A little rattled by the intensity of that look, she glanced away without acknowledging him.

“So what can I do for you?” she asked the agents, stepping past them to set the notebooks and inkblot squares down on her desk. When she turned back around, it was to find Garland nowhere in sight and both agents studying her. She knew what they saw: a slender thirty-two-year-old woman, dressed for the highly charged, all-male environment in which she worked. Her “uniform” was made up of black sneakers, black slacks, and a pale blue shirt, an outfit she had deliberately chosen to play down her femininity. Her white lab coat was buttoned up the front, and was loose enough to conceal the finer points of her shape. Her shoulder-length chestnut brown hair was twisted up in back and held in place with a large silver barrette. Small, silver hoop earrings and a man’s black watch were her only accessories. Her features were even, her mouth wide, her complexion fair, her eyes the deep blue of denim. The men she occasionally dated told her she was beautiful. Usually when they were trying to get in her pants, so she tended to disregard it.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Pugh, we need to speak to Dr. Stone alone.” Bartoli’s tone was polite but adamant. Pugh looked a little put out, but he nodded.

“Certainly. I understand. Um, if you’ll have Dr. Stone call down to my office when you’re ready to leave, someone will come to escort you out.”

“Will do. Thank you.” Nodding affably, Bartoli escorted Pugh to the door and closed it behind him. Left alone with the agents, Charlie leaned back against her desk and waited. Something told her that whatever she was getting ready to hear, she wasn’t going to like.

“Maybe she ought to sit down for this.” Crane shot Bartoli a nervous look as Bartoli rejoined them.

“She’s right here in front of us. She can hear you.” Bartoli’s response was dry.

“What is it?” Anxiety quickened Charlie’s pulse as she looked from one man to the other. “And no, I don’t want to sit down.”

“We’re from the Special Circumstances division, out of FBI headquarters in Quantico, and we’re here because we need your help,” Bartoli told her. “We’ve got a serial killer on our hands, and we’ve come to ask you to assist with the investigation.”

Charlie felt her stomach tighten. Although her life was dedicated to figuring out everything there was to know about serial killers, who they were, what triggered them, if the urge to commit multiple murders was biological or psychological, if there was a marker or common characteristic that could possibly be used to identify them before they killed, etc., her work was purely academic. Objectifying the source of fear (i.e., serial killers) and learning all there was to know about it while keeping it at a safe psychological and physical distance was a classic post-traumatic stress disorder defense mechanism, she knew, but that was how she dealt with her past. The uncomfortable truth was that being confronted with the reality of a serial killer loose in a community of innocent people still made her feel as helpless and terrified as she had as that seventeen-year-old who had failed Holly Palmer.

“I’m happy to help in any way I can.” She crossed her arms over her chest. The creeping coldness that was stealing over her was a result of the out-of-control air-conditioning, of course, and nothing else. “If you want me to put together a profile of the perpetrator, I’ll need some basic information. The number of known victims, their age and gender, along with any other characteristics they have in common, how they were killed, where the bodies were discovered—”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Bartoli interrupted, holding up his hand to stop her in mid-spiel, and Crane nodded agreement. “Last night a seventeen-year-old girl was snatched from her home in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Her family—mother, stepfather, a younger brother—was murdered. This is the third family to be hit like this in less than two months. In both previous cases, the missing girls were found dead approximately one week after their families’ bodies were discovered. Evidence suggests that they were kept alive during the period of time between their abduction and when we found their bodies. This girl—her name is Bayley Evans—I figure we have five to six days left to maybe recover her alive.”

Listening, Charlie felt her palms grow damp. Her stomach began to churn. Her ears started to ring. Impossible as it seemed, the scenario he described sounded just like …

“Is this some sort of joke?” she demanded.

CHAPTER THREE

Charlie’s voice sounded hoarse to her own ears. She would have straightened away from the desk if she hadn’t suddenly needed it for support.

“I wish it were,” Bartoli said, while Crane shook his head. Bartoli continued, “We want you to come with us to Kill Devil Hills, look at the crime scene, see what you can come up with. Give us whatever insights you can.”

“No.” Charlie’s chest felt tight. The floor seemed to heave beneath her feet. Crane had been right, she should have been sitting down for this. But how could she have imagined …?

Bartoli’s expression softened fractionally.

“Look, we know what happened to you,” he said. Moving closer, he rested a hip against the desk beside her and folded his arms over his chest in rough approximation of her posture. Mirroring: that’s what he was doing. It was an easy way to establish rapport with a subject, but unfortunately for him she was well aware of the technique. Deliberately she allowed her arms to drop. But her subconscious took over again as her fingers curled around the edge of the desk and held on. “We know what you went through the last time this creep crawled out of the woodwork. We know this is tough.”

“It’s the same MO,” Crane told her. “We think it might be the same guy. We think the Boardwalk Killer is back.”

A wave of dizziness hit Charlie, and she had to swallow hard before she could speak.

“No,” she said again. She realized she was breathing way too fast. God, was she going to hyperventilate? Please, not here. Not in front of them. The Boardwalk Killer was the name the media had bestowed on the slayer of Holly and her family. Because Holly’s body, like those of the other five girls he had snatched after slaughtering their families, had turned up under the boardwalks that are ubiquitous in Atlantic Coast beach towns. “It can’t be him. It’s been fifteen years. Serial killers almost never start up again after that long a period.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Bartoli shrugged. “Maybe he was out of the country. Maybe he was in jail. Maybe he had some kind of illness that kept him housebound. It might even be a copycat. The thing is, though, we don’t have time to waste trying umpteen different ways to come at this. We think it’s the same guy. You saw him. You lived through one of his attacks. You’re the only one who saw him and lived through one of his attacks. That makes you the best person available to help us. If you need to go home to pack a bag, we’ll take you. If you need to contact people, let them know you’re leaving with us, that’s fine. Whatever arrangements you need to make, whatever makes this work for you, we’ll help. But we need to get going as soon as possible. Preferably within the hour.”

“I can’t do it.” Charlie shook her head, knowing even as she said it that refusing was the only choice she could make. Time and much effort on her part had papered over the gaping wound in her psyche left by that night, but it was still there, still raw and weeping and capable of causing her a horrific amount of damage if she allowed it to be ripped open again. “I’m sorry, but no. I’ll do what I can from here, but I can’t go with you. I can’t get involved in this in a personal way.”

“We need you.” Letting his arms drop so that a palm rested flat on her desktop (mirroring again? Charlie wondered as she became aware of her own posture; if so, it was more subtle this time), Bartoli leaned in, held her gaze. The intensity in his eyes made Charlie want to close her own. Anxiety tightened her stomach, dried her mouth. “Aside from your personal history, you’re the foremost expert on serial killers in this part of the country. Your assistance with this case was requested by the Bureau, and has been cleared through official channels all the way up to the top dog in the Justice Department. Bottom line is, you’ve been assigned to us for as long as we need you. And you’re the best hope Bayley Evans has.”