“And if he’s become indifferent to their plight, then we’re going to see an escalation in violence. ‘Leda and the Swan’ is classically recognized as a rape poem, a violent poem. Marni has drawn the mention of blood, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t have some sort of All the Pretty Girls

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brutality done to her that’s more severe than was done to any of the other girls. But I’m just guessing, Jerry.”

Grimes had his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head bowed. “I wouldn’t have known all that. Wasn’t much good with that stuff in school.”

Baldwin drew in a breath. “I think we’d better go regroup. Give you some time to get yourself back together. And give me some time to think about this.”

Fifteen

He looked at his watch. It was time. He’d been sitting in silence in the rest stop, waiting for the right moment. The highways had quieted, the light of dawn still two hours away. He’d been driving all night, and had reached his destination right on time. Just enough time to sit back and reflect for a few moments. It was perfect. It was all perfect.

He looked over his shoulder into the back seat of the car. Luminous brown eyes glared back at him. She wasn’t cowed, not this one. She was a fighter. Well, we’ll see how she feels when she’s under me, when she feels the breath leave her. He felt himself harden and licked his lips.

Half an hour later, the defiant eyes no longer burning a hole through his brain, he put the car into drive and slid, silent as a shark, toward the on-ramp. Sixteen

Taylor walked across the steaming parking lot at the Criminal Justice Center in Nashville, mentally planning her day. She shielded her eyes against the sun, gazing at the office building she called home. The CJC was a squat, nondescript building that housed the main units of the Criminal Investigations Division, as well as the administrative headquarters for the Metro Nashville Police Department. In the reorganization, a number of offices moved out of the headquarters building and into various sector offices. The chief had killed the five sector divisions and cut them into three: South, West and North. Detectives that were originally slated to work in departments like Homicide and Robbery were now housed in the sector offices as general detectives. Taylor’s team of homicide detectives had gotten to stay in the old headquarters and worked on homicides that had an element of ambiguity to them. If there wasn’t a suspect, there was no evidence or the job just looked too tough, Taylor’s team got the case. It meant a lot less 118

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busywork for them. The rest of the detectives scattered across the mid-state region pulled up the slack, covering basic plainclothes duties.

The Strangler case was spinning out of control, the media was screaming for answers. Cable news had seized upon the story and was creating a panic, updating every half hour, pointing out the failures on the part of law enforcement in all five states. Jessica Porter was lying in the morgue in Nashville, and Shauna Davidson’s parents were begging for their daughter’s body to be returned to them for burial. That part of the case was out of her hands. The FBI was working with, cooperating fully with, local law enforcement agencies, but in essence, they had taken the case from them. She let Price deal with the politics of the situation, duking out the jurisdictional issues. And no one could deny that the Feebs had access to better labs and more timely results; at least the forensics would be handled quickly and thoroughly.

She made her way up the back steps, stepping around the industrial ashtray that crowded the landing. She felt a brief pang of addiction and desire but soldiered on, slipping her access card through the slot. The door opened with a hiss and she entered the bland linoleum hallway. Following the green-striped arrow, she made her way to the Homicide office.

It was quiet this morning. Granted, most of the weekly departmental meetings were going on, so none of the brass was around. She wondered briefly if anyone had found out about Betsy, but dismissed it. That wasn’t her job right now. Her job was to look over the Rainman case. All the Pretty Girls

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As she passed the Homicide office, she felt a moment of bitterness toward Baldwin. Her most interesting murder in weeks had been slipped right out from under her, another tasty case whisked away into FBI jurisdiction. She understood, but she couldn’t stop the sense of disappointment. Not that a serial rapist was anything to sneeze at. On the contrary, the Rainman had proved so elusive over the past few years that she welcomed the chance to look at the files, see if she could find anything that the other detectives had missed.

But she wished, for a brief moment, that she was out on the road, tracking the Southern Strangler. She walked through the overcrowded Homicide office. Even though a number of detectives from each of the three shifts had been moved to other offices, discarded junk remained. There were still sixteen tiny workstations packed into the room, but carpenters had begun reassembling the cubicles to make the spaces larger and more open. They’d end up with ten or so workstations: a little more private and a lot less cramped. She couldn’t wait for things to be done. With the reorganization, Taylor had moved up in the world. She’d taken over Captain Price’s office when he’d moved to the second floor to be with the rest of the administrative corps. The desk, the chairs and, more important, the door, were now hers. She’d offered to share with Fitz, allowing him some privacy when she wasn’t around, but he’d turned her down. He liked being out with the troops. Though she was a scant few feet away, she understood. The separation was palpable, and was taking some time to get used to. She still started when anyone knocked on the door frame. She rarely shut the 120

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door, it seemed only fair that she have the same lack of privacy that her detectives had.

The normally bustling office was peacefully silent. She knew two of her detectives, Marcus Wade and Lincoln Ross, were in court this morning. She’d sent Fitz home to get some sleep. The rest of the night shifts had gone home. She had the place to herself. She was used to solitary time, almost always welcomed it. With Baldwin around, that was changing. He spent a lot of time working from her home. His technical transfer to Nashville’s field office as the midstate profiler meant he could curtail his travel, make his own hours, participate in cases that interested him. If a major case popped, like the Strangler, he was pulled in to work it. He was still the FBI’s leading behavioralist, albeit one in semiretirement.

They weren’t officially living together, but he’d taken over her home office, and she was secretly pleased with the messy decor. She felt like she belonged to someone for the first time, and if that meant he messed up her office, so be it. He also messed up the kitchen, but she’d forgive him just about anything if he cooked dinner. So many nights she came home tired and unwilling to put out that extra effort.

Since the “incident,” as she liked to call it—it was nicer than blurting out “when I got my throat cut”—she found herself more tired than usual. The doctors said that was normal. The gash in her throat had severed an artery; her blood loss had been exponential. “You nearly died,” they said. “Give yourself a break,” they said.

“The body doesn’t bounce back that easily.” It had taken three months before her voice had returned to normal. All the Pretty Girls

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Always a bit throaty, she was now downright husky, which Baldwin loved. He teased that she would make a great late-night radio announcer, or a phone-sex operator. She ignored his jibes, and worked hard on her rehab. There was a time when they thought she’d never be able to speak again, but she’d astounded them with a croak three days after her last surgery. Through hard work and dedication, she’d gotten herself back in shape and was stronger every day.