.

“I don’t care who you are. I got nothing to say.”

“I disagree,” Eve countered. “You’re going to tell us plenty, starting with your name.”

“Name’s John,” he said.

"John, what?" Eve prompted coldly.

“Johnson,” the man grunted.

“John Johnson?” Eve raised her eyebrows skeptically.

“That’s right,” the man sneered.

“And I’m John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmitt,” Hobbes cut in sardonically, “You’d better start telling us the truth, buddy, or your case is going to get real sorry-looking real fast.”

“Johnson’s my name. My Father was called John. His father was called John, and so was his father. They all named their sons John. What the hell do you want me to do about it?” John Johnson snapped.

“Do you have documentation to back that up, Mr. Johnson?” Eve asked, her tone chilly and unamused.

“Sure,” he said, “It’s in my breast pocket. You’ll have to get it yourself.”

Eve reached into the man's pocket and found a laminated card. Pulling it out, she saw that it was a Solemark Chemical Security ID badge. There was a photo of the burly man, clean-shaven with a buzz cut, glowering at the camera. His name, at least according to the card, really was John Johnson.  The ID also said that he'd been an employee of the chemical company since 2011.

“What’d you do with the ghillie suit, Mr. Johnson?” Eve asked. Johnson feigned ignorance, but the act was thin, and Eve gave him an unapproving stare.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We followed you here from the scene of a crime, Mr. Johnson. My partner and I both saw you near the drainage pipe in the woods, wearing a camouflage cover. When you escaped on your motorcycle, you were still wearing it. You were seen wearing it from the Highway Patrol helicopter when you pulled in here. So my question now is, where did you hide it."

“I got nothing to say to you,” he said, “If you want to arrest me for running away when I thought there were two armed robbers in the warehouse, I guess that’s your goddamn federal business, but I ain’t done anything illegal or that wasn’t my job. If you’re going to try to pin something on me because I happen to be in the area, I’m not saying anything without a lawyer.”

The man shut his mouth like a steel bear trap, staring defiantly up at Eve. She sighed. He would hold true to that last statement, she knew. Reaching down, she hauled the burly man up with a grunt of effort.

“Come on – on your feet. We can talk it all over at the FBI field office.”

The agents escorted Mr. John Johnson out of the warehouse with his hands still tightly bound by the steel handcuffs, passing his overturned Kawasaki in the middle of the aisle. As they passed, Eve spied a green corner of fabric sticking out from behind a large metal drum.

“Hold it a minute,” she called to Hobbes, letting go of her hold on the burly man’s shoulder and doubling back for a second look. She knelt by the side of the barrel drum and pull on the corner of mossy green fabric that stuck out. What followed the little corner of the cloth was a misshapen mass of fake leaves, twigs, green netting, and brown fabric.

“Tsk tsk,” Eve said, holding up the ghillie suit for her partner and the cuffed John Johnson to observe, “I know you were in a hurry, but you could have found a better hiding spot than this.”

The man looked away and grumbling something obscene that Eve couldn’t quite hear. Hobbes gave him a fiercely offended look and a hard shove.

“Alright, potty mouth, keep it pushing,” Hobbes snapped, “And if I hear you mention Special Agent Hope in that manner again, you’ll be one miserable misogynist, I promise.”

With a private smile, Eve watched her partner marching the gruff man back towards the loading bay door. The sunlight spilling in ahead of them almost managed to look cheerful compared with the shadowy gloom of the warehouse they were leaving behind. At last, Eve felt like they had a firm grasp on the case. It wasn’t solved yet, but they’d apprehended a solid lead, and that was something.

As the agents emerged from the warehouse, blinking under the glare of the yellow sun, Eve noticed that the charger was now blocked in by vehicles. Two new cars had arrived without their noticing while the agents were running around inside the warehouse. The first was another white sedan, the Solemark company logo printed in blue over the doors. The other was a luxury vehicle, a sleek silver Mercedes coupe with a long hood and wide rear racing tires.

Eve’s muscle’s tensed with apprehension as she remembered the urgent look on Security Officer Taylors’s face when he was talking on his cell phone. He must have called for backup. She could see him standing by, along with two other security officers. The driver of the Mercedes was still seated behind the wheel. All appeared to be waiting for the agent’s return.

As the agents approached the Charger, flanking their captured suspect on either side, the door of the Mercedes opened.

The man that stepped out wore a grey suit that matched the color of his vehicle’s body paint almost exactly. He was bald except for the grey hair that grew on his temples and around the base of his skull. Even so, it was hard to tell the man’s age right away. He could have been fifty or seventy, Eve thought. Either way, he struck an ominous figure compared to the tubby security guards that flanked him.

“Ignore them,” Eve muttered to Hobbes, “We’re federal agents performing our duties. We’re not making any statements at this time. Just make sure that Johnson ends up in the car.”

"Excuse me!" the grey-suited man called out. A chilling, bloodless smile that was no doubt intended to be disarming spread across the lower half of his face like a disease. "Why are you hassling my employees?"

Eve said nothing, but opened the back door of the Charger. Hobbes began pushing Johnson down into the backseat. The grey-suited man quickened his pace, the wide grin still plastered across his face as he approached the car. Eve eyed him suspiciously.

“Excuse me!” he called again, although now he was standing quite near, “I know you hear me. Tell me what you’re doing on this property.”

Eve got her badge out and held it up in front of the man’s face.

“FBI,” Eve said bluntly, “Please step away, sir. Do not interfere.”

“This man is my employee and I demand an explanation for this…this…” the grey suited man spluttered theatrically as he groped for the proper adjective, “this thuggish kidnap of my company’s security officer.”

"Is that what he is?" Eve asked, closing the door so that John Johnson was sealed in the back seat of the Charger and turning hotly to put her face inches from the man's. "He's not dressed like your other guards, and about fifteen minutes ago we found him dressed like a bush and spying on an active crime investigation. When we followed him here, he tried to assault me. Now he's under arrest. He will face charges, and the investigation will continue. Now, please remove your vehicles, or I will be forced to charge you with obstruction of justice as well."

She stared into the grey man’s grey eyes. Everything about him was ashen, colorless, except for the scarlet red handkerchief that stuck rakishly out of his breast coat pocket. There was something missing from his eyes, Eve thought as she scoured his face with the critical profiler’s scrutiny.

It was fear.

There was a total absence of fear in the grey man’s face. He was not afraid, not really, of anything that the FBI agents would do to his employees, or to himself for that matter. There was only the cold, calculating intelligence of an architect visualizing the angles of a structure and scaffolds yet to be.

“I understand, Eve,” the grey man said, catching the agent off guard by using her first name. She shook her head as if she’d been slapped. The old man smiled. “I may call you Eve?” It was a question by inflection only.

“Special Agent Hope,” she corrected. “Who are you?”

“Me?” the grey man’s smile didn’t flag at all, pointing at his own chest, “I’m the man charge, get it? I’m Hewlett Coburn, Senior Vice President of Operations for the Solemark Chemical Solutions Corporation and its subsidiaries. If you’re from around here, you’ve heard of me and I’ve probably already met you.”

“We’re not from around here,” Eve said coldly. “Are you aware that there was a human cadaver discovered on your company’s property, Mr. Coburn?”

“Of course,” the grey man’s smile did not diminish at all. “The county sheriff told me right away. After all, they had to access my property in order to remove the remains. But that does nothing to explain why you’ve so callously manhandled Mr. Johnson into your vehicle.”

“Doesn’t it, Hewlett?” Eve said, turning it around on the man by using his first name unprompted, as he had done to her. “We followed him here from the crime scene. His attempts to flee and resist arrest make him our prime suspect. He’s being brought in for questioning.”

“There must be some kind of misunderstanding,” Coburn said smoothly, combing his fingers through the fine hair around his temples. “This man is a trusted officer of our company security force. Whatever he was doing, I’m sure it was simply under the jurisdiction of his regular duties. I’ve heard nothing about a suspect from the county sheriff’s office.”

“The county sheriff is a little preoccupied at the moment,” Eve said.

“May I speak with him, please?” Coburn asked with another plastic smile, “I’m sure we can get this all straightened out.”

“Unless you’re his lawyer, no you may not. Now, remove your vehicles from the path. Stay in town, Mr. Coburn. When I get through with Mr. Johnson, I may have some questions for you as well.”

This last comment seemed to check the man’s smile at last. It wavered, if only for an instant. Then he ducked his bald head and nodded, swallowing.

“Here is my professional card, which has the phone number of my personal assistant, who will know my whereabouts at all times. Please give her a call if you need to speak with me again. I will move the car." Before Eve could stop him, Coburn knocked on the window of the Charger.

“Do not worry, Mr. Johnson,” he said in a loud voice, the wide plastic smile snapping instantly back into place as he gave the man a friendly wave through the tinted glass. “Your lawyer will be sent along without delay. We’ll have you out of there before your shift is over.”

“We’ll see about that,” Eve muttered to herself as the man turned away and got back into his gleaming Mercedes. He flagged the security guards to clear away their patrol cars, then started his own engine. Eve saw him glowering at them through the windshield as he pulled away. She glowered back at him, then turned the key and started the engine.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“The attorney’s here,” Hobbes said.

“Already?” Eve looked up from the evidence form she was filling out, following due process as she checked the ghillie suit into evidence at the FBI field office. They’d booked John Johnson into holding only a few minutes ago. The man wouldn’t have had time to even sit down in his holding cell.

“I guess Coburn came through on his word,” Hobbes said, “I got a some intel on the attorney, too. Amanda Brownstone, and boy does she look expensive. Not a county-ordained public defender, if her Versace purse is any tell. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“It makes me wonder what – or who – Coburn is really protecting. Is it Johnson? If not, what’s going on here that Coburn and Johnson both don’t want us uncovering?” Eve pursed her lips into a brooding pout as she mulled the questions over.

“Well, the good news is that we can start the interrogation right away, since we don’t have to wait around for the lawyer,” Hobbes said.

“Right,” Eve said, returning to the paperwork and jotting the final few signatures with a hasty flourish. “Let’s go.”

The agents stood side by side in the observation theater attached to the interrogation room where John Johnson sat next to his attorney. The attorney, as Hobbes had described, was a small woman of thin, birdlike build. Her blonde hair was tied up behind her in a little orb of gold, and she stared with piercing blue eyes at the mirrored glass, almost as if she were staring right into Eve’s eyes.

Eve bristled with immediate dislike for the woman. Of course, it was impossible for the attorney to see the agents in the observation theater. The blonde attorney could see nothing other than the reflection of herself and her client in the glass. Still, there hung about her an air of patronizing, almost amused confidence that set Eve’s teeth on edge.

Turning to her partner, Eve said quietly, “I want you in that interrogation room with me, Hobbes. I don’t like the way these numbers are stacked, and I don’t like the look that attorney is giving us.”

“But she can’t see…” Hobbes started, but Eve cut him off with a quick shake of her head.

“She knows we’re back here. The game of confidence has already started, and she wants to get a leg up. I want you in the room with me, and I want you to look as mean as your pretty boy face will allow. Let me do the talking, though. No offense, of course, but we're going to need to keep things tight and pointed in there. Let them make assumptions on your silence. It'll do us more good than any threats or scares you can throw into them. They’ll want to think of me of as Good Cop anyway – subconsciously, at least – because I’m a woman. That will be our advantage. If you just look like you want to bash a skull in, they won’t pay as much attention to my strategy.”

“Copy that,” Hobbes said, putting a dramatic grimace on his face and leering at his partner. “How’s this?”

Eve shook her head. “Take about fifty percent off her, there, Hobbes,” she said. “Just stay quiet and look angry.”

Hobbes opened the door of the interrogation room and held it for Eve to enter first. The attorney stood up at once as the agents entered, shutting the door behind them.

“Special Agent Hope, I understand that you’re in charge of the Jane Doe murder investigation in Jones County, is that correct?” the attorney’s voice had a clipped, biting quality to it as she wasted no time on pleasantries.

Shit, Eve thought, maybe I’m Bad Cop after all.

“That’s correct,” Eve said aloud, not letting the thought show on her face at all.

“My client is innocent of that crime, Agent Hope,” the attorney said.

"And who are you?" Eve asked, brushing past the woman without a second glance and seating herself at the table directly across from where John Johnson sat with his hands fettered and his expression sour. The attorney's face turned almost as bitter as her client’s at the question.

“They didn’t tell you who I was?” she forced a laugh and took the chair next to Johnson. “Oh, honey, you have no idea what’s coming. Johnny, you’ll be out of here in half an hour, mm-kay?”

“They didn’t tell me,” Eve said calmly, “And neither have you. So now we’re wasting everybody’s time while I ask again. Who are you?”

The woman cocked her head at Eve. Her lips smiled, but there was all the hatred of hellfire in her azure blue irises.

“Amanda Brownstone,” she said, putting slight emphasis on each syllable, as if pronouncing her name for a child. The haughty smirk came out again, and this time Eve allowed only the very corners of her own lips to turn up in a cold smile. Brownstone took out a sharp-cornered business card and set it on the table. Eve eyed the card without touching it. It showed the attorney’s name and phone number, printed in crisp black lettering. Underneath these, it simply read Solemark Legal Arm.

Hobbes, playing his role in perfect silence, seated himself next to Eve and set down the manilla file folder on the tabletop.

“Thank you, Hobbes,” Eve said politely, reaching out to slide the file to the middle of the table and flipping it open. The first page was a large snapshot of the remains laid out on the coroner’s table.”

“My client had nothing to do with that,” said Brownstone again, implying with her tone that she did not like repeating herself. “You have no reason to keep him in holding any longer, and he’s much needed at work. I’m sure you can appreciate how demanding Mr. Coburn can be. You’re putting my client in a highly uncomfortable position by keeping him here.”

“What is it exactly that you do for Solemark Chemical Solutions, Mr. Johnson?” Eve asked, pointedly direction her inquiry the hulking, surly figure of Johnson.

“Mr. Johnson is a Security Officer employed directly by Solemark Chemical Solutions,” Brownstone spoke up, answering for her client. “The details of his contract, as well as the specifics of any assignments he may be given, are all sealed by Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete agreements.”

“Why so much energy spent on keeping a security contract confidential?” Eve asked. Brownstone gave her another cool smile.

“The business practices of Solemark are not under investigation here,” she replied.

Eve chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, her eyes shifting over to the stony face of Johnson. He was staring angrily into Hobbes’s eyes and doing a better job of intimidating the agent than visa versa. Eve looked back at the attorney.

“And what about you, Ms. Brownstone?” Eve asked. The woman blinked, somewhat startled by the question.

“Excuse me?”

“What is, exactly, that you do for Solemark Chemical Solutions?” Eve repeated herself. “Do you spend all your time defending employees from homicide investigators do you have other dirt under your fingernails too?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant to my client’s case, or your retention of him here in this draconian holding facility.” The attorney casting a disapproving look around the interrogation room as if rating a hotel with poor accommodations.

"It's relevant if Solemark has a history of criminal activity," Eve countered, making a mental note to do some digging into the chemical company and specifically their legal branch as soon as she was out of the interrogation room. "It may not be relevant at all if Mr. Johnson could see his way to giving us an account of what he was doing dressed in military camouflage near an active crime scene. If you give us a story that we like and believe, we may even be able to take some the heat off your assault charge." Eve sucked air through her teeth and gave Johnson an appealing look, trying once again to urge an answer out of her silent suspect rather than the attorney.

“I have the right to say nothing,” Johnson grunted. Brownstone gave him an approving smile, but it faded as the man muttered under his breath, “Anyway, I was just doing what I was told.”

“What was that, Mr. Johnson?” Eve asked, leaning forward eagerly.

“You don’t have to say anything, John,” his attorney advised, her tone of voice suggesting that it would really be better for everybody if he said nothing at all.

“There’s no use in denying it,” Eve said, “We’ve got two eyewitnesses placing you at the scene of the crime after the fact. Highway Patrol spotted you on your motorcycle wearing the ghillie suit, and we found both the motorcycle and the ghillie suit in the shipping warehouse. We know that you were at the scene of the discovery site, and we know that you didn’t want to be seen there. If you’ve got a rational explanation for what you were doing there, now would be the time.”

“Why did you say, ‘discovery site’?” Brownstone asked with a spark of inspiration in her eye that made Eve a little nervous. She imagined that the thin, bird-like woman became a hawk when cross-examining a witness, circling from above before zeroing in on a weak point in the story, ripping prosecution cases to shreds with her combination of precise wit and smoldering looks. “A moment ago, you were calling it a crime scene. It sounds to me like you don't have your facts straight. Perhaps, Agent Hope, you have a little more evidence before you go accusing hard working employees. This man's life is not just another tally for your arrest record."

Eve was taken aback. She squinted at the attorney suspiciously.

“You know who I am?” she asked. The attorney smirked knowingly.

“Of course,” she said, and something about her tone of voice sent an uneasy chill down Eve’s spine. “We all know about you, Eve Hope. You and your family.”

Just then, there was a knock on the mirrored glass window behind the agent’s backs. Eve looked back with an expression of confused annoyance on her face that showed in the reflective glass.

“Saved by the bell,” Brownstone said in a low jeer. Eve’s fists clenched with frustration and dislike for the attorney. There was nothing to do but keep her cool, collect up her files, and stalk quickly out of the room.

In the hallway outside the interrogation room, a short, brown haired man whom Eve recognized as one fo the desk agents from the field office was waiting for them.

“What is it?” Eve asked impatiently, trying to remind herself that she need not take the man’s head off. It was that attorney’s head she really wanted, and maybe John Johnson’s too. The desk agent cleared his throat nervously.

“I’m sorry for interrupting your interrogation, but there’s a phone call for you. It’s from Dr. Graham at the county morgue. She told me that it was important, and that I was to fetch you at once no matter what you were doing.”

“Alright,” Eve said, “Thanks. Where’s the phone?”

“Got one in the observation theater,” the desk agent replied, pointing at the door with a jerk of his thumb, “I transferred the call to that extension. You should have total privacy on that line.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and pulled open the door of the observation theater.

The phone was a large, old-fashioned landline connected by a curly-que cable to a wall-mounted cradle. Eve had not noticed the black plastic phone against the dark grey interior of the theater walls when she was in the room before. Now she strode across the room and seized the phone off the cradle, holding the receiver to her ear.

“Special Agent Hope,” she said into the mouthpiece.

“Ah, good, I’ve got you at last,” Dr. Graham’s voice came across the line. “I’ve been trying to reach you for nearly an hour.”

“Sorry, things got a little hectic out in the field,” Eve replied.

“Well, I’ve got some news that will help you and your partner get a better handle on things,” said the coroner. Eve’s heart rose at the words. At last, pieces of the puzzle were starting to clear up. It was still a muddled picture with many pieces missing, but Eve couldn’t help the sudden sense of relief that came with Dr. Graham’s reassurance.

“Whatever you’ve found out, sock it to me. We need good news badly,” Eve admitted. “What have you got?”

“We’ve identified the victim,” said Dr. Graham evenly, and Eve nearly dropped the phone.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“You’ve identified the victim?” Eve repeated the coroner’s words, hardly able to believe it. After so many setbacks, the simplicity of this basic bit of information seemed exquisite and pure. “What’s her name?”

“Her name was Roselynn Casey,” said Dr. Graham, “We’re sending you a complete dossier now. We pulled and compiled all her files and records from the FBI database. She’s local, and from what I can tell she seems to fit the victim profile of the Swallowtail Killer.”

I’ll be the judge of that, thank you, Eve thought, but out loud she only said, “Thank you.” She cleared her throat, glancing through the window at her suspect and his attorney, who were taking to the opportunity to whisper together in conference while the agents were out of the room.

“How did you manage to make the identification?” Eve asked, “Did you salvage some usable DNA after all?”

“Negative,” Dr. Graham replied clinically, “As a matter of fact, identifying the remains of Roselynn Casey was one of the easiest IDs I’ve made recently. We did an x-ray almost as soon as we got started, as per protocol, and we found that the victim had several metal pins and rods in her shoulder and elbow. Those were more protected than the flesh and exterior of the skeleton, so we could still get the serial numbers. The pins were from a compound fracture the victim sustained decades ago. According to her hospital records, she injured herself in a gymnastics class when she was eight. Imagine that. If she hadn’t broken her arm when she was a little girl, we may have never discovered who she was after she died.”

“Wow,” Eve murmured. “Really makes you think. And what about cause of death? Have you made any progress?”

“My current theory is that she was stabbed once in the heart, but of course, without a heart to show puncture wounds, I’m basing that conjecture on the knicks we found between the ribs. By that same logic, we’ve estimated that the murder weapon is a narrow, non-serrated blade at least six inches long. The rest you can read in the dossier.”

“Thanks Dr. Graham,” Eve said, “One more question – were you able to identify the chemical signature of the acid that corrupted Casey’s DNA?”

“Yes,” said the coroner over the phone, “We were able to isolate the chemical and trace it back to a Solemark Chemical Solutions Company patent from 1973. Officially it’s called Mercuric Hydro-Hexachlorophene 09; a hexachlorophene variation that was once widely used in pesticides and degreasing agents. This particular variation has shockingly high levels of both mercury and hydrochloric acid, making it far too dangerous for public retail. It’s been a banned substance since 1998.”

“Huh,” Eve said, scratching her head with puzzlement at last addition to the curious case. “What was she doing soaking in a chemical that’s been banned since 1998. It shouldn’t be in production anymore.”

“Now we’ve drifted out of my field of expertise,” said Dr. Graham, “Field work is your business. Data and analysis – that’s where I belong.”

“And thank god you do,” Eve said, “because we’ve got some more evidence for you to analyze. I’m going to send along a few soil samples we collected from the discovery site of the body. I want to find out if they contain that hydro-hexa-whatever you called it acid.”

“It shouldn’t take more than an hour to tell you if they’re a match or not once we have the samples,” said Dr. Graham.

“Great, I’ll send those to you right away. Thanks, Dr. Graham. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

Eve hung up the phone and looked at her partner, who was standing quietly by her side. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“What’s the good news?” he asked. Eve gave him a solemn nod.

“The forensic team has identified the body,” she said, “The woman was named Roselynn Casey. They’re sending along her dossier now. We can put John Johnson back in holding until we’ve caught up on the victim’s details. Maybe it will clear up what he was doing there, and what this chemical company has do with our dead woman.”

Twenty minutes later, the agents were seated in a cozy conference room in the east wing of the field office. They both had their laptops, the existing files of the case folder spread out on the table between them. Eve scrolled and clicked through the various digital files and photocopied records that made up the unfortunate victim’s dossier. The life of the woman, reconstructed by her paperwork, told a brief and domestic story that did not explain her bathing in chemicals and winding up a skeleton in the woods.

Roselynn Marla Ross was born in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1994 to parents Mark and Cindy Ross. With the exception of her hospital visit where her broken arm was set with pins in 2002, little Roselynn appeared to have led a quiet childhood, at least on paper. She received her driver’s license at age seventeen but did not own her first car until she was twenty. She attended a junior college in Saint Louis, earning an associate’s degree in 2015 and going on to a bachelor’s from a small university in Kansas. In 2018, shortly after graduation, she married Robert Casey, taking his last name. The couple bore no children and had no living relatives. Robert Casey reported his wife missing 2021.

Eve stopped reading, blinking at the page to ensure that she had not misread. 2021? If Roselynn Casey had been missing that long, then the case was even colder than they thought.

It also meant that the murder had most likely been committed while her father was still locked up in the maximum security hovel in Red Onion. This wasn’t the work of the Swallowtail Killer, then, but somebody who wanted to make it look like the return of a famous serial killer.

Unless it was the new Swallowtail Killer.

The thought floated up from somewhere in the murky twilight regions of Eve’s subconscious. The surprising conversation with her sister in Eve’s living room, which now seemed so many ages ago, returned to the forefront of her mind with the whanging force of a boomerang.

There’s a sect of believers who think that the Swallowtail Killer has been many people, over the years. But why? What does it mean? And what does it have to do with Roselynn Casey?

The questions swam in frustrated circles around Eve’s mind, providing more answers. More than once while the agents worked in mutual silence, Eve considered the possibility of asking Hobbes’s advice on the bit of encrypted intel that Lily had left in her care. But Hobbes was bound to have questions, and it wouldn’t be long before he was asking when Eve had been in contact with her sister and had there been any other family members about on the visit. Eve did not want to lie to her partner, but she didn’t know exactly what he would do with the information if she did confide him. He might keep her confidences, or he might report it all back to Pliny without a second thought. After all, he’d been on the manhunt squad searching for Howard Hope just before he was reassigned to the new case. It was possible that Pliny had partner with Hobbes simply so that he could spy on her, observe her movements, keep tabs on her communications, in case she tried to make contact with her father. She would be more likely to trust him than a new partner, after all.

“You’re being paranoid,” Eve told herself. Hobbes looked up.

“Huh?” he grunted, holding his hand to his ear to signal that had not heard. Eve realized that she’d spoken the thought out loud.

“Nothing,” Eve said, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes. “Just talking to myself. I need a cup of coffee. You want one?”

“Wait till I’m dead and feed it to me through a tube,” Hobbes replied, making a face. He hated government coffee, as anybody who respected a gourmet bean would. He would drink it, but only in an emergency.

An hour had crept by while the agents did their background homework, and the afternoon was stretching into evening. Eve stood in front of the large, uninspiring coffee machine, watching it dispense scalding black brew into a paper cup. She took the cup out and threw coffee back, wincing as it burned her throat. At least it was free.

Alone in the breakroom kitchenette, Eve crumpled the paper cup and threw it away, then stood for a moment, leaning on the counter and gazing pensively at the floor. Her hand slipped into her pocket and drew out the little plastic thumb drive. It was such a small, simple thing to hold, but who could say what it contained. The information inside could save lives, or ruin them all over again. It could heal old wounds, or it could tear away scabs that she’d thought long since scarred over.

It was almost better not to know.

Almost.

In any case, Eve decided that she wouldn’t tell Hobbes anything, wouldn’t let on about her private lead until she was sure what it meant herself. She had to be certain of every move she made now. One wrong choice, and everything that she hardly allowed herself to hope would slip through her fingers.

Eve slipped the thumb drive back into the safe depths of her pocket as she returned to the conference room. The conspiracy would wait. Her new lead on the murder case would not.

Hobbes looked up from his laptop as Eve resettled herself at the table.

“What about the husband?” he asked, as if continuing an unspoken thought without context or explanation.

“What about him?” Eve asked, squinting at her computer screen as she searched for the files on the victim’s husband. Robert Casey, born 1986 in Jones Valley, went away to college at the same small Kansas university as his wife a few years her senior, earned a degree in journalism and then returned to Jones Valley to take a job as a scoop reporter for the Valley Herald, which was the county’s largest newspaper. He reported his wife missing in March of 2021, but the investigation turned up nothing at the time.

Not surprising, Eve thought, given the state of the local law enforcement. They could barely keep up with their death records, let alone a years-old Missing Persons case. For the last two years, Roselynn had been listed as missing, presumed dead. Now, at least, her file would have a little finality to it.

“I think we should go talk to her husband,” Hobbes said, tapping a mechanical pencil against his chin thoughtfully. “I noticed something odd about his records.”

“What is it?” Eve asked, giving her partner a curious squint.

“Well, he kind off falls of the radar shortly after his wife goes missing,” Hobbes said, “There’s no more record of his news column after February of 2021 – before Roselynn goes missing. Then, in April, he cancels his cell phone plan, internet provider, utility services, car payments – everything. He just dries up and blows away, as far as his paper trail is concerned.”

“So, do you think he killed his wife, tried to pass it off as work of a famous serial killer, then disappeared himself?” Eve tried out the theory. It didn’t quite have the ring of reason to it, but it wasn’t altogether awful either. Hobbes frowned.

“That’s one possibility,” he said, “Or perhaps he was the next victim of whoever killed his wife.”

“Oh,” Eve said, “Yeah, that’s possible too. You’re right, we’d better find him. One way or another, this man needs to be in our custody. Does he still have a registered address?”

“He did two years ago,” Hobbes said. “It wasn’t cancelled, but there hasn’t been any activity or outgoing mail.”

“Just give me the address,” Eve said, getting up hastily and shutting her laptop, “Let’s go check it out while there’s still a little daylight left.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Charger growled to a stop by the sidewalk in a small, residential suburb on the southern outskirts of Jones Valley. The houses on the street were all the same model of post-war cookie-cutter family homes. All was gentle and quiet in the golden hour of early evening. In the distance, an old hound dog sounded a mournful bay and subsided. There was the smell of chimney smoke in the air.

The agents stepped out of the Charger, looking up and down the street. The quaintness of the little cul-de-sac was not what Eve had expected, but appearances could be deceiving. After all, her own childhood home had harbored a ravenous killer the whole time she was growing up, hadn’t it?

Hadn’t it?

Shaking off the ever-present question, Eve quickened her pace along the sidewalk, eyeing the house numbers. They’d parked a short distance down the block so as not to alert the suspect if was still residing at his old address. The agents approached their destination now cautiously, hanging back behind a convenient neighboring hedge.

“This is the place,” Eve said, peering through the leaves of the tall shrub at the little house on the dingy lot. The yard had gone to waste, with a few scraps of brown grass sticking out of the dead soil here and there. The house, settled far back on the lot, was a small, dilapidated single story cottage with dirty windows all plastered over with news paper. The roof appeared to be sagging in on one side of the house, and the stairs that led up to the front door were rotting visibly.

As the agents approached, Eve could see that the door hung slightly ajar, the wooden doorjamb splintered as if had once been kicked in. Drawing her pistol and turning on the tac-light, Eve motioned for Hobbes to cover her back. Her partner nodded, drawing his weapon out of its holster and taking up his position on the opposite side of the door.

The agents made eye contact, and Hobbes gave Eve a ready nod. She reached out and pushed the door open, shining the beam of her light into the violated house. The floor was dirty, the old runner rug in the hallway faded and rumpled. The hallway beyond was plunged in darkness.

Eve stepped inside. There was a light switch by the door, and Eve gave it a halfhearted flick, but was not surprised when nothing happened. She stepped further into the hallway.

“FBI!” she called out, her voice echoing emptily through the house, “Mr. Casey! Come out if you’re present here. We need to speak with you.”

The yawing darkness of the house yielded no response. Eve could hear Hobbes close behind her, drawing deep, steady breaths. Encouraged, she advanced down the hallway and into the little kitchen. This, too, was empty. She looked around. Attached to the kitchen was a small living room with a dingy sofa and coffee table. A flat-screen TV that looked at least ten years old was mounted on the wall, powerless and dark. Everything is covered by a thick layer of dust.

Following the hallway back down the other side of the house, the agents checked two bedrooms, one of which had been converted into an office with two desks. There were old, yellowing papers sitting on both desks. In the bedroom, the bed was unmade, the bathroom scattered with lonely looking toiletries that had been untouched for God knows how long.

All was clear and empty. The house was deserted.

“What do you think, Hope? Dead?” Hobbes asked in a grave voice as the agents holstered their weapons. The light filtering through the newspapers plastered over all the windows was grey and dreary. Eve shook her head.

“I don’t know.” She sniffed the air. There was a the musty scent of wood rot and unkept dust, but there was not the sharp, cadaverous odor of death present. “There’s something we’re missing about all this. Let’s give this place a good searching over, huh?”

Hobbes nodded, and the agents set to work, tearing down some of the newspapers from the windows to let in the last golden glow of sunlight.

They started in the bedroom, finding old abandoned laundry in the corners of the closet. The whole place had an odd aura about it, as if somebody had come through and cleared the place out, but not very thoroughly, taking only select items and leaving the rest where it fell. There were no computers anywhere, although the television was still on the wall, suggesting that the house had not been burgled. Likewise, the wires still stuck out from the phone and ethernet hookups in the wall, although the devices they were attached to had been cut off and disposed of somewhere.

In the kitchen, Eve tore more newspaper off the large central window over the sink and counter. There was a small yard in the back, she could now see, which the kitchen door let out upon. Peering through the dirty window pane, Eve saw that yard had been turned into an impromptu scrap yard. The satellite dish had been ripped off the roof and thrown down on the ground, as well a computer tower, Wi-Fi modem, and all manner of electronic devices.

The scene smacked of the same paranoid chaos that Eve had seen in the chief coroner’s office, she thought as an eerie feeling crawled up and down her skin. Was there something in this town that was driving its citizens to paranoid lunacy? Was it the collective fear that the murder investigation stirred up? Or an undercurrent of a much deeper rooted madness that coursed through the very soil of the place.

Beyond the piles of junk and abandoned appliances, there was an old, weather-beaten airstream trailer. There appeared to be a generator attached to it.

“Hobbes,” Eve said, “There’s a trailer out back. Looks like he’s got some kind of auxiliary power hooked up. Let’s go check it out. Keep your guard up. If Casey is out there, we don’t know what condition he’s in, mentally or physically. We can’t afford another manic runner in this case.”

“Copy that,” Hobbes said, “I’ll keep close on your six.”

The agent moved together out of the little house and into the junked backyard. The sun was setting in earnest now, casting long purple shadows from the scrap heaps that formed odd, distorted shapes across the dead lawn. Eve took out her pistol once again. The brilliant beam of her tac-light jumped to life, dancing over the reflective silver side of the airstream. Eve crept up on the door, which was shut. With a final nod to Hobbes, Eve reached forward, gripping the doorknob.

It turned with a creak. Eve threw the door open and charged up the steps. She felt the weight of the trailer shift as she came on board, shining her light over the scattered blankets and dirty dishes of a recently lived-in trailer. The trailer was filled with the static whine of a ham radio that was sitting on the fold-down table. A pair of headphones hung from a long cable beside it.

Eve took another step into the trailer, shining the beam over all the corners. There were newspapers plastered all over the walls and ceiling, as over the windows in the house. The trailer was disheveled, but empty.

“Mr. Casey? We’re with the FBI!” she called out. Hobbes stepped into the doorway after her, poking his head around.

“Anything?” he asked.

Eve was about to say no, when suddenly she saw a second door on the other side of the trailer. It was hanging open. She could see the dusky sky outside.

Eve turned suddenly, alarm raising in her blood. Before she could form the words to warn her partner, however, both agents were suddenly paralyzed by the unmistakable sound of somebody racking a shotgun.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Alright," came the raspy voice from outside the trailer, behind Hobbes's back. "No sudden movements, now. I've got you covered. Try anything fancy, and you'll find your lungs full of buckshot before you know it."

The agents stood frozen in the trailer. Once again, Hobbes stood between Eve and a clear shot. She sucked in her breath and tried her luck at talking the man down.

“Mr. Casey?” she called out, “Is that you?”

"Maybe," he said, still holding the shotgun leveled, "Or maybe it used to be. What the hell is to you? They sent you to kill me at last, did they? We'll I'm not going down that easy."

“No, Mr. Casey, we’re not here to hurt you,” Eve cried, “We’re federal agents. We’re here to help you.”

“Feds, huh?” Eve could hear a change in the man’s voice. “You got anything to prove it?”

“Sure,” Eve called back, trying to put a cheerful tone in her voice to encourage cooperation from the man with the shotgun. “If you us come out and put down that weapon, we can show you our badges.”

“I’m not putting this gun until I see you both put your guns down first,” the man said fiercely, brandishing the gun wildly.

“Does that mean we can step out?” Eve asked, not wanting to take any unapproved moves while under the sights of the man’s weapon. Casey seemed to think about it for a second, then made up his mind.

"Yeah. You both back out. Put your guns on the ground, then put your hands up against the trailers so I can make sure you're not hiding any backups. Now move it! Slowly!"

With tiny steps, the agents backed out of the trailer, first Hobbes then Eve. They set their guns down gently in the grass and placed their hands against the trailer. Eve heard the man coming up behind them, securing the shotgun under his right arm while he frisked the agents with his left.

As the man ran his hand down Eve’s side and waist, she suddenly kicked back, knocking him off balance, and seized the barrel of the shotgun. The man squeezed the trigger, but an instant too late. Eve had pushed the barrel past her and against the side of the trailer, so the man only succeeded in blowing a hole in the side of his airstream.

Gripping the shotgun with both hands, Eve pulled it forward, then brought it back with a hard push, jamming  the wood stock of the gun into the man's diaphragm. The air rushed out of him with a whoosh, and the man sat down hard on the grass. She got her first clear look at the man down the sights of his Remington. He had a messy crop of hair that had once been brown but was shocked with premature patches of grey. He wore a bulky coat and tattered jeans, both stained with dirt and machine grease.

Hobbes scooped up both his own and his partner’s sidearms from the dirt, holding them both up and leveling the pistols at the man on the ground, his chest heaving. Eve lowered the shotgun and looked at her partner, wielding the dual pistols with a crazed look in his eyes.

“Put ‘em down, Lucas,” she said in a soft voice. “You don’t want to do it like this.” Hobbes looked up at her, and seemed to remember himself. He lowered the guns slowly.

The man sitting on the dead grass in front of them stared up, still gasping, with an angry look in his eyes. Eve took out a set of steel handcuffs and locked the mans wrists together in front of him, secure but not so tight as to cut of his circulation. The man flexed his hands and looked up at her.

“Alright, so you’re not here to kill me,” he said. “What the hell do you want?”

“I want to ask you about your wife,” Eve said, “Roselynn Casey.”

The man eyed her suspiciously, then pushed himself off the ground. He sized Eve up, although she was now holding his shotgun, as if trying to decide whether she was trying to make a fool of him or not. Then, suddenly, he turned his back.

“Don’t talk to me about Roselynn,” he said, “The memories are too painful. You’ve already disturbed me enough tonight. Please don’t make me relive that pain again.”

“You reported her missing, didn’t you,” Eve went on, ignoring the man’s refusal. He looked at her over his shoulder in the gathering darkness.

“That’s right,” he said. “I reported her missing.”

“But the search turned up nothing?” Eve asked. The man nodded, repeating her words as they cut his throat on the way out.

“The search turned up nothing.”

“How long before you knew your wife was dead, Mr. Casey?” Eve asked, watching the man’s face closely for a reaction. He cocked his head.

“She’s not dead, Agent Hope. Not according to the government you serve anyway. According to your bureaus, she’s still just missing, assumed dead. Well, you know what they say about assuming.”

"I'm afraid we don't have to assume anymore," Eve said. "A few days ago, a set of remains were discovered in the woods outside of town. Today, a forensic team from Quantico identified those remains as belonging to your wife, Roselynn Casey. I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Casey."

“What?” the man’s voice was incredulous with denial, “No, that’s impossible. If they’d found her, they would have told me.”

“We’re telling you,” Eve said softly. “We found her.”

“But I would have been called in to identify the remains,” Robert Casey continued to protest, shaking his head. “They wouldn’t have called anybody else to identify her. I’m her closest relative. I’m her husband, goddamnit.”

Tears had sprung up in the man’s eyes and now started to spill down his cheeks. He sat down heavily on his dead lawn again, a blank expression taking over his face as the saltwater streamed from his ducts like silent waterfalls.

“Mr. Casey, you must have known, somewhere deep down, that she must have been dead when she was missing for that long,” Hobbes said. Eve gave him a sharp look, but the man on the ground was shaking his head.

“You want to know the truth?” he said, “In my deepest heart of hearts, I hoped that she’d just gotten sick of me and run away. Maybe she’d run off with some guy, somebody who treated her nice and made her feel sexy and drove her down to the Mexican border. I go to sleep and dream that she betrayed and abandoned me because it would mean that she was alive, that she vanished for a reason and not for no reason. There’s no reason for death.”

There was an air of defeat in the man’s voice that sounded as if it lived there permanently. This was a broken man, living in the ruins of his domestic bliss. Eve looked around once again at the piles of junk on the lawn the newspaper plastered windows of the house.

“Death doesn’t ask for reasons, Mr. Casey,” Eve said, softening her tone. “It comes without knocking, to everybody, by and by. I know that it must have been very difficult for you to lose your wife and be left with no answers, no way of finding truth or direction. In my own way, I know that pain, too. But I need to you to listen to me now."

The man looked up just as Eve knelt down beside him. The two locked eyes.

“It’s time,” she whispered. “For answers, for justice, for the righting of old wrongs; it’s finally time. I want to find out what happened to your wife. I want to find the whole truth. And I want to make sure the person responsible pays for all the suffering they caused. Can you help me with that, Mr. Casey?”

The man blinked, and shuddered, as if she were calling to him down a deep well and hers was the first voice he’d heard in a long, long time. Then he managed a nod.

“Yes,” he said, his chains rattling as we wiped manfully at his eyes, “If you will listen to me, then I can help you.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“We’d better get inside,” Robert Casey said, glancing over both shoulders as Eve helped him to his feet. “It isn’t safe to talk out here.”

Eve gave the Airstream a skeptical glance, thinking privately that the thin-bodied trailer would do much to thwart eavesdropping, especially with the newly blasted buckshot hole gaping in the outer wall. Casey was already going up the steps into the mobile home, however, and holding the door open with his cuffed wrists, urging the agents to follow him in.

Still holding on to the weapon she’d taken from Casey, Eve nodded to her partner. The two agents returned into the trailer once again, still wary of the frazzled looking man. Casey reached out and flipped on a light switch. A domed ceiling light came on, filling the trailer with warm yellow illumination. By this light, Eve could see that the newspapers were not simply plastered to the walls and ceiling for decoration. There were portions highlighted in yellow, and red ink annotations jumping off the black and white newsprint. Near the bed in the far end of the trailer, Eve noticed bottles of both liquor and cough syrup. The man took a seat at the little table near the ham radio, which continued to whine, creating a high tonal backdrop for their conversation.

“I’m sorry about the conditions in here,” Casey said, taking a seat at the little table, “you can sit on the bed if you’d like, or there’s a couple of benches under those newspapers there…”

“That’s alright, Mr. Casey,” Eve said, “Standing will be fine for us. Tell us about your wife.”

“Well, since you’re probably going to dig it up in your investigation anyway, you should know that I suspected my wife was having an affair during the year before she disappeared. I was never able to confirm my suspicions, and I never had the nerve to confront her about it, but I suspected that she was stepping out with Geoff Hauswater.”

“Geoff Hauswater?” Eve repeated the name, getting the memo pad out of her pocket and jotting it down. “Who is that?”

“He’s the majority owner of Solemark Chemical Solutions,” the man gave the agents a significant look. “Maybe you’ve heard of them. They’re about the biggest company in the county, top ten in the state. I went to high school with Geoff Hauswater at Saint Bernadette, the private prep school.  He was a rich douche bag, and a creep to boot. He made a big show out of being into the occult, and liked to leverage power over his friends and classmates. He was a monster, even then." There was a deep, hateful sneer in the man's voice, jealousy and loathing that had lived long-latent in his heart.

“It’s must be very painful to find out that your wife was having an affair with somebody you not only knew but disliked,” Eve said carefully, not wanting to send the man into an impotent rage. He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

"I wanted to tell you that I suspected the affair early because I need you to know that I didn't kill her. I was angry, sure, as anyone would be, but I would never hurt her. Whatever judgements you make of me, you must know that I loved my wife. I wanted to protect her, to protect all of us." 

“All of us?” Eve asked.

Just then, the radio made a strange, warping distortion. A few words of a garbled radio voice came through, bending beyond comprehensibility. Hobbes made an unsettled face.

“Could we turn that thing off?” he asked, “It’s making it difficult to hear you properly.”

“That’s exactly the point,” said Casey. “They’ve been spying on me for a long time, and I know they won’t stop either. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. They want to make sure I’m staying silent, so they listen, and they send people to come around and scare me. This aluminum trailer helps thwart their satellites, and acts as a conductor for the scrambler signal I’m always broadcasting. So I’m sorry, Agent Hobbes, but the radio must stay on for all of our safety.”

Eve and Hobbes looked at each other. The man made the comment in a casual, offhanded way, as if he were explaining why one needed an umbrella in a rainstorm.

“They who, Mr. Casey?” Eve asked, “Who is spying on you?”

The man hesitated, chewing his ragged lower lip. Eve could see the fear that lived in his eyes even as he considered telling the agents what he knew. She also saw the determined set of his jaw, and knew that he couldn’t bear not to. A thin, knowing smile flickered for only an instant across his lips before vanished in to the stern line once again.

“Those poison peddlers – Solemark.”

There was another pause. Then Hobbes spoke up.

“I’m sorry, is there a dot I’m not connecting? Why would Solemark be spying on you? You’re a journalist, are you not?”

“I was, once,” Casey sighed, “I don’t think you could really call me that now.” He looked back and forth between the agents’ faces, noting their confusion. “I can see that I have to start from the beginning.”

“That would probably be best,” Eve said.

“Mind if I smoke?” Casey asked, pulling a battered pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and fitting one into the corner of his mouth almost before Eve should shake her head that she didn’t mind. He struck a paper match from a little book and sucked tobacco smoke, releasing it in thin trails through his nostrils. With the cigarette burning between his grubby fingers, he settled back and cleared his throat to begin his story.

“It started with a simple suspicion. My wife came home late from book club, smelling like wine and behaving nervously. I tried to sound her out, but she had no interest in talking to me. This would have been…” the man paused, recounting the years with some difficulty, “about three years ago now. I tried to just let it go, to stop thinking about it and allow my paranoia to be just that, but little clues just kept presenting myself. I found jewelry in her jewelry box that I couldn’t account for, although she told me when I asked that the expensive baubles were heirlooms from her grandmother.”

“Did your wife ever admit to the affair?” Eve asked, trying to maintain a tone sympathetic while also attempting to get the man’s story on track. The sunset was fading into the inky indigo of night, and time was enemy that had kept them at bay long enough.

“Not in so many words,” Casey said with a sniff and a small, sardonic smile. “My wife and I have shared a common cowardice. I was almost sure she was cheating, and she was almost sure that I knew, but neither of us were capable of confronting the other about the evidence right in front us.” He sucked the filter of his Pall Mall, making the ember glow hotly and crackle. “Cowards,” he said again, “Cuddling like babes in the night because we’re cold.”

“If you never got an admission from her,” Eve asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes slightly, “how did you come to suspect that Geoff Hauswater was the object of your wife’s extramarital attention?”

“That was an odd coincidence, as a matter of fact,” Casey said, looking up from under his heavy, greying eyebrows. He snubbed out his cigarette on the tabletop, leaving little black cinder mark on the faux-wood laminate surface. It was a while after I first started noticing these changes in Rosie's behavior – Rosie is what I called my wife, you know – when I was given an investigative assignment by the editor-in-chief of the Valley Herald. You know by now that I used to be columnist, with a decently wide readership too, if you'll forgive the boast. I had stories picked up by the Associated Press every year since I cut my teeth on the society page. I worked my way up to a hard news column, and people trusted me to deliver the truth."

Eve couldn’t help casting another skeptical glance around the trailer. The bottles of cough syrup near the bed and the deeply annotated newsprint wallpaper didn’t exactly scream “reliable fact-checker,” but she didn’t interrupt.

“Well, the editor assigned me to investigate the environmental practices of the biggest corporations in our county. The piece was going to be a hard-hitting dig into the effects of greenwash on the market versus the actual carbon footprint of our major producers. As you can imagine, Solemark Chemical was near the top of the list. It was while I was investigating their chief executive officers, trying to find out what kind of backroom deals they might be involved in, that I witnessed my wife leaving a restaurant with Geoff.”

“And even then you didn’t confront her wife about her infidelity?” Hobbes asked.

“I had my article to think about,” Casey said defensively, “I couldn’t risk blowing the whistle that I was snooping around Solemark’s senior executives and environmental practices. You have no idea the kind of psychological distress I was under. It was like I was being ripped apart, drawn and quartered between my personal dignity and journalistic integrity.”

“That’s alright, Mr. Casey,” Eve said, shooting her partner a look, “We’re just trying to establish the facts clearly. Please continue. What did you find out about Solemark’s environmental practices?”

“Well, It’s public knowledge that Solemark Chemical has been fighting allegations of illegal chemical dumping for nearly a decade, keeping the matter in court as long as possible. That was before they rebranded as a ‘green’ company in 2015, a move which brought their stock value up a whopping seven points on the Dow. I found some soil and groundwater surveys that suggested Solemark was not keeping their eco-friendly promises, although they were continuing to enjoy a green public image. I started doing some digging, using fake names and public telephone booths to discreetly interview the county department that put out the sample surveys. I wanted to know why the results of their survey had not been more widely published, as they certainly seemed to pose a threat to public health. It was difficult to find anybody that would even talk to me, and I got the sense that there was some kind of threat or blackmail hanging over them, keeping them silent on the findings of their survey. I haven’t been able to prove this. I was, however, ultimately able to piece together through my own research that Solemark created a separate corporation that handles the disposal of their toxic wastes, a dummy corp. called Polyxenes Ltd.”

“Polyxenes?” Eve repeated, once again clicking her pen open to jot down the name of the company. The word sounded familiar. Why did she know that corporation? What significance did it play in the murder case that unfolded on Solemark ground?

“Right,” Casey nodded, “Technically, the company is an asset of an overseas investment portfolio, but in a roundabout way, Polyxenes is owned by the executives of Solemark Chemical Solutions. It’s the typical ruse of plausible deniability, but it’s enough for them to claim zero emissions with a little asterisk on their marketing campaigns, and that’s good enough for your average consumer.”

“Let me guess,” Eve said, “Polyxenes has been secretly dumping chemicals on Solemark Chemical company ground, using Solemark drainage lines to dispose of illegal Solemark materials. The company pays itself and its hands remain technically clean, while the soil grows evermore corrupted.”

"Bingo," said Casey, removing another cigarette from the pack and pointing it at Eve to emphasize his approval before sticking the filter in the corner of his mouth. He lit another match. The flame flared, and he sucked it into the end of the Pall Mall, then smoked as he shook it out.

“Did you know about this before your wife disappeared?” Eve asked. The man shook his head.

“I was only scratching the surface when they took Rosie,” he said with a sigh, “I knew that they had a history of using the creek and irrigation sloughs in this area to drain out toxic chemicals, but everybody knows that. Here’s the thing:” His eyes flicked between those of the agents in his trailer. “I think my Rosie was figuring out what Solemark was up to herself.”

"What makes you think that?" Eve asked, surprised by this addition to the man's story. She could see his grief-stricken mind piecing it all together, almost manic with the weight of the puzzle. But had he achieved clarity? Or madness?

"She started hinting that there was something funny going on," Casey said, "She started refusing outright to drink tap water. She bought three different water filters, one on the faucet, a filter jug, and a filter tank for the refrigerator. She wouldn’t drink a drop of water it had gone through all three filters. When I asked her what this was all about, she would give me vague answers about fluoride and microplastic in the water and change the subject. I was starting to understand that she had learned something from the man with whom she was cuckolding me, but shame or fear prevented her from telling me in plain words because she knew I would ask how she’d come to have such an intimate knowledge of Solemark company secrets.”

“But you think that Geoff Hauswater was sharing those secrets with your wife, perhaps in confiding in her as a lover, if you’ll excuse my saying so.”

“It’s alright,” Casey grunted. “I’m a journalist. I can face the facts about what happened. I was a less than perfect husband, I know. Less than attentive. But I also know what Geoff Hauswater is like. He’s loose-lipped and stupid, and I’m not just saying that because he stole my wife. I’ve always hated him, because he was a mean, arrogant, lazy bully who got his own way because his father owned more of the county than anybody else. But he's a fool and prone to bragging. I think it's highly likely that, in an involuntary fit of smugness, he admitted some company secret to Rosie, or at least hinted that he was pulling the wool over the government's eyers to his own great profit."

“And you think that Geoff Hauswater then killed Roselynn in order to prevent the leak from spreading?” Eve asked.

“If not the golden boy himself, then somebody acting in his interests,” the man said, nodding grimly.

“If they killed your wife for what she knew, aren’t you afraid they might come after you too?” Hobbes asked. Eve gave him an exasperated look, but surprisingly, Casey did not seem offended.

“Does this look like the tinfoil insulated airstream of a man who isn’t scared of anyone?” he asked, and took another drag on his cigarette. He gave a few wet, racking coughs, then stood up and walked heavily across the trailer. The agents eyed him warily as he reached into a cabinet, observant in case he was reaching for another weapon, but Casey only pulled out a dark plastic bottle with the label torn off. He unscrewed the childproof cap and gave the agents a heavy-lidded look.

“For my chest cold,” came the mumbled explanation, and Casey tipped back the bottle into his mouth. The agents could smell the candy-sweet scent of cherry cough medicine. The man shivered, grimaced, then recapped the bottle and put it back in the cupboard. The cigarette had not left the corner of his lips during this entire performance.

“So, why stay here?” Eve asked, “After your wife went missing, I mean. Did you ever consider leaving Jones Valley for your own safety?”

“This is my land we’re on now. I own it outright,” Casey said, slumping back heavily into his seat at the little table. "I was born in this town, and I reckon I'll die here. Robert Casey doesn't run away from anybody. I may have been a coward when it came to confronting my wife, but nobody's going to send me running off my own property."

“But now you suspect that Solemark is spying on you,” Eve filled in, beginning to understand the line of the man’s paranoia. Perhaps it wasn’t as delusional as it had first appeared.

“To find out if they’ve contained their leak or not,” Casey said with a nod. “Yes, and they’re relentless. They destroyed my life to cover up their own sins, and I’m left huddled in this filthy trailer. They took my wife. They took my work. They took my sense of pride and purpose. They took my love away from me, Agent Hope, in all its forms.”

“They’re not going to get away with it, Mr. Casey,” Eve said, suddenly overtaken by her desire to help this desperately broken man out of the hole of misery in which he was stuck. “Your testimony is more helpful than you know. Your wife’s remains were discovered on Solemark Chemical company property near a drainage pipe. Her body was corrupted by a chemical bath, a patented Solemark product which has been out of production since '98."

“Mercuric Hydro-Hexachlorophene 09?”

“How did you know that?” Hobbes snapped quickly. Casey drew on his Pall Mall and took his time about answering.

“Lucky guess,” he said. “I know they’ve got about a million drums of it sitting in storage, because I nearly got an ass full of buckshot trying to snoop around that old factory and treatment plant. On top of that, I suspect that they’ve got somebody on the payroll at the county coroner’s office doctoring the number of deaths by mercury poisoning in this county. It’s not reflected in the official record, but there’s a goddamn epidemic sweeping this county. Poison, madness in the very water that we drink, that we bath in. We splash it in our mouth and eyes. I know it. Rosie knew it too, but she was too damn scared to tell me. I’m a journalist, after all.” He laughed bitterly, “And that scared them most of all. Do you know what they did?”

Eve shook her head – no, she didn’t know – her eyes trained with intense scrutiny on the man’s face. He was either telling the truth, she thought, or he was an incredible actor who’d missed his vocation.

“Geoff Hauswater bought the Valley Herald lock, stock and barrel,” Casey went on, “then downsized the whole organization to a single social media page, managed by an employee of his company. One employee, filling the vacuum of an entire newsroom.” He spat on the floor, his eyelids drooping and his eyes rolling with disdain, “Put me right out of a job, and fixed it so I couldn’t find any other work in Jones Valley, too. He sits on high on the Chamber of Commerce, so all he has to do is make a kind of disgusted face when my name is mentioned and hey, presto, I live on unemployment insurance.”

“That’s a lot of power for somebody to hold over you,” Hobbes said, “It must have worn on your psyche.”

“Tremendously,” the man answered through gritted teeth. Eve, sensing the building tension between the two men, broke in between them.

“There’s just one other thing, Mr. Casey, and then we’ll give you the space to grieve this information. Your wife’s body was found with a preserved butterfly pinned to it. The body was eaten away by the acid, but the bones, the butterfly, and the pin were all intact. Is there any reason you can think of that somebody might have decorated her body in that way? Did the butterfly bear any special significance to your wife?”

“A butterfly, huh?” Casey rubbed his chin. “No, I don’t think butterflies had any special significance to Rosie. Wasn’t that the calling card of that famous Serial Killer, though?”

Eve and Hobbes looked at each other. As of now, Casey had not made the connection between Eve and her notorious father.

“That’s right,” Eve said, “What makes you say that?”

“Geoff was fascinated with serial killers and symbology and all that kind of shit in high school,” the man said with a shrug. “He was never very creative. Seems like the kind of guy that would try to pass his crimes off as somebody else’s rather than come with a calling card of his own.”

All of a sudden, Eve’s eyes widened. She remembered something she’d seen among the files and forums of intel on the thumb drive her sister had given her. There was a sect of conspiracy theorists that believed the Swallowtail Killer was not one person, but a title handed down killer to killer, mastered by a secret cabal of extremely wealthy families, of which both the Oughthouses and the Hauswaters were suspected members.

She hadn’t put much stock in the theory when she read it, but now she had an inside source telling her that Geoff Hauswater had been obsessed with the occult and with serial killers since boyhood. It gave the theory an additional layer of validity, but raised a dozen more questions alongside it.

If this was true, what role did her father play in the Hauswater family? Why would Geoff pick her father's calling card as his own? Was it because of the prison break? Or was it some kind of ancestral lineage linking him to her father's crimes?

“Very interesting,” Eve said, repressing a shiver and forcing a labored smile at the journalist. “Thank you for trusting us with your story, Mr. Casey. I can see that you want to find the truth as much as we do. You’ve done your part to help us. Now let us repay you the service. Here’s my card. Let us know if you’re going to leave town.” Eve took out a business card and handed it to Robert Casey, who accepted it with fingers that trembled slightly. “And please call me if you think of any other information that could help us pin down what happened to your wife, or if you feel that your safety has been compromised.”

“It’s in the water, Agent Hope,” Casey said, standing up to see the agents out the door of his little trailer. “All of our safety has been compromised.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Outside the trailer, Hobbes turned on his partner with a facial expression that was as shocked as it was exasperated.

"How could you not arrest him?" he demanded. Eve snapped her head around to meet her partner's stare, wearing a war-face leer. Hobbes backed off a step or two subconsciously, shrinking back into himself. "I mean," he corrected himself nervously, "don't think he was suspicious enough to take into custody?"

“No,” Eve answered evenly, “I didn’t. I think he’s telling the truth.”

Night had fallen in totality while the agents were listening to Casey’s story in the trailer. The dim glow of the interior light of the airstream, filtered through the grey pulp of the newspapers over the windows, did little to make the yard more visible.

“Why?” Hobbes’s voice was genuinely baffled in the starlit darkness.

“Two reasons,” Eve said, “One: he told us about the affair right away. He knows that he’s the most likely suspect because he’s pretty sure that his wife was cheating on him, and he knows that knowing about it only makes him more likely to be the killer. But he also knows that he’s holding something more important than his own dignity: the truth about Solemark Chemical. So, he let us know about the affair right away, attempting to gain our trust so that we would listen to his story.”

“But he even knew what kind of chemical had been used to dissolve her body,” Hobbes protested.

“Two:” Eve went on, ignoring her partner, still confident in her read of Casey’s innocence, “I think he’s on to something. The waste disposal shell corporation he mentioned rings true to me. I think it’s part of something bigger.”

“The shell corporation?” Hobbes looked puzzled in the dim, silvery light. “I don’t follow. Why does that ring truer than anything else?”

“It’s all in the name,” Eve said seriously, “Polyxenes. It’s the scientific name for the American Black Swallowtail Butterfly.”

***

Eve was quiet on the drive back to field office, which the agents were using as a temporary headquarters during their stay in Jones Valley. She was mulling over the story that the disturbed man in his trailer of paranoia had related to them. Of course, she would have to verify everything for herself. While the man’s story did a lot to explain the strange behavior they’d encountered since arriving in the curious little southern town.

There were a few points in Robert Casey’s description of Geoff Hauswater that made the millionaire CEO a likely suspect, in Eve’s mind. Casey had mentioned that, even in high school, Hauswater had displayed a theatrical interest in the occult. How theatrical was it really? Eve wondered. Many serial killers began exploring their homicidal tendencies during adolescence. Perhaps the occultism of his youth foreshadowed his future depravity. The wealthy, nepotic heir of a chemical baron was at high risk for psycho-sociopathic behavior to begin with, based on historical evidence alone.

Then there was the fact that the name of the phony shell company that Solemark used to illegally dispose of their banned, unsellable chemicals was Polyxenes – the scientific Latin distinction for the Swallowtail. It was the exact same subspecies of Papilio polyxenes that was discovered with the corpse, preserved from the acid by resin coating.

It was almost as if somebody went out of their way to ensure that this butterfly was found with the body, Eve thought. But why?

“We need to find this Geoff Hauswater,” she said as they pulled into the parking lot of the field office. “As of now, he’s our prime suspect.”

“I still can’t believe you buy Casey’s story,” Hobbes said as they walked up the front steps and into the field office, flashing their badges perfunctorily to the security officers at the front door. “I mean, he admits that he knew about his wife’s affair. He admits he already knew exactly what kind of chemical was used to dissolve her body. He’s out of work, living on cigarettes and cough syrup, and he greeted us with a shotgun. What more do you need? That was our guy?”

The agents were still in the parking lot outside the field office. Eve stopped short, turning to look her partner stolidly in the eyes, although she had to tilt her chin up defiantly in order to do so.

“Lucas,” she said, “Grow the fuck up.”

“Excuse me?” her partner looked astonished and offended.

“If you were so certain that Casey was our man, then you should have made a move to arrest him when we were there, or at least taken initiative to draw him out during the investigation. I’m the lead on the investigation, but I’m not a tyrant. If you believed with conviction that Casey was guilty, you should have acted on your convictions. If you’re not sure enough to act, stop whining about it now.”

Hobbes opened and shut his mouth a few times, as if he couldn’t summon the proper words. Eve took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I need you to be responsible for yourself, and I need us to be on the same page. This could be the most important case of my entire life.”

“Because the calling card is the same as your father’s?” Hobbes asked, bunching his eyebrows together, “I’m confused.”

Eve looked at her partner. The streetlamps in the parking lot cast an orange glow on his face, and in the stark contrast she noticed for the first time that there were crows-feet wrinkles around the young man’s eyes. He wasn’t as young as he once was. This work had a way of aging people, she knew. Exposure to the hard truths and ugly underbelly of civilization had a way of fast-tracking maturity.

She would have to trust him. And, for the first time in such conscious terms, she knew that she could. He was no longer the green newbie under her tutelage. He’d saved her life and kept her secrets before. Now was the time to trust him fully.

“Come inside, Lucas,” Eve said, her expression deepening as she gave her partner a sober stare, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Inside the field office conference room, Eve shut door the drew the blinds across the windows. Hobbes, who’s followed her in with a puzzled look on his face, stood by the end of the table with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he’d swallowed a golf ball.

When the room was secured, Eve took out her laptop and booted it up, placing it between two seats on the left side of the conference table.

“Take a seat,” she said, sitting down herself and motioning for her partner to join her in the next chair. “I’ll explain this as quickly as I can, but there’s a lot.”

With visible uncertainly on his face, Hobbes took the seat to Eve’s immediate right, looking back and forth from his partner’s face to the screen of the laptop.

“What’s this about?” he asked, his voice betraying the nervousness that Eve’s mysterious behavior caused him.

Eve took the all-critical flash drive out of her pocket.  She held it up in the air between herself and Hobbes.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said again, “Something I’ve been holding back until now.”

Hobbes’s eyes looked like saucers, but he kept his mouth shut, waiting to hear where this strange conference was heading.

“Before I took this case, I found my sister, Lily, waiting for me in my apartment. She broke into my complex using the SPHYNX de-encryption software – the same technology she used to orchestrate Howard Hope’s escape from Red Onion Supermax.”

“Lily? She broke Howard Hope out?” Hobbes gasped, then added, reeling in his reaction quickly, “Why would she do that?”

“That brings us to the thumb drive,” Eve said, plugging the memory stick into the computer. “Lily’s late husband, Nereus Oughthouse, was in possession of some dark web information that suggested Howard Hope’s crimes were a part of a much larger conspiracy.”

“What kind of conspiracy?”

“Well, it’s complicated,” Eve said, turning her eyes to the screen and opening the first link listed in the USB file folder. “Essentially, this group of theorists believe that a few of the wealthiest families in the United States are linked by a secret society that practices human sacrifice, marking their victims with the symbol of their cult: the swallowtail butterfly.”

Hobbes raised an eyebrow.

“And this you believe more than you believe that a man who discovered his wife was cheating on him with a wealthy high school rival is capable of murder?” he asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Eve replied coolly, “But I think the evidence laid out here, combined with the information that Casey gave us, creates some pretty compelling questions.”

"My sister was married to Nereus Oughthouse, one of the families implicated in this occult conspiracy theory," Eve said, "I haven't had a lot of time to talk with her since learning that she was still alive, but she's told me something about what it was like living with a lineage billionaire. He practiced a version of occultism, too, with a subterranean lair built into his mansion for the purpose of performing rituals. I’m not saying I believe everything in these files, but when it’s corroborating our suspect’s story, I think it merits consideration.”

Slowly, Hobbes turned his astonished expression from Eve’s face to the screen of the laptop. He began clicking through the files, his face becoming only more amazed and incredulous as he skimmed the forum screenshots.

“There’s so many cases implicated here,” Hobbes said in a tone astonishment as he scrolled through the deep records and compiled timelines. The cases went back and back through the decades, cropping up randomly around the country.

"I don't understand," he said, "There's no way these were all carried out by the same person or even the same group of people. Some of these cases are from 1901, 1905…" He clicked through the files, shaking his head, "Look here! Marylou Grover – 1889. This is ridiculous. How could this have any bearing on the murder of Roselynn Casey?"

“Because,” Eve said, “my current theory is that Geoff Hauswater killed Roselynn and tried to make it look the work of a serial killer he’s intimately familiar with, a killer that his family’s cult has been controlling.”

Eve could hardly believe the words coming out of her own mouth. Could she really be telling another sworn agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she believed a wealthy cult was responsible for brainwashing her father into committing eleven murders? Did she really believe that herself?

Hobbes was still glued to the screen of the laptop, sorting through the vast compilation of cold cases, all of which included some manner of butterfly imagery in the corpse display.

"This is…" the young groped helplessly for an adequate adjective, his face paling as he looked up from the screen at last, "I don't even know what to make of this. If this is true, these families have a legacy of more than a hundred ritual murders. How is it possible that there's been no official investigation into this?"

“Suppression of evidence was easier fifty years ago,” Eve said, “Even easier than that a hundred years ago when the only news of murder investigations traveled by telegraph. Before information was so widely accessible, people got away with more crime. It wasn’t until the media started sensationalizing graphic murders that serial homicide started to be recognized as a consistent psychological abnormality. If families like the Hauswaters are able to keep local surveys quiet when they’re poisoning the soil and groundwater, maybe they’ve been able to suppress evidence of their ritual killings too.”

Hobbes, to Eve’s relief, was more convinced by the evidence on the USB than she’d expected – indeed, more than she’d been herself when Lily first introduced her to the theory. Hobbes seemed to be taking it seriously as a possibility, scrolling through the archives of evidence with a furrowed brow.

“So, you think that Geoff Hauswater killed Roselynn Casey because he’s a member of an centuries old American death cult?” Hobbes confirmed that he understood his partner’s contention. Eve shook her head.

“Not quite,” said she, “There are too many differences in the M.O. for me to believe that this murder is in line with the other crimes perpetrated by the Swallowtail Killer or Killers over the years. I think that Geoff Hauswater, perhaps being an arrogant princeling used to getting away with his misadventures, killed his mistress in order to prevent a critical information leak. Then I believe he attempted to cover his crimes by emulating the work of the serial killer – or killers – he knew best. To top it off, he had access to a personal warehouse of highly corrosive acid which he needed to get secretly dispose of anyway. Figuring he had all his bases covered, he dumped the body in the acid soup and let it wash away. He shut down Robert Casey’s news platform, so he’s afraid that Roselynn may have imparted what she knew to her husband, but wasn’t sure. The spying is to ensure that the Solemark company secret is safe.” Eve shook her head. “Evil walks the earth, Hobbes. Greed, stupidity, arrogance, and pure old evil.”

"We've got to bring Geoff Hauswater in for questioning," Hobbes said. "If the intel on this thumb drive holds water, then his whole family has a heavy debt to pay back to society."

“I couldn’t agree more,” Eve said with a grimace, remembering all the suffering that her own family has gone through because of her father’s role as the Swallowtail Killer, not to mention the suffering of the victims’ families. Could it all have been for nothing more than the depraved machinations of occult-obsessed millionaires? She felt the grim, dark rage welling up from within – the rage that she’d always attributed to her homicidal heritage. Was that too a sin she could lay at the feet of Geoff Hauswater and his family?

She felt her blood running cold in her veins as she considered the possibility. But how was her father connected with the Hauswaters? If the theory was true, why had he acted as executioner in their unholy sacrifices?

The only answers would come from the man himself, Eve thought. If they could get to him. The wealthy, as she knew, had a way of hiding behind large wall and locked gates, and not all of them would be so easy to ram with the grille of her Charger.

“If we’re going after Geoff Hauswater, we’re going to have to do it by the books,” Eve said,  “He’s going to lawyer up as soon as we take him in, and his lawyer’s going to be the best around. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got our paperwork in order.”

She paused, rubbing her chin and gazing at the screen of her computer. A number of photos showing the bodies of butterfly-adorned victims were still pulled on the screen.

“At the same time,” she mused aloud, “we’ve got to move quickly. We’ve already tipped our hand by breaking down the gate at the Solemark Chemical factory, and they know that we’ve been snooping around their drainage dumpsite. If we let them know that we’re coming after Hauswater, he may flee the country, or worse. Who knows what he’s capable of.”

“So what do we do?” Hobbes asked. Eve gave him a sober look.

“We get our warrants in order tonight, and we go after Hauswater at dawn,” Eve said decisively. “We bring him in clean, confront him with the evidence on this USB and gauge his reaction. If he’s dumb enough to use his company’s illegal dumpsite to dispose of a body, we may be able to catch him in a slip during interrogation. If his lawyer lets him talk at all, of course.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Hobbes said, glancing at the digital numerals of the smartwatch on his wrist. “How are we going to get a judge to sign off on a warrant before dawn?”

“Leave that to me,” Eve said a confident smirk, “I’ll call up Deputy Director Pliny. He’s got a roster of federal judges he keeps on a short leash. I’m sure he’s got somebody that owes him a favor, and somebody that hasn’t been corrupted by the Solemark blackmail conspiracy that seems to have the run of this county.”

Eve drew a deep breath, the wariness and eagerness for the next step of the case to advance equaling out to one pressing, urgent anxiety that electrified her bones and made it difficult to sit still.

“We’re going to get him, Hobbes,” she said, “I can feel it. We’re going to catch this bastard in his lies, and we're going to bury a very old monster. We just have to play our cards right, and we have to play them right now.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

“Thank you very much sir,” Eve said into the phone for what felt like the millionth time that night – or morning, as the case were. The sun had started to rake the sky with the first grey suggestions of dawn as the agents completed the mountain of forms, phone calls, and verifications required to get all the search and arrest warrants they needed. Eve had handled most of the diplomatic phone calls, while Hobbes busied himself collecting information on where they might locate Goeff Hauswater.

There were three primary locations, by Hobbes’s estimation the most likely, where the debaucherous millionaire might be holed up. There was his home – a mansion protected by a heavy gate, security system, and several pedigree Dobermans, according the FBI files and incident reports from local mail carriers. Then there was his office, which was located in the penthouse suite of the Hauswater Building in Jones Valley’s tiny downtown district. Finally, he was listed as being a member of the local masonic chapter. There was a lodge in town, which Hauswater had a reputation for frequenting for the fine liquor bar and gentlemanly betting. The privacy policy enacted by the lodge would make it an obvious hiding place, and obvious might be exactly what they were looking for.

“I say we try the lodge first,” Hobbes said, “It’s just a hunch, but I’ve got a feeling that he doesn’t want to be found at home right now – or worse yet, at the office.”

“I bet he’s at home,” Eve disagreed, “If he’s hiding out somewhere, my instinct tells me he’s taking cover in a place where he feels in control. He’s the master of his own house. He's only a member of the Masonic lodge, even if he is a powerful member."

“You’re the boss,” Hobbes said with a smile, but Eve could see that he still disagreed.

“Look, if he isn’t at home, then we’ll check the lodge next, alright?” she said appealingly. He nodded. Eve pulled the keys of the Charger out of her pocket and tossed them casually to her partner. “I appreciate you always having my back, partner. Why don’t you drive this time?”

“Sure,” Hobbes said, a spark of eagerness lighting up in his boyish eyes. “It’s been a while since I’ve been behind the wheel.”

"Go bring the car around, would you?" Eve asked, rubbing her eyes sleepily and giving herself a shake, trying to rouse her energy. "I need another cup of coffee before we move out. I can get you one if you'd like."

“No thanks,” he said, rolling his eyes, “You know how I feel about that instant coffee. I’ll get some real espresso later if I need it.”

“Suit yourself,” Eve said, “I’ll meet you out front in five.”

Standing in front of the coffee machine, Eve watched the stream of hot black liquid dribbling into the Styrofoam cup.  Her mind was reeling with the implications of her findings. The pieces were starting to come together at last, although they formed a deeply disturbing picture.

And yet, there was a new hope shining behind every new revelation. She was understanding the level of insanity that surrounded her father’s case, the real powerful players and those who profited, not only from their control over a serial killer but from the public spectacle of fascination that surrounded him.

Was it truly possible, Eve found herself wondering as she sipped her bitter coffee, that her father was merely a cog in a much larger and older mechanism of evil? Was he coerced into his crimes, or did he undertake them voluntarily?

Eve remembered the cryptic explanations, which were all her father gave, for the eleven murders he perpetrated.

“I was protecting my family,” he would say. In her memory, Eve could see him standing behind the thick glass of the solitary holding cell in the sub-level of Red Onion. The way his eyes stared blankly through the glass at hers was ingrained in her mind eternally.

Eve had tried and tried, spending long sleepless nights and searching through textbooks abnormal psychology, trying to find a way that her father could have justified all those murders as “protecting his family” in any fashion. She’d never been able to make it make sense.

Somehow, she’d never thought of blackmail. If a group of wealthy, well-connected, powerful occultists threatened his family – her own family, Eve reminded herself – perhaps Howard could have been driven to the murders by a sense of hopeless desperation.

But why? What was the purpose of controlling a serial killer to begin with?

With these questions stirring restlessly in her mind, Eve headed for the front door of the field office, bad coffee in hand. Their air was brisk with the early morning chill, and the nip of it against her skin made her alive and vital as she stepped out through the automatically sliding door.

Across the lot, Eve could see her young partner and the Charger. Hobbes was just opening the door as Eve came out. He glanced across the nearly empty parking lot at her, and Eve stuck up her thumb like a hitchhiker, shooting Hobbes a smile. He grinned and went down behind the wheel of the Charger. No, Eve thought, he certainly didn't look like a kid anymore. He wasn't even as gangly as he used to be. The lanky limbs had hardened into a lithe, muscular build that filled the sleeves and lapels of his slim-fit suits.

All of a sudden, something changed the air. It was an intangible quality, something Eve could feel but not describe. It was as if the atmosphere around her had turned suddenly into thick gelatin. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, but Eve was overtaken with the sudden, sub-conscious awareness that something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

What happened next seemed to Eve to occur in slow motion. She saw her partner slam the driver-side door shut. There was a pause, when he must have been inserting the key the into the ignition. There was a mechanical rattle as the engine started.

And then there was a tremendous light. Eve watched in absolute horror as the hood of the car warped and peeled away from itself, out of the way of the growing fireball exploded from under the hood. Spiderweb cracks spread across the windshield like ice shattering across a lake. For an instant, Eve saw her partner’s face, shocked and horrified. Then, all was consumed by the brilliant inferno.

Eve urged herself into action with a herculean effort, throwing herself on the ground as the Charger exploded, raining bits of metal and machine parts in the pavement of the parking lot.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

“Hobbes!”

Eve’s head was swimming. The force of the explosion had thrown her down hard, and her she’d knocked her head on the ground when she fell. She staggered to her feet, her ears ringing, her vision blurring and doubling.

For a moment, Eve was lost in her recollections of war. The parking lot, the flaming car and smoldering wreckage littered around it could have been any of a hundred bombed-out vehicles she’d seen during her combat tours of Afghanistan and Syria.

Where the fuck is your rifle, Marine? The voice of an old drill sergeant shouted commands in Eve’s rattled mind. Find your weapon!

Eve’s gun, which was tucked in the holster but not fastened as she came out of the field office, had been thrown from her jacket when the car went up. She scrambled for it, scooping the Colt 9mm off the ground and switching off the safety.

“Hobbes!” she shouted again, unsure that the hoarse, smokey voice she heard was her own. Through the smoke in the early morning dimness, she could see the figure of her partner laying on the pavement. He’d been thrown from the car during the explosion, his clothes singed and his face blackened. He wasn’t moving.

Was it a single attack? Or was this the first step of an ambush? Eve’s panicked, PTSD-reactive mind struggled to get the situation under control. Protect the fallen, call for help.

Sprinting through the smoke with her gun in her hand, Eve threw herself over her partner’s body.

“Hobbes,” she said, grabbing his face and trying to shake him awake. He was burned and cut badly, and blood trickled from his nostrils and out of the corner of his mouth. “Come on, Lucas. Don’t quit on me now. Don’t you fucking quit on me.”

If he was breathing, Eve thought, it wasn’t easy. She couldn’t see his chest moving at all. His eyes were shut. Numb with fear, Eve pressed her fingers against the jugular veins in her partner’s throat.

There was a heartbeat. It was faint, but it was there. Hobbes was still alive, still fighting for life.

The desk crew of the FBI field office had started trickling out the front doors at the sound of the explosion, and now there was a growing murmur of concern growing from the onlookers.

“Call an ambulance! I’ve got one injured!” Eve called out through the smoke, which was making her eyes sting. She coughed and spat on the pavement. She needed to get Hobbes out of the noxious exhaust. Acting on an old, deeply ingrained impulse, she slung her partner over her shoulder and performed a fireman’s carry. Hobbes was a foot taller and nearly eighty pounds heavier than Eve, but she strode out of the smoke carrying him as he were no more burdensome than a backpack.

The onlookers wore expressions of astonishment as Eve emerged from the smoldering wreckage. Already, the whine approaching sirens could be heard. Eve set her partner down on the ground with her back against the front wall of the field office.

“Somebody get me some water and a rag,” she called out, and a few of the desk clerks scurried off into the building together.

“Agent Hope? I’m Agent Kertz, Homicide,” said one of the local agents, a broad-shouldered man with a military haircut, who knelt down by Eve’s side with a large semi-automatic pistol in his hand, his eyes watching the parking lot warily. “What happened here?”

“Somebody rigged the car with explosives,” Eve said as the ambulance pulled into the parking lot. “They know who we’re going after, and they’re not wasting any time about responding.”

The paramedics, a man and woman in navy blue scrubs, ran across the pavement with a gurney, taking over aide of the injured Hobbes.

“He’s still breathing,” Eve informed them as they loaded her partner onto the stretcher, “but barely. He was inside the vehicle when it exploded. I was about twenty yards away myself.”

“Are you injured?” the female paramedic asked, looking over at Eve as they loaded Hobbes into the ambulance. Eve shook her head, which made it swim sickeningly.

“I was thrown down and hit my head, but I’m alright,” she said. The paramedic gave her a suspicious squint.

“You’d better come with us for a preliminary examination, just to be safe,” the paramedic said with maternal authority in her voice. “You may be concussed.”

“I’m fine,” Eve insisted, “We don’t have time to waste.”

“You can ride with your partner and myself in the back,” the paramedic said, taking Eve by the arm and helping her up into the back of the van. “Just a quick scan and we’ll get you back out in the field.”

Eve consented to let the woman lead her to a bench in the wide-bed back of the ambulance, where she sat down and stared at her partner’s charred face. He was so young, she thought. All at once, the young man who’d looked so mature as he got behind the wheel of the charger once again looked like a boy, little more than a babe in arms, far too young to face death.

I shouldn’t have let him drive, Eve told herself bitterly as the ambulance sped off towards the hospital, lights and sirens blaring in the early morning. I shouldn’t have gone for coffee, or I should have made him wait with me. It should have been me in the car. Whoever has been watching us has only seen me in the driver’s seat. That explosion was meant for me. It should have been me. Hobbes doesn’t deserve this.

Even as these harsh thoughts spilled silently from her mind, Eve knew that it wasn’t true. The bomb was meant for both of them. Even if she’d been in the driver’s seat, Hobbes would very likely have been in the car anyway when the explosion went off. It was a random fluke that had saved her from the inferno. The guilt she felt belonged with the fear-mongering monster who’d planted the bomb.

She would hit back, Eve made the promise wordlessly to herself and her unconscious partner, and she would find a way to hit them where it hurt.

***

“The concussion is minor,” said the nurse in Jones Valley General Hospital ER wing who was taking care of Eve. The scans had taken about an hour to perform, and Eve could not stop fidgeting with impatience. The nurse in blue scrubs held the results of the scan up to the lightboard mounted on the wall so that Eve could see her own skull and brain clearly. Eve frowned at them.

“So I’m good to go?” she asked, her eyes itching eagerly to the bag of her clothes and possessions, which sat on the counter of the hospital room.

“Well, I’d still be careful,” the nurse warned, “If possible, you should avoid physical activity for the next two weeks. Try to avoid tasks that require intense mental focus. Your injuries are minor enough that you should be able to sleep without much risk. Call your doctor if you experience dizziness or nausea.”

“I see,” Eve said, “Thanks very much.” Internally, she was thinking about how now was the moment when she would have to focus her mind and body more than any other time in her life. Everything was riding on her now, as Hobbes was still deep in a medicated coma. Rest was out of the question.

Her thoughts must have been readable on her face, because nurse gave her head a shake.

“I’ll pray for you, Agent Hope,” the nurse said, touching a small silver cross that hung around her neck on a delicate chain, “And for your partner’s healthy recovery.”

“Don’t pray for me, Karen,” Eve said, reading the nurse’s name off the tag on the pocket of her scrubs, “Pray for justice. If justice is allowed to die, then nobody is safe.”

Outside the hospital room, Eve found the doctor. He was a middle-aged man with thinning hair and glasses, which he wore low on the bridge of his nose and peered at Eve over the half-moon rims. He was just coming out of the room where Hobbes lay unconscious.

“How’s he doing, Doctor?” Eve asked, practically pulling the man’s coat in order to stop him in the hallway. “Will he be okay?”

“He’s got a strong constitution,” the doctor said, glancing uneasily down at the sheets on his clipboard, “but he’s suffered some highly acute internal trauma. He’s not out of the woods yet, but he’s keeping up a good fight. It’s going to be a while before he’s back on his feet.”

“But he will be back on his feet?” Eve asked anxiously, remembering again with the brutal vividness her partner’s face through the windshield just before the Charger exploded.

“It’s too early to say,” the doctor replied with a somber shake of his head. “His system is fighting hard, as I said, but the damage to his spine, brainstem, and central nervous system is extensive. We’ll keep him sedated and under close observation for now. The best thing for him at the moment is rest.”

Eve nodded, swallowing hard. It felt as though there were something obstructing her throat.

“Can I see him?” she managed to ask, her voice coming out a little more croaky than she liked. The doctor nodded.

“You can sit with him, but he will not be responsive right away. It may be several days before he regains consciousness, maybe even longer. You may speak with him if you choose, but it’s uncertain how much a person submerged in a coma like his will be able to hear and understand.” The doctor shook his head, “Whatever form his recovery takes, I can say with certainty his life will never be the same. He may suffer neurological damage, or he may never walk. We won’t know until the patient tells us himself, by his actions or inactions.”

“I see,” Eve said in a daze, hardly able to believe what the doctor was telling her, “I’ll…go sit with him now. Thank you, Doctor.”

The doctor gave her a brisk nod and continued about his rounds, his footsteps echoing down the linoleum hallway. Eve opened the door of her partner’s hospital room and poked her head inside.

She was greeted by the steady, monotonous beeps of an EKG machine, which was hooked up to the figure that lay prone in the bed. As Eve entered the room, she saw that her partner’s face, shoulders, and torso had been badly torn by the metal and glass of the Charger’s fragments when he was thrown out. He would be badly scarred for the rest of his life, that much was obvious. Still, his chest rose and fell with the slow, powerful breaths of a sleeping giant. Eve thought he’d never looked more heroic.

“It wasn’t for nothing, Hobbes,” Eve said aloud as she came up to side of her partner’s hospital bed. “They’re scared. They’re know we’re close to pinning them down, otherwise they wouldn’t have risked a move like this.”

Hobbes, of course, said nothing. His meters beeped and sounded steadily, rhythmically, his breathing and heartrate never wavering. His eyelids remained shut. All sorts of tubes ran in and out of him, IV drip lines, an oxygen breathing tube, and glowing red clip on his right index finger, a saline drip lubricating his spinal column. He was like an octopus of rubber hosing and beeping machinery.

“Oh, Hobbes,” Eve mourned, refraining with an effort from throwing herself around her partner’s neck. “If you don’t come back from this, I’ll never forgive myself. How could you leave me alone at a moment like this?”

Tears that she didn’t expect had sprung into Eve’s eyes. After all, she’d lost friends in war and in the field before. She was no stranger to the suffering. She knew the fear and pain.

The tears that she spilled were different. This was her fight. She knew that this case was going to bring her closer to understanding the great mystery and the biggest source of pain in her life: her father’s murderous past. This wasn’t Hobbes’s journey to suffer for, but there he lay. He’d given her too much already, and she was only acting for herself, searching for her own closure.

And now it may have cost her partner his life.

“Come back to me, Hobbes,” Eve whispered, her cheeks still streaked and wet. “I need you, now more than ever.”

A moment of perfect silence hung in the hospital room. The golden sunlight of morning spilled through the eastern-facing window. The room smelled of antiseptic and burnt flesh.

Then, for just an instant, Eve thought she saw her partner’s eyelids flicker. She bent forward excitedly, peering into her partner’s face, but there was no further activity.

At that same moment, the silence was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. Eve pulled the smartphone out of her pocket, glancing quickly at the screen.

The call was coming from Deputy Director Pliny. Eve swiped the little green icon to accept the call and held the phone to her ear.

“Hope,” she sounded off dutifully.

“Eve,” the Deputy Director surprised her by using her first name, “I just received news of the incident at the Jones Valley field office. I’m so relieved that you’re alive and alright.” Pliny paused, then added, “You are alright, aren’t you?”

"I'm going to be fine, sir," Eve replied, "Nothing more than a minor concussion for me. I wasn't in the car that went up. I was about twenty yards away. All I got was a little bump on my head. It's Special Agent Hobbes that I'm worried about. He's still in a coma."

“Dear Christ,” the Deputy Director muttered, “And such a young, sharp agent, too. Have you spoken with the doctor yet?”

“I have, sir,” Eve reported, “Unfortunately, he couldn’t give me a very certain answer. I’m afraid it’s uncertain how much of his nervous system will recover from the damage.”

“Dear God,” Pliny muttered. The care that the old retired soldier displayed for his agents always read as genuine to Eve. He cared and worried after them as if they were his own children and suffered with them when they suffered.

“Sir,” Eve said, “I think that somebody got wind that we were angling our investigation toward Geoff Hauswater. I think that’s why they planted the car bomb. Somebody’s trying to scare us off the case.”

“You suspect corruption?” Pliny asked, “There hasn’t been time for news to trickle out the old fashioned way. If Hauswater knows about the warrant for his arrest, it’s because somebody in our chain of command tipped him off.” The deputy made a sound in the of his throat and added in a murmur, “Most troubling.”

“Corruption and madness,” Eve responded, “This town is rife with both. If my theory proves correct, then all this killing and paranoia is surrounding the fact that Solemark Chemical has been using their private land to dump illegal chemicals. Those chemical dumps are seeping into the groundwater and infecting it with mercury poisoning. The company and its executives are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent that truth from leaking out. I’ve got to take down Geoff Hauswater and shut down the operation, not just to arrest a murderer, but to put and end to the poisoning of the land.”

“Be careful, Agent Hope,” Pliny warned her paternally, “I can’t afford to lose any more agents, especially you.”

“I’ll move carefully, sir,” Eve promised.

Just as she was hanging up the phone, Eve’s screen suddenly lit up again. She was getting another call. The Caller ID told her that it was coming from the Jones Valley County Sheriff’s Department HQ.

“Hope,” she answered the phone briefly, cautiously, not eager for more surprises.

“Agent Hope,” the voice on the other end sounded relieved, “This is Inspector Bale, Jones Valley Sheriff Dept. Christ, I’m glad I reached you. I heard the news about what happened at the FBI field office. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just minorly concussed,” Eve brushed it off breezily, “My partner Hobbes got the worst of the blast. He’s still unconscious and the doctor is uncertain about his future, so I hope you’re calling me with good news.”

“Well, that all depends on how you define ‘good news’ I suppose,” Bale said over the phone, and Eve let out an internal groan. Great, she thought, just what I need: another set of complications.

“You’d better just tell me the news,” Eve said, “I don’t have enough energy for more guessing games just now.”

“Fair enough,” Inspector Bale replied, “Well, the good news is that the manhunt is over. We found Chief Coroner LaFeux early this morning.”

The subtle inflection that Bale placed on the word “found” sent a slight shiver through Eve’s skin.

“You didn’t find him alive, did you?” Eve asked heavily.

“No,” Bale said heavily, “We didn’t find him alive. He was shot to death with a .45 in an alley near the Freemason’s lodge where he was a member.”

“Jesus,” Eve shook her head, looking down at the form her partner, supine and serene on the bed. All around, people were dropping like flies. This had to be brought to an end. Now.

“There’s more, Special Agent Hope,” Bale said over the phone, “LaFeux didn’t die right away. While he was bleeding out, he managed to scrawl a message in his own blood on the pavement of the alley. We’re sending along the crime scene photographs now.”

“What did he write?” Eve asked. There was a pause from the inspector’s end of the line.

“Well, that’s really the most curious thing about this,” he said at last, “The writing in blood says: Find Hope.”

The world fell silent, dropped away. Eve stood alone, suspended in a void of shock and disbelief. She stared at her partner as if from across thousands of miles.

Pulling herself together with an effort, Eve snapped back into the present moment.

“Inspector, how soon can you can get a SWAT team around the perimeter of the Hauswater residence?”

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Find Hope. Find Hope. Find Hope.

The words echoed again and again in Eve’s mind as she drove. She’d been given a tan, unmarked detective’s sedan in lieu of the damaged Charger, and now she was testing the engine’s limits down the freeway, away from the hospital.

She knew what she had to do. The sudden onslaught of attacks were a ploy, a bid for time, to give Geoff Hauswater a chance to escape the tightening noose that Eve was closing around him. She wasn't going to be fooled. She had to catch Hauswater at once before anybody else was caught in the crossfire.

If LaFeux really did write the message himself, Eve theorized as she drove, then there were two distinct possibilities.

The first was that LaFeux died still in the grips of his mercury-water hallucinations, and his paranoia about Eve’s involvement in a case mirroring her father’s had not abated.

The other option in her mind was that whoever had killed LaFeux had written the message himself, either to illicit a wild goose chase that would waste precious time or, worse yet, to lure her into a fatal trap.

She wouldn’t go to the scene of the crime, she thought. She would go to the source. The sheriff would handle the crime scene and collect the evidence they needed. She was heading for the man in the middle of it all, the golden heir to the Hauswater fortune. The crimes of the Solemark Chemical company now rested on his shoulders, along with his own crimes of murder, blackmail, and conspiracy. It was time for him to fry.

With her booted foot pressing down hard on the gas pedal of the tan Crown Vic, Eve gripped the wheel. The address of the Hauswater estate was positioned on a hill overlooking the town of Jones Valley. Eve could see the peaked turrets of the mansion poking up over the trees even before she took the Hauswater Estate Drive exit off the freeway.

It was a long, lonely, single lane drive that wound up the hill, through deciduous trees that were a brilliant splash of gold and red in the autumnal afternoon. It would have been a beautifully pleasant drive under different circumstances, but there was a dark cloud of macabre death that hung over the landscape and an electrifying urgency that coursed through Eve, and she hardly even glanced at the glorious scenery as she raced up the driveway.

Ahead, there was a high double gate with fierce, iron spearheads at the top of the bars. The pillars that held up the gate on either side were made of some kind of slick black stone, perhaps marble or obsidian. They were pointed obelisks, smooth and ominous among the trees. There was a small call box near the gate, but Eve ignored this. She wasn’t about to risk alerting Hauswater of her presence.

She knew that she would not be able to ram down the gate in her borrowed sedan. The swat trucks might be able to do it, she thought, and eyed the drive behind her. How long until her reinforcements arrived?

Eve got out of the car, turning off the engine, and walked up to the left obelisk gatepost. There was a butterfly engraved in the black stone. This was the place.

Peering past the bars of the gate, she could see that the driveway continued another quarter mile up the hill before ending in the spiral before the grand entrance of a dark stone mansion.

Mansion, hell, Eve thought. The house on the hill was practically a castle. The peaks of the turrets rose like the tall caps of dark wizards, the windows and battlements frowning down the hill as defying any thief or peon to enter its great stone jaws. There was a domed roof in the center of the mansion, like a gothic cathedral. The whole place emanated an aura of evil.

Eve glanced at her watch. Where the hell was her SWAT support? She should at least be hearing the distant chop of an aerial surveillance helicopter by now. She chewed her lip, feeling the passage of every second with acute awareness.

Pulling out her phone, Eve redialed the number of Inspector Bale. The inspector answered, eventually, after four rings.

“Bale,” he said.

“Inspector, I’m here on-site. Hauswater has a pretty heavy looking gate. How long until that backup gets here?”

“It’s the on the way as we speak, Agent Hope,” Bale you said, “You have my word.”

“It had better be close, Bale,” Eve said, “We can’t afford to lose any more time.” She sucked in her breath and peered in at the house. Who knew how many ways off the property there were, or if he were still there at all.

“Fuck it,” she said, more to herself than Bale, “There’s no time to wait. I’m going in now. Tell your team to surround the perimeter.”

“Agent Hope!” Inspector Bale called from the other end of the line, “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? Hauswater could armed and dangerous, and he’s like to have a security detail patrolling the house.”

“It’s the best idea I’ve had all day,” Eve said resolutely, “Leave that to me. Just make sure I get my backup, alright?"

Without waiting for a response from Inspector Bale, Eve hung up and stowed the phone away in her pocket. She wished that she'd taken a Kevlar vest, but time was of the essence. She would have to go in unprotected.

Seizing the bars of the huge wrought-iron gate with her bare hands, Eve hoisted herself up, pushing her feet against the side of the obelisk gatepost to support her climb. The bars of the gate were slippery, and there was little footing to be had against the obsidian column, but Eve had learned how to clear a barrier during her grueling weeks of Marine Corps boot camp, and her career of action and danger kept her skills sharply honed.

With a restrained grunt and an acrobatic handspring worthy of an Olympic champion, Eve vaulted herself over the wicked points of the black iron spearheads.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Eve landed with a thump and roll on the soft earth on the other side of the fence, righting herself quickly into a low crouch near the base of a tree just inside the fence.

All was still and quiet.

Eve eased her pistol out of the holster and gave one last look back through the gate. No sign of the SWAT team yet. The time for waiting for up. Now it was time to move.

Like a shadow through the trees, Eve stalked from cover to cover behind trunks and shrubs, keeping close to the shoulder of the driveway but off the main path. She didn’t want to be seen approaching from the house.

Like MacDuff besieging the castle of MacBeth, Eve thought as she darted between the shadows. If only these trees were an army of my followers in forest camouflage. Not even MacDuff was expected to charge the castle alone.

But alone she was on the hill, with only the trees to be her encouragement. As she pressed on up the weary climb,  she thought of Hobbes lying unconscious in the hospital. She thought her sister, who had come to her for help and answers.

To her own surprise, she thought of her father. It was as if he were calling out to her across the miles, across the gulf of time. Calling out for her to help him, to save him. But save him from what? Wasn’t he the thing that the world needed saving from?

This place, she thought, it’s charged with the memory of his presence. That’s the evil I feel. He was here, once, long ago. The trees, the soil, the land itself remembers him, and knows me.

It was a crazed thought, a childlike fear as she darted from shadow to shadow up the rest of the driveway towards the house, her pistol gripped in her right hand. Its only basis was the rambling conspiracies, but it was the culmination of those conspiracies that had brought here, and the gatepost was marked with the black sigil of her family crime. It was as if the universe was telling her, “this is the place where your history begins and ends.”

But what did it mean? The dark, frowning house on at the peak of the hill did not offer her any answers. Indeed, it did not look like it would even off her easy access. She was almost upon it now, and still there was no sign of the backup.

If I go alone, Eve told herself stoutly, then I go alone.

Squatting at the base of the tree nearest to the left front corner of the giant house, Eve surveyed the situation. She saw the double doors of the main entrance, which looked heavy and probably bolted from within. She could try her luck at kicking it down, but she wasn’t confident that she would get it on the first run, and big sound like that would give away her presence.

A palace like this one, even built in the modern United States, was likely to have a service entrance around the back. She spied cameras around the door and driveway. The backside was less likely to be under as careful of surveillance.

She didn’t like her odds of getting in entirely unnoticed, but as she darted through the trees around the clearing of the maintained yard, Eve thought she would simply have to risk it. If Inspector Bale was right about Hauswater keeping a staff of personal guards, then she may have a fight on her hands before she even got a chance to confront the Hauswater heir.

From somewhere on the property, Eve heard the sound of a dog barking. It was time to move. She had no desire to injure an innocent animal, but she equally had no desire to be torn to shreds by a brutally trained guard dog.

Eve glanced at the windows, then eyed the distance across the open expanse of the lawn. She didn’t see anybody in the windows. If she was going to risk an open sprint, now was the time.

She went.

With her feet pounding as silently as she was able across the grassy lawn, Eve sprinted down the long wall alongside the house. Nobody came out, neither to confront nor to escape her.

As she came skidding around the backside of the house, Eve found the door she was looking for. It was a small, narrow door attached to the smallest wing of the expansive house. A quick jiggle of the handle told her it was locked.

The dog barked again. It sounded as if it were on the other side of the house, and Eve prayed silently that the wind was blowing in her favor. Perhaps the animal had not picked up her scent. It was these moments that made Eve grateful she was not in the habit of wearing perfume while she was in the field.

Without wasting a second, Eve took a few steps back, braced herself for impact, then threw herself shoulder-first at the door like a running-back trying to break through the guard-tackle split.

The thin service door shuddered under the heavy impact, the jamb splintering as the bolt tore through the old, dry-rotted wooden frame. Eve found herself standing breathlessly amidst the splinters in the entryway of an old servant’s hall.

Eve hurried along the hall, leaving the door hanging ajar behind her. The Servant’s hall was dark, and she switched on the beam of her tack light. As she worked her way through the eastern wing of the huge mansion, she danced the beam of her light over the walls of the hallway. There were curiously painted portraits hung at even intervals along the wall, opposite the doorways that led into the main body of the house. The people in the paintings did not appear to bear a family resemblance to each other, nor did they look particularly happy in their depiction. All of them had shaved heads and were swaddled in black robes. All had the same, blank, glassy-eyed expression painted on their faces.

Their hands – Eve noticed too as she walked down the hallway, which seemed to grow ever longer the further into it she went – were all positioned in the same way, with the left palm held out and the right hand held up. In the right hand, each painted figure held a long, narrow knife with a curiously shaped hilt. In their left palms sat a black butterfly.

“What is this place?” The question escaped Eve’s lips on a whispered breath.

She was nearing the end of the hall when the beam of her tac light fell on a face that made her freeze in her tracks. Hanging there on the wall, one frame from the end, the face of her father stared back at her in oil paint.

Eve nearly dropped her gun. Her hands trembled. Her eyes were open so wide she felt as if her eyelids would peel right back into her head. It couldn’t be, and yet it was.

The conspiracy was true. Slowly, Eve turned her light back down the long, long hallway. There were so many portraits before her fathers.

The weight of death in that hall was immense. Over the exterior doorway, there was an engraved sign with words written in a strange, cryptic script.

Servant Shadows, Obey Thou the Light of the Swallowtail.

Eve turned the beam of her light from the sign over the door back to the painted face of her father.

Had all his crimes been simple obedience to an evil cult of wealthy occultists? A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, and Eve found herself remembering what her father said when she asked him about his victims while he was still incarcerated.

“I did it to protect my family,” he said to her through the glass, deep in the hovel underneath Red Onion, “to protect you.”

She’d always struggled to understand, even in the context of her father’s delusional state of mind, how the murder of innocent young women could possible have been in protection of his family. Now a new thought occurred to her, a thought that seemed validated by the look of deep, dark pain in the face of every portraited person in the hall. Shadows they were indeed, thin, grim, and dark. They all had the gaunt, drawn faces of those who have seen visions, those who have known terrors beyond the lot of civilization.

Perhaps her father had been protecting his family, not from his victims, but from his masters.

Just then, there was a sound that echoed from somewhere in the vast house. Eve heard the sound of footsteps and then the sound of two voices calling back and forth to each other.

“Are you sure you heard something? It was probably just the wind,” said the first.

“Shut your lazy trap and follow me,” the second voice replied snappishly. “The noise came from this way, the Shadow Hall. Buck up and follow me.”

Both voices sounded dull, gruff. Eve ducked into the nearest doorway, leaving the door open. The portrait of her father appeared to staring straight through the doorway. It was dark inside the room, and she hid herself just behind the door, hardly daring to breathe.

Holding the gun in both hands, Eve switched the tac light off, waiting. The footsteps were getting closer. She wouldn’t fire unless she had to, unless she found herself facing two armed security guards with orders to shoot intruders.

Her heart was pounding in her temples, a rhythm she knew like war drums. Her chest rose and fell with steady, silent repetitions.

The footsteps drew nearer, and nearer, and nearer still. The men were close enough that she could hear one of them clearing his throat gruffly.

She watched the faint rectangle of light that cut into the dark room from the doorway. Her eyes had just enough time to adjust when she saw two shadows pass through the light square.

She held her breath, flattening her body against the wall of the dark room like a shadow herself, her pistol held up in a ready position.

The shadows passed her doorway without stopping. She listened intently.

The footsteps came to a stop.

“There,” said the first voice with a tone of poisonous, tobacco juice violence as suspicion arose. “That door is open.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Eve’s blood froze. Her finger found the trigger of her pistol. She kept her eyes trained on the rectangle of dim light on the floor of the dark room. As soon as she saw the shadow of a man break the light, she would swing out and bring the gun up.

She waited.

And waited.

The footsteps took off down the hallway, away from the door behind which she was hiding. They were going after the door she’d kicked in.

Letting out her breath carefully, Eve didn’t allow the relief to cloud her plan of action. She still had two gruff-sounding security guards to contend with, and still there was no sign of Bale’s backup. She would have to take them both alone.

I’ll count to three, then step out and put my tac-light on them. The light will shine in their eyes, and I’ll have the drop on them both. If they reach for weapons, I’ll do what I have to. My father is watching, after all. Eve saw the painting of her father, his head shaved, his eyes sunken and pained, the thin-bladed knife in his hand. She was filled with a sense of duty, as if she could somehow still save her father from a fate that he neither wanted nor deserved.

It was in that moment that Eve understood why Lily had broken Howard out of prison before she had solid evidence of his innocence. Things were never black and white, but there was room for love and forgiveness in the shades of grey.

Eve cocked her pistol.

One…Two…

"Hey, Leo! Come here a minute! This door is open, too."

The voice was closer than Eve expected – right outside the door.

The door was pushed open, and the first man stepped roughly inside. Eve snapped instantly into combat mode. Her eyes, by now well accustomed to the darkness, identified a weapon in the man's hand. It was a compact Hechler & Koch submachine gun.

Damn.

Eve waited half a heartbeat, still practically invisible in the dark shadow behind the door, for the second to follow his partner in. A plan was working itself rapidly into place.

The second man followed, bigger and burlier than the first. He carried an automatic weapon as well, and Eve noticed a few extra clips of ammunition on his belt. This was her moment. Hesitate a second too long, and she'd get pinned to the wall with lead.

Eve sprung at the larger of the two men, bringing the butt of her pistol down on his bald head like a hammer. There was a sharp crack.

Instead of letting the man fall, Eve caught him from behind, holding him up by the armpits. At the same moment, the other guard turned, squeezing the trigger of his MP5. There was a burst of gunfire, and the body of the first guard was peppered with the shots of the second.

Now Eve let the body fall.

As the body of the first guard hit the floor, Eve leveled her pistol and fired.

The MP5 fell out of the second guard’s hand as he fell dead.

Breathing hard and covered in the larger guard’s blood, Eve crept back to the door.

There was the painting of her father, staring at her in the doorway. She was blood-soaked. She was red-handed. Was she guilty? Was her father?

That question remained to be answered. Eve took off at a run. The gunfire was sure to have attracted attention. Hauswater, if he was still in the house, was sure to know that there was trouble by now.

Eve ran through hallway, following the door that lead into the main body of the house. The interior of the mansion was as dark and draconian as it appeared from outside. There were high, vaulted ceilings, dusty chandeliers, stained glass windows and stone parapets.

It was difficult not to lose her orientation as Eve ran through the twisting hallways of the great house. She ran up and down staircases, and it was not always clear what level of the house she was on. Where there three stories? Or four? How many doors? Had Geoff Hauswater escaped while she was fighting with the guards? Had he ever been here at all?

All these thoughts pounded through Eve’s mind as she searched the mystery house as methodically as she was able. Each turn of the hallway seemed to draw her nearer and nearer to the center of the house. The domed roof that she’d seen from outside must have served one central room, she decided, as the roof over her own head did not match the shape of the exterior.

Something instinctual told her that it was this central room where she needed to go. She felt as though she were circling a great drain as she ran through the house, her gun still gripped in her hand. There might be more guards around any corner. There might be the next Swallowtail Killer, waiting to add another body to the list of his bloody career.

There might be nothing at all.

Of all these options, Eve most feared finding the house entirely empty.

He has to be here, she told herself as she ran, searching the house with increasingly frustrated determination. Everything points to this man in this house. He’s got to be here.

She was nearing the center of the great mansion, or at least where she estimated the center would have to be. The halls were as deadly quiet as ever. Eve paused, catching her breath, and listened intently. There was not a sound from the house.

Am I all alone in this place? Eve felt the thought run through her like a cold wind. My backup seems to have disappeared, and now the suspect that is supposed to be here has vanished. What's going on?

Down the hallway, Eve’s eyes fell on a door. It was painted black. Curious, Eve walked down the hallway, shining her light on the door.

The door itself was unmarked. Over it, however, was a black crest. It was the same black butterfly sigil that she had seen on the obelisk gatepost out front.

Eve’s instincts told her that this was the place.

They also told her that danger and death were perhaps nearer than they’d ever been before.

Forcing any fear out of her mind with a deep breath, Eve approached the door and pushed it open. Her tac-light shone down a narrow staircase into a subterranean basement.

Of course, she thought. They always hide underground. Well, here we go.

The stairs had the dank, echoing qualities of a medieval dungeon. The dark stone walls, lit by mounted lamps that now held bulbs, although they looked as though they had been converted from oil burners when electricity became the standard. The rest of the stairwell and landing below seemed not to have noticed the changing centuries.

Eve switched on the light of her tac-beam, which instantly overpowered the wan, weak light of the lamps. The black stone shone under her feet and around her in the walls, glistening as if the surfaces had been waxed and polished.

 Her footsteps echoed down the steps before her like ghosts leading her path down into the waiting gloom. As she reached the bottom of the black stone stairwell, she was met a large, empty chamber. Her eyes were met with dim daylight.

There were pillars around the walls, holding up the high domed ceiling that Eve had seen from outside. There were charts and maps of the constellations painted on the ceiling, as well as cryptic symbols and the figures of astrological significance. Eve recognized the archer, the water-bearer, and hunting dog – but there were constellations painted on the ceiling that she had never seen before as well. A cluster of stars representing the butterfly.

In the center of the ceiling there was a small, round moonroof that allowed daylight to spill in a narrow beam down from the peak of the dome to a raised dais in the middle of the room. There was a ceremonial podium situated atop the dais, and on it rested a large book.

Eve stepped out into the room, which held a distinctly ceremonial air of cryptic grandiosity. The floor of the chamber was on the basement level of the house, but the pillars rose and held the ceiling aloft three stories above the floor. Carved in the walls were symbols, ancient runes of which Eve could make no sense. The lines of engraved symbols rose all the way up to the painted ceiling, a mysterious history written in an unknown, possibly dead language.

“Geoff Hauswater!” Eve called out, her voice echoing in the high pillared dome and reverberating through the room. “Show yourself!”

The room remained still, silent. Eve’s instincts had guided her this chamber, following the trail of evidence relating to her father’s case. The symbol of the Black Swallowtail butterfly had guided her through the chaos so far, and her instincts told her that she was still on the right track.

So where was Hauswater?

“It’s over, Hauswater,” Eve called out, stepping further into the room with her pistol leveled, turning to sweep the full entirety of that huge chamber. Her words rebounded emptily all around her. “The FBI knows about the illegal chemical dumping you’ve been doing on your Solemark property. Your arrogance has made you sloppy, and now your empire is falling.”

Still, there was no response from the chamber. All was still and quiet. The sunlight shone down through pinhole like a spotlight, bathing the pedestal and enormous volume in soft, golden illumination.

Everything in the room and everything in Eve seemed to be drawing her towards that book. The leather binding was old, but looked well-tended. The pages were rich, crème-colored, heavy stock. The words, Eve saw as she mounted the dais and approached, were handwritten.

Her curiosity was too great. Eve stepped up to the pedestal and bent over the book.

Here is what she read upon the open page, bathed in light from the southern sun.

The Ministers of Swallowtail honor the Master of Light and Shadows with the four-hundred-and-sixty-first iteration of the Offering.

The unspoiled vessel is offered to Swallowtail, who consumes her essence into the infinite continuum of his coils.

Eve reached out slowly, turning back the page. She was too entranced, confused, and frightened even to remember to put on a pair of evidence gloves. Her pistol hung by her side, her arm limp and relaxed. She turned the pages back with the fingers of her left hand.

She turned to the very first page of the volume.

The Book of Swallowtail – Volume IV

Eve stared in disbelief. The inked title page looked about a hundred years old itself. This was the fourth edition? The most recently penned page had mentioned the 461st iteration of the Offering.

Was it possible that she was looking at a private record of almost five hundred human sacrifices?

Eve's blood ran cold. Her fingers trembled, but still her desire to know the truth outweighed her fear. What could her father have to do with this vile book, with this evil place?

She began leafing through the pages again, her eyes scanning the handwritten lines. Her gun was still held up, pointed at the door she’d entered by, but her attention was consumed by the strange manuscript. There were names scattered throughout the pages. Some looked familiar, some foreign. Eve knew the name she was looking for, and half praying that she would not be able to find it.

Eve had flipping through the book for about five minutes when she got a sudden tingle on the back of her neck. It was the same prickly sort of feeling she got when she was being watched.

When she looked up, turning around with her heart suddenly thundering in her throat, she saw there was a robed figure standing as still as a statue between pillars against the wall behind her.

Before she had time to react, the man’s voice was ringing out, filling the chamber with a hateful, rasping hiss.

“You should not be here.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Eve’s gun was pointed at the robed man’s chest. How long had he been standing there? How had he appeared in that chamber without her seeing him? The only door, or so she’d thought, was the stairwell by which she’d entered, on the other side of the room. 

Her mind was racing with questions, but her finger was steady on the trigger guard.

The robed man was wearing a hood with a rope belt tied around his waist, giving him a distinctly monastic appearance. The hood was pulled low, and in the dusky half-light of the enormous chamber, his face was hidden in dark shadow.

“Geoff Hauswater?” Eve called out, keeping her gun trained on his chest.

"In this place, that name has no meaning. I am a Brother of the House of Swallowtail. I am Brother Hauswater, the manifestation of the Hauswaters who have kept the old ways and practiced the old rites. I am all that came before me. I am all that comes after. In life and death alike, in this place I remain myself, and I remain alive.”

“You’re not going to be in this place much longer, Hauswater,” Eve said. “You’re under arrest for orchestrating the murders of Roselynn Casey and Chief Coroner Rudolph LaFeux, a civil servant and fellow Marine. You’re coming with me.”

“I remain here always, immortalized by the Master of Light and Shadows, the Lord Swallowtail.”

“Immortal?” Eve scoffed, “You deserve to die for your crimes against the earth, and against the good people of this community, who work in your factories, who buy your poison and who finance your profits.” Eve took a step towards the robed man, who did not move. She still hadn’t seen his face, but he'd identified himself as Hauswater, and that was all she needed. "Lucky for you, we live in a state with a strong arm of justice," she continued, keeping her sights trained perfectly. She couldn't see his hands, as they appeared lost in the massively oversized sleeves of the robe. There was the possibility of a weapon concealed in the folds, and Eve wasn't going to let herself get taken by surprise again.

“And you believe that you can remove me from the central sun chamber of my own home?” Brother Hauswater asked, a grin showing itself under the shadow of his cloak. “You, the lesser daughter of a man who serves as a slave to the same master I worship?”

His laughter, cold, mirthless, vile, filled the chamber.

"I could kill you now," Eve growled. "I could claim that you attacked me, that you resisted arrest. With the extent of your crimes and your history, nobody would shed a tear." She stepped off the dais and brandished the pistol at the robed man.

“If you did that,” the man laughed, “then you’ll never know why your father obeys me.”

“I don’t care,” she snarled. “I don’t obey you.”

The man only continued laughing, although Eve thought she sensed his muscles tensing up under the folds of his robe as she approached.

“Do it, then,” he said, and the smile fell suddenly off his face, “Pull the trigger. It would only be a death sentence for you, and you will see that I live forever in this room, bathing my soul by the light of my master, controlling the shadows according to his will.”

Insane, Eve thought, he’s so deeply indoctrinated with the lore of his own cult that he’s completely incapable of reason. He’s lost.

At the same moment, Eve knew that she couldn’t fire. This man was sick – his whole family perpetuated a tradition of ritual sickness that informed his every waking thought. It was no wonder he was a monster. Monstrosity in this family was a synonym for legacy.

“Geoff,” Eve said, “Remove your hood. You’re coming with me.”

“You still don’t get it, do you, little butterfly?” the robed man said. “You cannot remove me from this place, because I am this place.”

“Geoff, you’ve been sick,” Eve said, “You can come with me peacefully, or you can fight back. Either way, I’m taking you in. This house is surrounded by SWAT teams, and the local sheriff knows where I am and why I’m here. The game is over. It’s time to face the reality of what you’ve done.”

“Surrounded?” the robed man’s grin sent a chill down Eve’s spine. “It’s not I that am surrounded, little butterfly, little servant’s daughter, little shadow of hand and knife. No, no, no. It is I that am surrounding you. I’m afraid there’s no escape.”

“Agent Hope!” a voice rang out from behind her. Eve whirled, her gun still raised. There, standing in the doorway of the stairwell, was Inspector Bale.

Finally, Eve thought as relief flooded her body, and she lowered her weapon. The cavalry has arrived.

“You should have waited for backup, Agent Hope,” Bale said. As he came into the chamber, Eve could see the large .45 caliber in his hand. She squinted. Was that the same Desert Eagle she’d seen in LaFeux’s desk? She couldn’t be sure.

There was something about Inspector Bale’s tone that made Eve uneasy. She peered at the man as he entered from the darkened stairwell. What was he wearing?

The garment he wore was long, and hooded, and black as a starless night.

Inspector Bale was wearing the same robe as Brother Hauswater.

Eve raised her gun again, alarm rising in her veins.

“The SWAT teams aren’t coming, are they?” she asked, her finger itching towards the trigger as she eyed the weapon in Bale’s hand. He smiled.

“Clever little butterfly,” he cooed evilly.

And that was when Brother Hauswater lunged.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Eve felt the slight tremors in the floor, heard the man running towards her from behind.

She turned around, just in time to see the robed man lunging at her, wielding a long, narrow knife.

Her shot rang out in the chamber, but the man hit her anyway. She’d grazed his shoulder, and a spray of blood wetted her face.

The man hit her with the full force of his opposite shoulder. The hand wielding the knife had been thrown back with the grazing shot, so Eve was not pierced by its wicked point when the man lunged. Even so, he hit her hard, and the two of them fell back against the base of the dais.

The gun was knocked out of Eve’s hand, and the robed man had dropped his knife, so the two grappled mano-a-mano on the floor. Eve silently prayed that Bale cared enough for his fellow cult member not to take the shot and kill them both.

Hauswater was surprisingly strong, and Eve struggled to wrestle him into submission. Even in his awkward, unwieldy robe, the man was an expert wrestler. Every time Eve thought she’d managed to pin, he wriggled free and delivered a painful punch to her ribs or kidney.

There was no noise from Bale. He made no move, either to attack Eve or to save his conspirator. Eve could only take glimpses towards the door where the treacherous Inspector was standing.

One moment he was there, watching with grim approval as they struggled at the base of the dais.

The next moment, he was gone.

There was no sound, no scream or struggle. He vanished like a puff of smoke on the breeze.

Where did he go?

Eve’s mind raced as she struggled to fight off Hauswater, who was getting his hands around her throat. She threw him off and managed to stand up. She looked around desperately. Where was Bale?

In that moment of distraction, Hauswater scooped up his knife. She turned around right as Hauswater brought the studded hilt down on her head. There was a skull-splitting crack, and Eve's world exploded in a burst of firecrackers.

She dropped to the floor. For an instant, all she knew was darkness.

Her vision came back, dizzy and swimming. She saw the dark, robed figure of Brother Hauswater standing over her.

“And now, little butterfly, by the blade of your father’s hand, I sacrifice your life to the Master of Light and Shadow!”

“Hey!”

A new voice rang out in the chamber, rich and low and dangerous. It was a new voice, an unexpected voice, but at the same time it was an old, familiar voice, a voice she knew well. A voice she’d loved once. A voice she’d hated and feared too.

“Get the fuck away from my daughter.”

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Eve wasn’t sure that she wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps blow from the butt of the knife had been harder than she realized. She couldn’t believe that what she was seeing in front of her was really happening.

Hauswater was turning slowly, the knife still gripped in his hands. He was staring with angry hatred at her father, who stood with his feet square, his head shaved, and the Inspector's .45 in his hand. Howard Hope's face was the same cold, calculating mask of darkness that it always ways.

“You!” the robed man’s hood had fallen from his head when he and Eve were wrestling. She could see the haughty face of the lunatic in grim profile. "How dare you stand before your master without invitation! Get back to your chamber, you vile, snivelling shadow!"

Eve’s mind was still in a shocked state of suspension. Was that really her father standing there, pointing the heavy firearm at the robed Hauswater.

In a flash, Eve had snapped back into the active present. Whoever was holding the gun, he was distracting Hauswater’s attention. She wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste. With a sudden spring, Eve lunged at Hauswater, seizing his forearm and wrenching his arm brutally. The knife clattered to the floor once again.

Eve’s head was throbbing, still swimming with sickening dizziness, but she had enough fight left in her make sure that the suspect didn’t get away, or get to his knife again. With a grunt, she threw the man down on his back, still gripping him by the wrist. She kicked the knife away with her foot and began to wrestle Hauswater’s hands behind his back, preparing to fit him with steel handcuffs.

“Get away from him, Eve,” Howard Hope said.

Eve looked up, realizing with horror that her father fully intended to kill Hauswater in cold blood now that she’d wrestled him into submission. He was still aiming down the sights of the .45. The cold, killer look in her father’s eyes was just as steely as she’d ever seen it through the glass at Red Onion. Maybe the killing was just too deeply ingrained in her father’s DNA.

She looked down at her own hands. Perhaps it was too ingrained in her own.

“No,” she said, “I’m going to arrest him. And if you try to stop me, I’m going to arrest you too.”

“You don’t understand,” Howard said, “I have to do this. It’s the only way.”

“It’s not,” Eve insisted, “He has to face justice.”

“He won’t get it out there. This is the only justice he deserves,” Howard snarled. His finger was on the trigger.

Eve fitted the cuffs tightly around the man’s wrists, then stood up, placing herself directly between her prisoner and her father.

"Put the gun down. If you pull that trigger, you'll only go back to prison. You need to keep this man alive. His testimony, plus the evidence from this chamber, could cast a new light on your case. You might be able to appeal, plea that you acted under duress. But if you kill him, it's over. If you kill him, you go back in the hole."

Eve took another step towards her father. She was close enough to reach out and touch the gun now. She pushed it down towards the floor. Her father resisted for a moment, but finally allowed his hand to be swayed. He looked into his daughter’s eyes, and for the first time that Eve could remember, a light of warmth came to life in the long-cold irises. A flicker of humanity.

“If you can’t put down that gun for the sake of your own future,” Eve said, reaching out to touch her father’s face, “Do it for me. I want my daddy back.”

The agent and her father, each carrying a gun, and Eve carrying the ceremonial knife and Book of Swallowtail as well, escorted Brother Hauswater out of the chamber. Eve noticed that her father shuddered as they passed through the room.

“This house should be burned,” he said as they emerged onto the ground floor, adding with a hateful look at Hauswater, “This vile temple and all the ones like it. There’s nothing but fear and hatred in these beams. Trust me. I spent too long under it’s spell.”

“I still don’t understand,” Eve said. “Why did the cult use you to kill all those girls? If they wanted to perform sacrifices, why didn’t they do it themselves?”

"Well, if you were to ask our robed friend, I supposed he'd say that the cult both does and does not commit the murders. They lured me into tutelage as a young man before I had a family. They drugged, lied to me, made me perform awful, heinous rituals. When the time came and they were in need of a new executioner for their yearly sacrifice, they threatened to expose me for all the shameful rituals they had forced me into. By that time, I had a wife, and Lily was already born. They threatened to kill you all, to poison your water with untraceable chemicals if I ever turned against them, if I ever dared to disobey their commands. Even after I was arrested, they assured me that you would all be dead within a single day if I ever dared mention the cult or their control over my actions. That way, they control me like their puppets, and their hands remain clean –technically."

“Not as far as the federal government is concerned,” Eve said, giving her prisoner a rough push out his own front. “His hands are dirty enough to get the same punishment you’ve been suffering under for nearly twenty years. As soon as we get to some authorities we can trust, this man will go away forever. He might even get the death penalty.”

Howard Hope had stopped walking. He stood on the porch of the great house. The full history of his time there was a deeply traumatic secret, perhaps one that only he would ever fully know. With her prisoner still in tow, Eve looked back at her father.

“You still coming, Dad?” she asked. It was the first time she’d called her father that in over seventeen years. He looked back with a smile.

"I'll be along in a minute. Mind you, keep a tight grip on that boy," he called. "I just got to say goodbye to some painful memories."

Eve walked away, taking her prisoner down the driveway. She was still only half-convinced that what was happening around her was reality and not a hyper-realistic dream. She reached the gate, found the emergency open switch on the inside of the obelisk gatepost, and brought the fettered Brother Hauswater to the unmarked car.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” he laughed at her as she pushed him into the back seat.

“Same to you,” she said, and shut door in his face. A moment later, she saw her father running down the driveway towards them. The gun was no longer in his hand, but something else was.

It was a painting. The painting of himself, a young man with a shaved head, holding a knife and a butterfly. He jogged up to the car. Eve gave him a cockeyed look.

“You’re still here,” he said. “I was a little afraid you would leave without me.”

“Of course,” Eve replied. “I’ve lost you too many times already.”

“You know, I was thinking – when you turn Hauswater in, you should turn me in too. There should be another trial, with all the facts, names, and players this time.” He looked at the painting in his hands. “I won’t run away again, Eve. I promise you that.”

Eve believed him. She couldn’t explain why, but she did.

“I just have one more question,” Eve said, “Why steal the painting?”

“Vanity, thy name is Hope,” he grinned sheepishly, looking down at the painting again, “For all the pain and suffering that I caused and went through, I always thought I looked good in this photo. Besides, it’ll make a good photograph as Exhibit A.” He looked into his daughter’s face, “After all, I have my image to maintain.”

Howard smiled, and again Eve thought there was a new warmth alive in his eyes that had never been present before. He was free, he’d said, free from fear. The guilt would live with him forever, but the fear was no more.

They climbed into the car, and Eve started the engine. Behind the grill of iron bars in the backseat, Geoff Hauswater was cursing and spitting himself blue in the face. Eve ignored him. For the first time in years, she filled with the sense that everything, at last, was going to be sorted out. Everything was going to be alright.

Eve put the car into gear and drove on into a future without the Swallowtail Killer.

EPILOGUE

“In national news, notorious serial killer Howard Hope, also known as the Swallowtail Killer, has once again been apprehended by federal law enforcement agents. Hope was booked in a Missouri FBI holding center, where he has once again confessed to murders of eleven young women, along with the escape from Red Onion Supermax Prison, which Howard Hope claims to have orchestrated alone based a regular systemic failure of the Red Onion Cyber security system. New information has come to late regarding the highly sensationalized case of the serial killer, suggesting that he, as well as many others before and since, have been the tools and puppets of a death cult.”

Eve was sitting in the hospital room, where a mechanical octopus of tubes and sensors beeped and chimed, all hooked up to her unconscious partner. There was a small television mounted to the wall at the foot of Hobbes’s hospital bed, and Eve was watching the local news with the volume turned down low. The news anchor wore a serious expression on his clean scrubbed and shaved face as he read off the teleprompter off camera.

"Details of this bizarre addition to the famous case are yet to be released to the media, although the FBI have assured our sources that the trial will be held publicly, and all new evidence will be made known when the investigation is completely through. In relation to this death cult, the high-powered senior executives of the Solemark Chemical Solutions company, including multi-millionaires Geoff Hauswater and Hewlett Coburn, have been arrested and are awaiting trial for a number of perjury charges and environmental crimes, but most seriously have been charged with orchestrating the murders of two local citizens: Roselynn Casey and Rudolph LaFeux. The defense team of Brownstone and West, who are defending Hauswater, have declined to comment at this time."

The monitors beside Eve’s partner’s bedside began to make a new sound, a faster pace. Eve looked over, alarmed at first, just in time to see Hobbes blinking slowly. Eve muted the news and stood up.

“What…what happened?” Hobbes asked. His eyes were somewhat crossed, and his speech sounded a little slurred. “Where am I?”

“We’re still in Missouri,” Eve said, “We were betrayed by Inspector Bale. He was a member of the death cult.”

“He was?” Hobbes eyes shot open wide. Eve nodded.

“It was probably him that rigged the car, thinking he would take us both out at once. He was the one that killed the coroner, LaFeux. He was probably the one Hauswater put in charge of the blackmail, too. Who better than an internal affairs inspector to be above suspicion? Who would look into him?”

Hobbes shook his head.

“Where is he now?”

"Dead," Eve replied evenly. Hobbes nodded, his eyes drifting back towards shut. He didn't ask any questions, and she was grateful for that. Things were still confused and chaotic in her own brain. Her understanding of her father and his crimes had been turned inside out and on its head. She hardly knew what to believe anymore.

“What about Hauswater?” Hobbes asked thickly, still sleepy and sedated.

“We got him,” Eve said, giving her partner a smile, “with a little help from somebody who knew the place from the inside.”

In her pocket, Eve’s phone started ringing loudly. Hobbes flinched, still sensitive to light and sound in extreme volume.

“Sorry,” she said, glancing at her phone, “It’s my sister. I’ve got to take this. Don’t go anywhere.”

Hobbes rolled his eyes before shutting them and turning his face, drifting back into deep and healing sleep. Eve stepped out into the hallway and accepted the call.

“Hi, Lily,” Eve said, “How are you?”

“How are you?” Lily parroted the question, “If you were going to team up with Dad, you could have at least told me about it. I’m your sister after all. I have to learn about it on the news like everybody else? What the hell?”

“Oh, just like how you told me about your plan to let Dad out of prison before you acted on it, right?”

“Hmm,” Lily giggled, “Alright, you got me there. Us Hopes do tend to wax mysterious, don’t we? Alright, so when were you going to clue me in?”

“When I made sense of it myself,” Eve said, and added, “Which I’m yet to do. Everything’s all muddled in my head, Lily. I don’t know what to think or who to believe. But Dad asked me to take him back to jail himself so that he could stand a real, fair trial, and I think that’s a good start.”

“And I notice you’re calling him ‘Dad’ again,” Lily observed, “So you must believe he’s innocent too.”

“I don’t what I believe,” Eve said truthfully, “But I’m glad that the truth will be exposed to the light now.”

“So, what are you going to do?” Lily asked, her tone flippant and casual in the familiar way that Eve knew so well, “Now that you’ve saved the world from hundreds of years of more Swallowtail killings, I mean. Will you take a rest at last?”

Eve looked out the window in the hospital hallway. The little town of Jones Valley, quaint, quiet, humming with domestic life, was visible from her fourth-floor perch. Beyond it, the peaks of the trees rose up from the dense, swampy woods. The wide world was only hazy smoke and distant sky beyond that.

“There’s no end of evil in the world, Lily,” Eve Hope said, “and I’ll fight it until my last dying breath. After all, I’m a Hope.”

NOW AVAILABLE!

DEAD INSIDE

 (A Kelsey Hawk FBI Suspense Thriller—Book One)

In the desolate, unforgiving landscape of small town North Dakota, bodies are found encased in ice. Tough and brilliant FBI special agent 30-year-old Kelsey Hawk, angering her superiors, is relocated to the North Dakota field office, near her hometown which she’d vowed to never return to. In a deadly game of cat and mouse, the stakes couldn’t be higher, as an FBI agent and a killer collide…

 “This is an excellent book… When you start reading, be sure you don’t have to wake up early!”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

DEAD INSIDE is book #1 in a new series by #1 bestselling mystery and suspense author Kate Bold, whose bestseller NOT ME (a free download) has received over 1,500 five star ratings and reviews.

When she was just a child, Kelsey’s entire family was murdered, leaving her, the sole survivor, to grow up in the foster system. A rising star in the FBI, Kelsey set her ambitions on being assigned to a field office in the big city, away from the ghosts of her past. But when she’s reassigned to a small town in North Dakota, she can’t help but remember all the tragedy she fought so hard to leave behind.

Can she stop this killer in time?

A page-turning and harrowing crime thriller featuring a brilliant and tortured FBI agent, the KELSEY HAWK series is a riveting mystery, packed with non-stop action, suspense, twists and turns, revelations, and driven by a breakneck pace that will keep you flipping pages late into the night. Fans of Rachel Caine, Teresa Driscoll, and Robert Dugoni are sure to fall in love.

Future books in the series are now available.

“This book moved very fast and every page was exciting. Plenty of dialogue, you absolutely love the characters, and you were rooting for the good guy throughout the whole story… I look forward to reading the next in the series.”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“Kate did an amazing job on this book and I was hooked from the first chapter!”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“I really enjoyed this book. The characters were authentic, and I see the bad guys as something we hear about daily on the news... Looking forward to book 2.”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“This was a really good book. The main characters were real, flawed and human. The story went along quickly and wasn't mired in too many unnecessary details. I really enjoyed it.”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“Alexa Chase is headstrong, impatient, but most of all brave with a capital B. She never, repeat never, backs down until the bad guys are put where they belong. Clearly five stars!”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“Captivating and riveting serial murder with a twist of the macabre… Very well done.”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“WOW what a great read! Talk about a diabolical killer! Really enjoyed this book. Looking forward to reading others by this author as well.”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“Page turner for sure. Great characters and relationships. I got into the middle of this story and couldn’t put it down. Looking forward to more from Kate Bold.”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“Hard to put down. It has an excellent plot and has the right amount of suspense. I really enjoyed this book.”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

“Extremely well written, and well worth buying and reading. I can't wait to read book two!”

—Reader review for The Killing Game

DEAD INSIDE

 (A Kelsey Hawk FBI Suspense Thriller—Book One)

Kate Bold

Bestselling author Kate Bold is author of the ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising six books (and counting); the CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising eight books (and counting); the HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising eleven books (and counting); the KAYLIE BROOKS PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); the EVE HOPE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising seven books (and counting); the DYLAN FIRST FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting);  the LAUREN LAMB FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising five books (and counting); the KELSEY HAWK MYSTERY series, comprising five books (and counting); and the NORA PRICE MYSTERY series, comprising five books (and counting).

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Kate loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.kateboldauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

BOOKS BY KATE BOLD

NORA PRICE MYSTERY

CAN’T RUN (Book #1)

CAN’T HIDE (Book #2)

CAN’T ESCAPE (Book #3)

CAN’T SLEEP (Book #4)

CAN’T FORGET (Book #5)

KELSEY HAWK MYSTERY

DEAD INSIDE (Book #1)

DEAD RECKONING (Book #2)

DEAD TO ME (Book #3)

DEAD SILENCE (Book #4)

DEAD TO DAWN (Book #5)

ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER

THE KILLING GAME (Book #1)

THE KILLING TIDE (Book #2)

THE KILLING HOUR (Book #3)

THE KILLING POINT (Book #4)

THE KILLING FOG (Book #5)

THE KILLING PLACE (Book #6)

ASHLEY HOPE SUSPENSE THRILLER

LET ME GO (Book #1)

LET ME OUT (Book #2)

LET ME LIVE (Book #3)

LET ME BREATHE (Book #4)

LET ME FORGET (Book #5)

LET ME ESCAPE (Book #6)

CAMILLE GRACE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOT ME (Book #1)

NOT NOW (Book #2)

NOT WELL (Book #3)

NOT HER (Book #4)

NOT NORMAL (Book #5)

NOT AGAIN (Book #6)

NOT SAFE (Book #7)

NOT TODAY (Book #8)

HARLEY COLE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOWHERE SAFE (Book #1)

NOWHERE LEFT (Book #2)

NOWHERE TO RUN (Book #3)

NOWHERE LIKE THIS (Book #4)

NOWHERE GIRL (Book #5)

NOWHERE TO HIDE (Book #6)

NOWHERE CERTAIN (Book #7)

NOWHERE PURE (Book #8)

NOWHERE SOUND (Book #9)

NOWHERE SANE (Book #10)

NOWHERE TRUE (Book #11)

KAYLIE BROOKS PYSCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE THRILLER

LAST BREATH (Book #1)

LAST CHANCE (Book #2)

LAST WISH (Book #3)

LAST SHOT (Book #4)

LAST MISTAKE (Book #5)

EVE HOPE FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

IN HIS BLOOD (Book #1)

IN HIS SIGHTS (Book #2)

IN HIS REACH (Book #3)

IN HIS MIND (Book #4)

IN HIS WAY (Book #5)

IN HIS THOUGHTS (Book #6)

IN HIS DREAMS (Book #7)

DYLAN FIRST FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

OUT OF REACH (Book #1)

OUT OF TOUCH (Book #2)

OUT OF TIME (Book #3)

OUT OF BOUNDS (Book #4)

OUT OF LUCK (Book #5)

LAUREN LAMB FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

SOMETHING KNOCKING (Book #1)

SOMETHING CALLING (Book #2)

SOMETHING WRONG (Book 3)

SOMETHING DARK (Book #4)

SOMETHING TO HIDE (Book #5)