Eyes on the icon, he said slowly, distractedly, “Sorry? Er, no. I don’t know. Can I call you back, Charlotte?”

“Elliot, I want to make it perfectly clear that as far as the university is concerned, the matter is closed. We want to put this tragedy behind us. For the sake of the students. For all of our sakes.”

Elliot pressed the text icon. The words flashed up.

Your move.

So much for the sorry-wrong-number theory.

“I understand, Charlotte. It was a mistake contacting Tacoma PD.”

“It was, yes.” Charlotte sounded troubled and a bit exasperated. “I can’t understand why you did it. You don’t honestly believe there’s a serial killer on campus?”

A serial killer. The very words he had avoided thinking, let alone speaking.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got a call coming in that I’ve got to take.”

“Really?” And now Charlotte, in her polite New England way, was truly pissed. And no wonder. He had just informed the president of the university that he was expecting a more important call. It was beginning to look like tenure would not be in Elliot’s immediate future.

“It’s…I apologize. I really do have to take this.” He clattered the handset back into the cradle and stared at the screen of his cell phone.

Not a coincidence. Not a mistake. There was a connection between Gordie Lyle and Terry Baker all right. He’d stake his life that he or she was sitting on the other end of this call.

Elliot texted back. Do I know you?

It took a few seconds, but the answer appeared. Do you?

What do you want? typed Elliot.

Another small delay, and then, You like games. So do I.

“Oh, you think so, do you?” Elliot muttered. He texted back, Let the games begin.

Chapter Sixteen

“No, you didn’t,” Tucker said. “No. You did not. Because one thing you’re not is stupid, and you would have to be stupid to bait a psycho.”

“All right,” Elliot returned irritably—mostly because he knew Tucker was right. “I admit to a moment of macho posturing bullshit, okay? Let it go. Anyway, ignoring the calls isn’t going to stop them. In fact, the caller may escalate if he or she thinks she can’t get a response.”

Tucker was driving while talking on his cell phone. Elliot could hear the background music of crackling white noise. It didn’t muffle Tucker’s anger; that came through loud and clear.

“Escalate how? According to you, he or she has already committed two murders. Besides which, I already told you I would handle this. I’ve contacted Anontxt.net and, believe me, we’re going to get this freak’s ID within a couple of days.”

“Who asked you to? I could have handled that myself. I’m not helpless, whatever you think.”

“You’re welcome!” Tucker snapped back. “And for your information, I don’t think you’re helpless. I think as an employee of the federal government I can get results a lot faster than you can.”

Maybe so, but it was still galling that Tucker believed a blown knee meant Elliot could no longer take care of himself.

“Anyway, the damage is done—” Elliot became aware that two men in raincoats were standing in his office doorway listening to his conversation.

Cops. Plainclothes detectives.

“I’ll say it sure as shit is,” Tucker retorted. “You’ve apparently got a death wish.”

Elliot clicked off, ignoring the brief flash of satisfaction in having the last word, even if it was merely dial tone. “Can I help you?”

“Professor Mills?” The senior partner was middle-aged: fair, square and red faced. Too many fast food meals and not enough exercise. “I’m Detective Anderson. This is Detective Pine. We’re with Tacoma Homicide. We’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Come in.” Elliot didn’t need to tell them to shut the door behind them. They took the chairs in front of his desk. Detective Anderson smiled. It was a polite, noncommittal smile. His partner—young, short, dark and Anderson’s opposite in every way—gazed disparagingly about Elliot’s office. It didn’t bother Elliot. He had worked with a lot of cops in his time. It took all kinds to keep the world safe.

“Are you one of these Civil War reenactment dudes?” Pine asked, picking up the cannon paperweight on Elliot’s desk. He glanced meaningfully at the map of Civil War battles on the wall.

Elliot considered telling Pine no, certainly not. He preferred to play with toy soldiers.

“You placed a call to the Persons Crime Section this morning,” Anderson was saying with a cautioning look at his subordinate.

“That’s right.” Elliot leaned forward, picking up a pen. “I know it’s not a popular theory, but I think there could be a link between the recent death of a PSU student and another student’s disappearance.”

“You’re referring to the suicide of Terence Baker, the son of Attorney Thomas Baker?”

“Correct.”

“And the other student is one Francis Gordon Lyle?”

“Also correct.”

“I see. What’s your interest in this investigation, Professor Mills?”

“I became involved when the Bakers asked me to look into Terry’s disappearance.”

Pine put the paperweight back on Elliot’s desk with a bang. “You used to be feeb?” Elliot nodded. Pine questioned, “What happened?”

Elliot gave a bare bones accounting of exactly what had happened. Pine’s body language and expression communicated clearly that if Elliot had been half the cop Pine was, it wouldn’t have happened.

Anderson, however, looked unwillingly sympathetic. “I remember reading about that courthouse shooting and then the pursuit through the Square. You got the bastard. That’s something.”

“Yeah, I got him. Not before he got me, though.” For an instant, Elliot was back there lying on the ice cold bricks in the stinging rain, staring dizzily up at the silently roaring copper dragon atop the thirty-three-foot column of the Weather Machine.

Forecast: gloomy.

He shook off his preoccupation. “So why are you here?” A bleak thought occurred to him. “Did you find the Lyle kid?”

“No. Are we going to?” Pine asked.

Anderson threw his partner another of those much-tried looks. “No. We’re here, Professor Mills, because it looks like you might be right.”

“About?”

“About the fact that these boys are being abducted.”

They were watching him very closely, watching his every reaction. And good luck with that because, like them, Elliot had been trained to hide his emotions. Occasionally even from himself.

He said slowly, “There’s been another abduction?”

“Didn’t your anonymous friend text you?” Pine asked.

Elliot absorbed that. The good news was that the Persons Crime Section desk had taken down all his information that morning, including the part about receiving anonymous text messages from someone who might or might not be the Unsub—or “perp” as the cops called unknown bad guys.

The bad news was that Elliot was apparently also in the running for homicidal maniac of the year.

He stared at their set, suspicious faces. In their position, he’d have been suspicious too. It wasn’t fair, but retired and ex-cops made as good cranks and crazies as the next citizen.

“Who?” he asked without emotion. “Who did he snatch?” He had a bad feeling and unconsciously held his breath, waiting for their answer.

“Your teaching assistant. A kid by the name of Kyle Kanza.”

Maybe he wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he’d once been because Anderson unbent enough to say, “It’s not that bad. The kid managed to get away. He’s banged up, but he’s okay. He’s at St. Anne’s Hospital.”

*  *  *

Minus the multiple piercings and elaborate hair, Kyle looked very young and very fragile in his hospital bed. His right arm was in a cast. He had a black eye and the left side of his face looked like someone had run a cheese grater over it, but he smiled a wan greeting to Elliot.