He had thought it would be different when he started going to PSI. Theoretically, Performance Scholastic Institute was the biggest geek school in town. It was the place for brainiacs and kids in the arts—kids who always got picked on and beat up at public school. But it was no different. Every clique hated another clique. There were still cool kids who picked on the kids who didn’t fit in.

In fact, in some ways it was worse at PSI because the smarter the kids, the meaner they could be. At least in public school the meanest kids tended to be stupid. The cruelty was less sophisticated.

Kyle had been excited to win his scholarship. He had been excited to be challenged academically and encouraged in his art. But now he wished he could just take his GED and be done with school. He didn’t believe he needed an education to succeed as an artist. Talent was all that mattered. And he sure as hell didn’t need the rest of the high school bullshit.

He wanted to work on his drawing without anyone pushing their opinions on him. He wanted not to be forced into a mold that didn’t fit him. He wanted to be with the people he wanted to know, and not have others judge him or his friends. He dreamed about having his own place to live where he never had to explain himself to anybody, where he could be who he was and live how he wanted.

But he couldn’t tell his parents any of that . . . or anything else about his life.

He dug his cell phone out from under his pillow, went to his contacts, and touched a name.

The phone on the other end rang and rang and went to voice mail. Again. Kyle ended the call without leaving a message and went to his text messages instead. The message he had first sent late two nights before, then again and again and again, remained unanswered.

Where r u? R u ok?

He sent it again, just in case.

No answer returned.

The voices downstairs were droning on. Kyle got up and stuck his head out in the hall. R.J.’s door was closed, his television mumbling on the other side. With the coast clear, he went down the hall to the bathroom, locked himself inside, and turned on the shower as hot as he could stand it.

The water stung the abrasions on his face and his knuckles but soothed some of the aches in his body. He examined himself as he dried off. The bruises were starting to come to the surface. At least that was all he had—bruises. No broken bones. No open wounds to try to explain away. The worst of the damage was invisible. The damage done to his heart, to his spirit. The thousand cuts of cruel words.

Why did people have to be so full of hate and ignorance? Why couldn’t they just let everyone be who they were?

He glanced over his shoulder at his reflection in the mirror and the two small symbols tattooed on his shoulder. This was what he believed so strongly that he had saved up his own money and had the ideal etched into his flesh with ink: acceptance.

11

“Which one of you is the ‘source close to the investigation’?”

Captain Ullrich Kasselmann sat behind his desk looking like a banker: well-tailored charcoal suit, crisp white shirt, stylish orange tie knotted just so, every silver hair in place. Only the faintest sheen of perspiration on his forehead suggested he even noticed that the office was as hot as Florida in August.

Kasselmann was a man with a solid build and an immovable, brick-wall quality about him that was a physical manifestation of his character. He’d been the head of the Criminal Investigative Division long enough to have substantiated his initial paranoia regarding his employees.

“Don’t look at me,” Tinks said irritably. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Kovac gave her a sideways glance. She looked like maybe she had tried to catch an hour’s sleep on a bench at a bus stop—hair more disheveled than usual, dark smudges under bloodshot eyes, pasty complexion.

“The lead story on the early morning news, channels five and eleven,” Kasselmann said. “‘Zombie Possible Victim of Serial Killer.’ You don’t know anything about that?”

He turned his laser gaze on Kovac.

“Yeah, right,” Kovac said sarcastically. “I have such a close personal relationship with the media.”

Kasselmann was poker-faced. “Then who?”

“How should I know?” Kovac asked. “Call Culbertson,” he said, readily throwing the ME’s investigator under the bus. Culbertson didn’t answer to Kasselmann. Nothing would come of it. And frankly, Steve Culbertson loved to play the role of subversive. This could work out for everyone.

“Is it true?” the captain asked.

“Could be. Yes. Definitely could be,” Kovac said, resisting the urge to glance again at his partner. Liska had argued against the possibility of Zombie Doe being one of Doc Holiday’s victims. She said nothing now.

“New Year’s Eve, stabbed repeatedly, sexual overtones, facial disfigurement,” he said. “More pieces fit than don’t.”

“She came out of the trunk of a car,” Kasselmann said. “In traffic.”

“Looks like the car hit a pothole, the trunk popped open, and the body bounced out,” Kovac said. “Then again, Möller says there’s a slim chance she might have still been alive at the time. Maybe she escaped. It certainly wasn’t anybody’s plan for her to get out of that trunk when she did.”

“We don’t have a plate on the car?”

“The limo driver was distracted. He’s coming in today to get hypnotized.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’ll come up with something.”

“But you’re not hopeful.”

“He had two hot half-naked babes making out with each other in his backseat. What do you think he was looking at?”

Kasselmann heaved a sigh, disapproval set in the chiseled lines of his face. “I’ve had phone calls from three deputy chiefs already this morning. And I’ve been called to the chief’s office for an urgent meeting in twenty minutes. He’s not going to be in a good mood.”

“Yeah?” Liska piped up aggressively. “Well, imagine what a good mood he’d be in if this was his daughter lying on a slab in the morgue with her face burned off from the acid her killer tried to force down her throat. He should think about that, shouldn’t he?”

Kasselmann’s silver brows climbed his forehead.

“This is somebody’s daughter,” she went on emphatically. “Just like Rose Reiser was someone’s daughter, and the victim from Iowa—who was not only someone’s daughter but someone’s mother. The chief should maybe think about those things, shouldn’t he?”

“You seem to have an ax to grind, Sergeant,” Kasselmann said.

“I’m a mother. I’m a woman. Do I need something more than a vagina to be outraged that we’re letting a serial killer run around loose destroying the lives of young women because the mayor doesn’t want his constituents to think we live in a dangerous place?”

The captain looked pointedly at Kovac.

Kovac spread his hands. “What? You think I have some control over her? She’s gonna go fifty shades of whoop-ass all over the both of us.”

“Rein it in,” Kasselmann warned, turning his attention to the offender.

Tinks looked like she might just hurl herself across his desk and bite an ear off him. Kovac stepped a little in front of her, cutting off her direct route.

“I’m not saying we don’t want this case solved—or the other two, for that matter,” Kasselmann said. “But there are considerations to be made in how we go about doing it and how it gets presented to the public. There are protocols to be considered. There are proper channels to go through. The two of you have been at this long enough to know better than to end-around the brass on a high-profile case.”